Help!!!
I am an unknowing as far as websites go and had some disharmony with someone I paid a lot of money to build a website for my company. They refused to make changes and finish when I changed theme of site?
These changes were necessary from a marketing standpoint, not function. Furthermore the project was 7 weeks behind promised completion date. Sound familiar???? Their were more promises, don't want to bore!!!
I have been sucked dry,(mentally and $$$) being led to believe...
Thru desperation i am having to fend for myself. I have since learned this individual charged me for programming, (I GUESS that what it is) which is open sourced stuff and free to download to the knowing.
1. What is the view on this practice of charging for free down loads, is it common or acceptable?
2. Although my budget for this project is diminished, I still have an unfinished site. Can any one help guide assist, and/or save me.
3. Is Drupal compatible to do e-commerce?
4. Can music and Flash be added to Drupal?
5. I know it takes time to do this stuff and I am willing to make it worth your wild to help me complete and launch this project. Hint; it has to do with "Rock and Roll",Hip Hop, Rap, etc., and all musics, platform.
6 Any and all assistance will be greatly appreciated!
please reply or email wb@thunderpilots.com
C
Comments
Charging for labor is OK
I can say that telling a customer that you created Drupal and charging for it is definitely not kosher. Charging for the labor required to setup the Drupal platform for use, is normal.
Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
Tokyo, Japan
not kosher
he led me to believe the reason it was taking so long was he had to write the entire code for everything from scratch. ...Living and learning
Thanks for your reply
C
orlando,Florida
then you have recourse
Then, I think you have recourse should you choose to pursue it.
Cheers,
Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
Tokyo, Japan
However
However, looking at that site, and reading the comments in this thread, I have to say it is not something I myself would want to be associated with.
Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
Tokyo, Japan
Special Requirements and Enhancements
If you had special requirements and enhancements, he might very well have been doing programming work and related stuff.
Also, customizing the templates and layout, as well as installing, configuring the many optional modules that make a Drupal site flexible, useful and cool can be accounted as programming by many.
BTW, Drupal does not come with installation scripts and database set up, as well as file and directory permissions has to be done manually (although it takes less than 5min to do so).
-----
Con paciencia y calma,
sube un burro a una palma
Most of everything can be done with Drupal
A Drupal base install cost is next to nothing; it's free and quick to setup. However, some projects need a lots of tweening, configuration, programing and theming. Add a lot of roundtrip testing, adjusting, programming, testing, etc.
I don't charge for a free product. I do charge for my time, though.
If you do have any issues you want to share with us here, we will do our best to help.
There is a Drupal module for doing e-commerce. Drupal should be able to handle Music and flash files (cf www.terminus1525.ca).
If you need a consultant, I may help. Leave a message here and I'll write back to you with your email.
/*_*/
http://www.xmacinfo.com
doing it with drupal
I appreciate your reply and strange as it may may sound , I spent 3 hours looking at some drupal site stuff and your site was one of the first ones I looked at and bookmarked! Who ever is in charge of your site has it figured out!
1. I am using a Mac computer, and haven't the first clue on how to do anything beyond write copy and paste it into an existing article. and a module is something on a spaceship right? (just kidding i get concept, I have no application experience)
You can go to drupal.thunderpilots.com and get a taste of the organization and see some of the ground work started.
I like alot of what drupal offers, community, blogs, calendar etc.
The big needs I have are possible music on site and downloading for new and local talent and most importantly a look that says basically "I want to start my day checking out this site!
Tabs are Home, news, intro, events, perks, sponsors, contacts, links, photos, music and of course e-commerce with exclusive referral codes to track royalties for members!
By the way i type @ 6 words per min, so if you are open to phone contact, i will gladly call you at my expense and discuss.
Also a site that has alot of the similiar capabilities we need is marksanchez.com.
The bottom line is the marketing side of the site has to invoke "WOW, this is..."
By the way your site is by far that, no other drupal stuff comes close and you were one of the few that led me to hope that what i have started could be salvaged using drupal.
in harmony
C
ps i am in florida and i'm sending a little sun your way!
wb@thunderpilots.com
Lots of stuff
If you want to set up a site yourself, then start with the handbook.
A quick Google search came up with this.(install Drupal on Mac)
http://maczealots.com/tutorials/drupal/
Drupal is a framework. It is both easy and difficult depending on what you know going in and what you are trying to accomplish. Some functionality is more advanced than others and depending on your needs, some customization may be in order.
There are several people listed in the Professional Services link on the Support page that may be able to give you an appropriate quote as well.
If you have a contract with the original developer, you may wish to persue that through the legal system.
-sp
---------
Test site...always start with a test site.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
My site???
Sadly, www.terminus1525.ca is not my site. It's made with Canadian government money to help create a community for canadian artists coast to coast. They are using CivicSpace (which is based on Drupal). But I suspect that they did a lot of internal changes to the code.
I still have a lot to learn to be on par with them.
Terminus1525 is a lively site. I give them 10 on a scale of 10.
/*_*/
http://www.xmacinfo.com
Created by James Walker, who
Created by James Walker, who is a Bryght Guy. Runs "regular" Drupal, not CivicSpace, with lots of custom modules.
yeah, no relation to civicspace
i did, in fact, all the drupal work on terminus. it started as stock drupal 4.4, has a few custom modules (the biggest of which is the artwork handling module), but the patches to core are minimal.
most of the 'customness' is in the theme. terminus.theme is 1698 lines :)
I'm very glad to hear you like it. :)
--
James Walker :: http://walkah.net/
Record another highly
Record another highly impressed visitor.
Contribute the theme?
Walker,
The theme is just great.
Are you considering contributing it back to Drupal?
An often seen gripe is that drupal is powerful, extensible, flexible, modular, BUT lacking in the looks department.
If we get the SpreadFireFox.com theme, and the Terminus theme as part of the base Drupal, then there will be no reason to say that anymore.
P.S. I use Pushbutton, which is a decent theme, however, the above two are super compared to it.
--
Drupal performance tuning and optimization, hosting, development, and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc. and Twitter at: @2bits
Personal blog: Ba
It is unlikely that either
It is unlikely that either Terminus or SpreadFireFox would release their themes. They are both very "branded", so for the same reason we don't want the Drupal.org theme floating around, those two shouldn't be duplicated elsewhere.
As well, as walkah mentioned, it is a custom PHP theme specific to Terminus (i.e. not based on PHPTemplate etc.) that is completely integrated with the specific functionality of that site.
Check the "truly corporate sites" thread for lots of good looking Drupal sites. Also, check all the recently converted WordPress themes, done by chrisada.
I am working on SpreadFireFox theme with 4.5.0
Actually, I got in touch with Chris M, who is the designer/developer of the theme for the SpreadFireFox web site. I am working on bringing it up to phptemplate for Drupal 4.5.0, and it looks promising.
My understanding is that I can make it available as a contributed Drupal theme, so everyone can use it.
I am not a graphics designer, so someone has to step in and help with some of the graphics things.
I will be posting about it once I get something I can show others.
--
Drupal performance tuning and optimization, hosting, development, and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc. and Twitter at: @2bits
Personal blog: Ba
Congratulations!
I'm very impressed with your site. CivicSpace or not, it amazing to see and browse around Terminus.
Is this an on going project? Will they move to a more recent Drupal engine?
I hope that someday you will be able te release the modules you made for Terminus. Especially the artwork one. Are there many more?
As for me, I'm still learning on how to make great themes. I'll need to eat a lot of cookies before doing something like you did.
/*_*/
http://www.xmacinfo.com
Free vs gratis
Note that in open-source software, free does not refer to price, but to rights. You can take Drupal, modify it, and distribute it again. This is allowed by the "free" license that we use (as in "liberty"). Whether or not money is charged for it is irrelevant.
Because your consultant used Drupal, you are 'free' to take his work and modify it. This is unlike commercial software which is typically sold with a restrictive license. If the company goes under, you're lost.
If he claimed that he wrote it all, then he is violating the terms of the Gnu public license that Drupal is released under.
In any case, many people earn money through Drupal: by setting up sites for clients, by coding custom add-on modules or by designing themes. The base software itself is only part of the work.
--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.
Makes sense
Hearing it told upfront makes it totally understandable thanx.
ps no problems m8, just trying to learn the new jungle and wild it is!
Dear C
I spent 5 hours yesterday just on tidying up the HTML and stylesheet (ie the template) for a website I am working on that is very simple. This is after the design was done!
(moving this draft design to a standards compliant layout)
This is before I do any coding for functionality, or attempt to integrate with a content management system like Drupal.
What I am trying to say is that it is a lot of work to produce a web site!
All due respect, and perhaps you have been hard done by, but I suggest that part of the reason for your trouble, is that you do not appreciate what is involved in setting up a web site, and your expectations are too high.
Apart from some extra work on the side, and some general IT responsibilities I look after 1 (one) website - that's my full-time job!
You said you wanted people to think "WOW, this is...", Yahoo spend millions to try and achieve that (without success in my opinion). Quality is meeting clearly defined and achievable goals.
I highly recommend you get a copy of this book Web Project Management - by Ashley Friedlein it contains a lot of valuable (non-technical) information, that would help you a lot.
Book
Nice book thanx
Poor guy
Every web designer and developer in this community who read your post felt sorry, not for you, but for your web developer.
Your prose alone is a tip off that you are a bad client. But a quick visit to your site (100% b.s. scam, in fact, it's hilarious) will remove any doubt.
You obviously have no problem exploiting people in an effort to get something for nothing. The developer you hired was wise to quit when you "changed the theme of your site."
If you're looking for a shoulder to cry on you've come to the wrong place
And another thing -- I seriously doubt that he claimed to have created Drupal. That is a ridiculous allegation. He was almost certainly charging you for all of the additional consultation, coding, styling, and customization your original project required.
: z
Don't be too sure. I've seen
Don't be too sure. I've seen better (worse), like people doing search-and-replace on the whole codebase and change 'drupal' to 'somethingelse'.
If that is the case
Then how would they know the site was based on Drupal? I tend to believe that the web designer was fed up with the client and had to cut his/her losses. But here are two possible scenarios:
1. The web designer was too stupid to search and replace all references to drupal. So somehow the client figured it out. This is good except for the fact that the subdomain is drupal! (drupal.thunderpilots.com). If the guy was trying to pass drupal off as his, he wouldn't have been THAT stupid.
2. The web designer told the client they were using Drupal. Now the client is here bemoaning the fact they didn't get what they wanted. They probably didn't get what they wanted for the reasons stated above.
Thanx for your input
Thank you!, to all the drupalites for their experience, views, and opinions.
I am now, a lot more aware of the workings, and of website protocol.
Z
Oh, that guy went one
Oh, that guy went one better. He didn't mentioned Drupal's name, but claimed it is a home brewed CMS. (perhaps so he could claim more hours and charges) I wasn't talking about the particular case of this post, though. No connections whatsoever.
Goes both ways
Just goes to show that there are shady clients, and shady devs as well. In business and private matters, it's always best to be on the up and up. I think it's bad karma to say you made something you didn't - how can that not come back to bite you?
Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
Tokyo, Japan
Paying attention
To little Zach, you are appreciated
zorrodog - January 29, 2005 - 05:22
However, your interpertation of of my inquiry is a little askew.
It wasn't a pissing contest it was "Desire to Know" DUH!!!
By the way, It sounds like you know some thing about misleading customers by the way you talk. Happy Trails little one...
Once And For All.
I have actually dealt with this guy, and he keeps going to other people about this subject. He actually came to my office and we had a 2 hour meeting about the project he wanted done. Below are our communications.
By the way My company created marksanchez.com (which is http://www.djmarksanchez.com) and we agreed to create something similar, except WB wanted a members section that would charge a membership fee, and allow other users to sell other user accounts. Blah blah blah..
After this guy comes into my office and tells me his "idea" i told him I would get him a quote. This was on 1/25/05 i went on vacation on 1/26/05 and returned 2/2/05. During my vacation i decided i would not be doing business with Mr. White Bear (also goes by "William Carney III", "WB", "C", "Z", or "ZorroDog")
Upon my arrival, I received this e-mail:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Put Your Web Design where your Mouth Is!
I have spent no less than 3 months talking with, listening to, and being told Oh yes I can do that and I need to do this , and I just need a little more time and a little more money until I don t know where to turn.
Included in that time was my experiment; an actual web site was done, not as promised.
So needless to say we have paid some dues, and I know every designer who gets this invite could tell me a few good stories of their own.
Many of the web designers I have spoke with, claim to have / be graphic artists as well as be marketing guru s. They all have a great story and attempt to convince you, they are the one for this project.
As the result of these experiences we have decided to design a win,win, scenario for all parties and that brings me to the contest.
We don t want to be told how great thou art, We say show us!
That is precisely the reason for this competition.
We should be in a project together for all the parts and we together profit and benefit.
Here are the guidelines;
1. No less than 15 designers will be invited to compete.
2. You will have 1 week to submit a sample beta site for 1st round elimination (5 will be selected)
3. You will then have 2 weeks to participate in round 2. ( 3 selected for semi-finalists)
4. The semi -finalists will have 2 more weeks to complete a totally functional site and then there will be 2 sites picked for finalists, to compete for the minumum of $10,000. ( earnings dispersed over time and will include performance Bonus which could double the take, Plus some other exclusives). All particulars will be in disclosed within agreement to compete.
a. The completed site will include properties and navigation to support;
Home, 411 -( intro),
Photos w/ uploads, Music w/ down load,
Forum, Blogs,Store, Membership info, News,
Sponsors-(local / national), Perks-(local / national),
Contests,-(daily, weekly, monthly), 911,
Visitor, Member, and Executive log in -with user
name, password and unique -ID code
b. multimedia
c. animation
d.e-commerce
5. Progress and guidance will be available daily as competition continues
6. The 2 finalists will be judged on performance. 2 sites will run for no less than 30 days, and no more than 60 days before final site is selected . Changes will be allowed during run time and daily evaluations will be shared.
Now we know only the capable will accept and welcome the challenge, so for those of you who are, please submit contact info along with your portfolio and you will notified of your acceptance by Phone and email .You will also be sent an agreement to complete with further directions and guidelines.
ps hint; we are and the theme of the site is: The
Rock Star society wb
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To which my reply was:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is being sent to many of our colleagues in hopes they will not have to waste their time with this matter.
Dear "C" or "White Bear" or "wb" or "Jonathan Pugh" owner of THUNDERPILOTS.COM or any one else in "The Rock Star Society"
This letter is to inform you (and others) exactly where we (ProApp Consulting) stand regarding your request for services.
After meeting with you in person in excess of 2 hours, I still am not 100% sold that this project is NOT a pyramid scheme. If it acts like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are it’s a duck, even if you insist it is different.
Over and over you compared your "services" to a record label, and even go as far to label your members "promoters", "managers", and "producers". The problem with the theory of comparing your self to a record label is that a record label actually produces a product. Even the sleaziest record companies, who promise pie in the sky dreams to untalented people, will give their clients a copy of the demo they paid to have produced, so at least they have something to show. The problem with your business model is that you are simply getting people to pay to sign up to be able to get other people to pay and sign up. And although the revenue does not continue to flow from one level to another, I believe this to be in the same class as a chain letter or pyramid scheme.
I think your advertising method of a "virtual studio" or "virtual office" is ludicrous. Once again signs of false advertising pointing to a pyramid scheme.
I do not believe that you have large sponsors willing to give you exclusive discounts for your members.
I find it quite humorous that you would approach an established company with "an opportunity" to "compete" for THIS project. And although I do not support the behavior of paying a person to do something, and they leave with your money, I can almost understand why your previous developer refuses to develop this site any further. I will almost guarantee you that it wasn’t because he didn’t like "rock music".
I think you honestly believe in this idea, and have convinced your self that it is not only a good idea, but it will actually help people. I on the other hand do not believe this and as much as I disagree with your ideas, I would still produce the engine that would run this site. I would require a revolving retainer of no less than $10,000.00 at all times. The project will have to be detailed out, documented on paper, and approved by OUR lawyers. We are not in the business of producing products that negatively affect society; we leave that job to the virus developers and pop-up creators. We will NOT join in any competition for this project, and doubt you will find any one in the profession in this town that will.
" Now we know only the capable will accept and welcome
the challenge, so for those of you who are, please
submit contact info along with your portfolio and you
will notified of your acceptance by Phone and email
.You will also be sent an agreement to complete with
further directions and guidelines."
You will not find any capable firms willing to join you on this endeavor who will agree to your laundry list below. I suggest you maybe go to a few high schools or trade schools and present them with this opportunity. They are the only people I know that will MAYBE do something like this. Then again, I don’t think they will bite on your current business model.
Twice my e-mails bounced back from your wb@ e-mail address, you may want to look into that.
Sincerely
Chris M. Azar
President ProApp Consulting
http://www.proapp.net
chrisa@proapp.net
352.854.3108 - Office
352.368.5911 - Fax
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is where it gets interesting.....
I decided to include every local web design firm, and the person who's name and e-mail are on the Domain name for thunderpilots.com . My colleagues appreciated the heads up and this is the e-mail i received from WB's ex-developer
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Chris,
Thank you for responding to WhiteBear. (by the way his name is William Carney III. Online, he also goes as "Z" or ZorroDog).
I am the web developer he is talking about. What he is calling "nothing" is the work that is currently up at http://www.thunderpilots.com and
http://drupal.thunderpilots.com .
He has posted questions on the Drupal.org homepage referring to "getting screwed" by his developer, and from what you have told us, is telling his sob story about how we "ran off with his money" to EVERYONE he now talks to. He thinks he'll get sympathy, when really he's giving real developers warning signs. He paid us a few hundred dollars every other week. I worked up to that budget, and had a very polished design for a version 1.0 design, and then an even more polished ver 2.0 design, built upon the extremely
powerful DRUPAL site engine. He changed his mind
about what the entire organization was about after the sites were up and running, then freaked out when I mentioned that additional work would cost more. We thought for a few more hours, and based on his new content (he's in charge of editing the content of the
pages) we decided we were out.
He did the same to us. He convinced us this organization was about helping people, etc. It was NOT the "Rock Star Society" it is now. He started that kick because WE are interested in music and are starting a REAL music business. We invited him to a show, and he saw a market.
Again, i really appreciate you calling him out. I am an independant web developer and don't have the "Professional Design Firm" clout and response language you so eloquently laid out for him. We feel exactly the same way, but tried to explain it to him in person, because he lead us to believe we were "Friends"; and well, he freaked out, made us feel like we were screwing him. Anyway, every web developer deals with this eventually.
Again thank you for writing to him, thank you for telling your colleagues. Please don't associate me with the "Thunderpilots". I hope he does get a new designer so that they will take down my artwork.
Thank you,
Jon P
Janaki D
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In response to the e-mail I sent WB, here is his reply:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hey Chris i appreciate your overview and also you professional consultation on this. Also i did not disclose all the details of the enterprise for a couple of reasons, not one being you, or what you are and do.
I will say this, you do run a good ship and should feel good about that.
As far as the design of what i'm doing, the FTC has no problem with it.
Sometimes it is best to leave people to think they understand what your doing than to really know and replicate it before you complete it.
Priceline.com is a good example of letting the cat out of the bag, and using "shareholders" money on attorneys to try after the fact to protect there deal.
Oh and yes let's not forget Hooters "shareholders"
millions going to the fine work of attorneys. I guess Its ok if its someone elses $$$$
Chris, most importantly thanx 4 being a part of my learning experience
i'll dot the i's and cross the t's
WB
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I do not use the Drupal engine, my company employs programmers to create custom administrative sites, and in actuality, we create custom web applications. In conclusion, if any one here is considering working with Mr. White Bear, here are the facts of what is going on, proceed at your own risk..
Sincerely
Chris M Azar
President - ProApp Design Inc.
352.854.3108
and on that note..
"little zach" rests his case.
: z
thanks chris
"1. What is the view on this practice of charging for free down loads, is it common or acceptable?" -WB
Just so everyone knows I didn't introduce the drupal engine to this guy until the last week of our relationship. We built an entire website for him first, went through about three completely different versions, using hand-coding and the PHPBB bulleting board.
Then, as an act of good faith, I put together a demo of a DRUPAL site, because I thought it would be good for the site. Then he showed his "AZZ", and we left the project.
Accusing me of trying to "charge for free downloads", especially from the open-source community, is tantamount to slander. As we can read from the few people who might have believed that I am a devious person (which is possible, there are nasty people out there, case-in-point.), selling Drupal as an original creation is treasonous to the community that I so vehemently support.
As a note to anyone out there like Mr Bear, WORK = PAY, no matter how you slice it. With something like web design, What you See is not always What it Takes to create it.
If it cost $20 Million to make a film, Mr Bear would complain that it's only 2 hours worth of material, how could it possible cost so much?
Just because someone doesn't understand the work it takes to make something, doesn't mean proper compensation isn't deserved.
To my Fellow Developers: Don't Sell yourselves short. We spent a lot of time and effort learning to do what we do. Don't waste your time dealing with people that don't understand that.
__________________________
Jon Pugh
ThinkDrop Inc
https://devshop.support
https://thinkdrop.net
https://twitter.com/jonpugh
Agreed
You're right. That's good advice.
I hope also that the devs who are newer to the game take the time to educate themselves on controlling projects and contracting. A little control goes a long way, and can really protect you.
I learned the hard way that compromising for a customer that does not respect you or the work you do is never worth the quick buck you might make. It's tough to do it, but sometimes you need to walk away from business that just smells bad. Don't do it to yourself!
Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
Tokyo, Japan
... and let me guess ...
The host of this "competition" gets to keep all the sites?
Gimme a break.
I Know, Old Thread
But still a very good reminder for all developers, specially new in business, about the correct way of selling our services and knowing our prospects.
Regards.
Alexis Bellido - Ventanazul web solutions
Well, thanks. I wouldn't
Well, thanks. I wouldn't have seen this thread but for your comment. And, as someone just venturing into building drupal sites for select people, this thread was very useful.
entertaining thread
Guess the karma didn't take all too long to catch up. Check out the site as it is today...lol
ht tp://thunderpilots.com
If you have a project like
If you have a project like this, sign up for basecamphq.com or something similar. For the few dollars, using project management software can really help. If worst comes to worst, it keeps all the correspondence in one place you know who said what and when.
www.Drupalancers.com. Custom-Made Drupal Themes, Modules, Blocks and Websites.