Does a freelance developer bill for spinning his wheels? Today I was working through permission and identity issues associated with the abcPDF ASPX-to-PDF component I blogged about yesterday. I'm not happy with the hacking involved to get it to work with restricted sites. I spent time with other options as well, including ExpertPDF. ExpertPDF doesn't require any goofy COM+ installation and I really liked using it, but it had problems with the ol' Community Server login page, too. The solution will most likely come to me in the shower tomorrow morning, so we're cool. I knocked off a few hours on today's bill because I didn't feel I was producing at my norm. And on the subject of billing, I don't bill for client meetings either. It never felt right to me. I'm consulting with a local IT firm next week on how to approach a new Community Server project, but that's different. Billing for time and travel. That's one of the takeaways from an excellent book titled "Selling Your Services" by Robert Bly. Highly recommended. You have to bill for your knowledge when companies ask you for it, but there's nothing in the book about having to bill for not coming up with a PDF generation solution as fast as you'd like.
Visual Information. Collegiate Painting is touching up our house next week. The foreman, a college student, phoned yesterday to get the color formula of the paint used when the house was last painted. "Why don't you let me send you a JPEG?" I asked him. "No, just tell me what the chart reads please." I started going through different Colorant values then stopped and said again more forcefully, "Dude, let me send you a picture." "Ah, alright," he conceded, then gave me his college email address. He stopped by today and was raving how useful the photo was and how Sherwin Williams was able to use the order number making it a breeze for everyone. Kids. Here's the JPEG I sent him.
Maxed Out is a difficult film to watch. An instant view NetFlix offering is a commentary on the credit crisis of American families and of our nation titled Maxed Out. I caught it over 3 sessions on our sweet Roku. I can't tell you the last time I watched a movie in one sitting. Maxed Out is a very smart and well done film, but it was difficult to watch the turmoil so many among us are living with. Do me a favor, would you? Keep those credit card balances low!
Stewart Butterfield writes a brilliant resignation letter. Stewart Butterfield and wife Caterina, co-founders of Flickr and until today, Yahoo execs, both left the company, part of an apparent Yahoo exodus of key personnel. Stewart's resignation letter was brilliant. What a cat! Here is how it begins. "As you know, tin is in my blood. For generations my family has worked with this most useful of metals. When I joined Yahoo! back in '21, it was a sheet-tin concern of great momentum..." The full resignation letter is on Valleywag.
Turn it up. I've been spending more of my days with a Pandora playlist I seeded with Breaking Benjamin and Tool. Here's the playlist link. A band on the playlist who is quickly becoming a favorite is Three Days Grace. Here's the Amazon MP3 listing for their self-titled album.