Archive for January, 2008
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
They have done it. I have done it. You may have done it. Outsourcing the outsourced projects are very common these days. Companies outsourcing their projects to 3rd parties and the 3rd parties outsourcing to 4th parties and 4th parties outsourcing to 5th parties and on and on… I hope there is a stop to this.
To me outsourcing gives a great value and peace of mind. Many times I work on projects that involve intensive testing or creative designing. Things that I don’t wanna do or don’t have required expertise, I find it easy to forward them to my trusted 3rd party developers. This way I will 1. not loose the client, 2. make little money, 3. secure the client for maintenance and hosting (if applicable), 4. referrals, 5. future projects, 6. portfolio etc. On the other hand theres little bit of headache too: 1. monitor the progress with outsourced company, 2. meeting deadlines, 3. communication difficulties (if), 4. contracts etc.
Overall I feel very comfortable with outsourcing the outsourced. But if you haven’t really did this and would like to, here’s what you need to take into account:
1. Contract; its important to make sure the company/consultant you are hiring doesn’t directly get in touch with your main client. 2. Non-disclosure agreement; just like (if) you signed a non-disclosure agreement, make sure to get it done by the 3rd party too. 3. Copyrights; get the copyrights done on your company or the main client’s name. 4. Partnership; try to build a partnership with the company and gain trust. One of my client outsources all his ecommerce projects to me, and I go an extra mile to provide him what his clients need all the time. We both trust each other and many times I work without any agreement or advance payment (don’t try this at home) .
Posted in Freelance, Outsourcing | No Comments »
Monday, January 14th, 2008
Google’s new tool (old, but new to me) Notebook, allows anyone to create notebooks, add sections and write notes. You can also share notes, sections and even notebooks with peers and contacts. Plus you can make it public and publish it as webpage.
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Posted in Freelance, Freelance Tools | No Comments »
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
I recently got a email from a client looking to get a toolbar developed. From the project details, it was clear that it will be used to hack user accounts from legitimate sites. I have snippets of the email attached here:
I am looking to create a toolbar where users can select the username and
password fields on a website, and have the toolbar attempt logins by
interacting with a list of potential passwords. If the user does not
have a password list, he should be able to create a set of passwords
based on his needs (x characters long, select which characters should be
used (Ex] no numbers or special characters), select the beginning or end
of the password) There should be some sort of proxy option built in so
that if the website is denying a user to login (because of too many
incorrect attempts), it can try from a different ip. When a working
password is found (probably be sensing that a different page has been
loaded), it should be saved and the process will stop. I would think
that the toolbar should first check to see what sort of error message
comes up after an incorrect login.
Additional add-ons to consider:
Delete cookies after every login attempt
Limit the number of attempts per hour/minute, and when they should
be attempted. Ex] One attempt every 30 minutes for 6 hours, rather than
12 attempts in the first minute.
Reading CAPTCHA security images (maybe the user does have to
manually enter in these codes, or possibly the toolbar can read them.)
Working with flash logins
This program will have a trial period with minimal features and users
can buy the full version by entering a product key. The security of the
algorithm is extremely important to me. I would hate to see a product
which I fund become another causality of warez communities.
I realize that this extension is edgy and can be used as a hacking
utility (although it will be advertised as a Security Analysis tool).
If your team does not feel comfortable creating such a product, I
completely understand.
Another thing worth noting was the client’s name. It could be a coincidence but when I searched the client’s name in google, the results were rather very suspicious. First 2 pages of results were filled with information on a missing 24 year old med student from ohio state university. Surprisingly, the first name and last name matched with that of my client’s. But it could be just a coincidence.
Anyways, the client has a big budget, the project requirements are pretty much doable. So, will you work for it? Will you work on a nasty project like this one?
I have asked some of the other freelancers and I got mixed opinions. One said, he would indefinitely work on it if the client has a big budget. The other just ran away. I also had mixed thoughts on it. But after consulting some senior guys, I’ve decided to drop it. But it may not be same with you. Isn’t it?
Posted in Freelance | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
Posted in Freelance, Outsourcing | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
Ok this one is pretty and you will be able to move the button with its box all around the page. Just edit the template file tpl_product_info_display.php found in /includes/templates/<templatename>/templates folder of your zen-cart installation.
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Posted in Zen-Cart | No Comments »
Monday, January 7th, 2008
One of the worst thing I have to deal with in my job is choosing the right eCommerce Open Source eCommerce Script for the project. There are many online store scripts that can do wonders but all are limited either in functionality or flexibility or ease of deployment. I am talking about well known scripts like OsCommerce, Zen-Cart, SugarCommerce, and X-Cart. These scripts offer great features right on, but it can get really messy if you are not good at programming.
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Posted in OScommerce, Zen-Cart, ecommerce | No Comments »
