I forgot to get my prescription refilled and so now I can’t sleep. So I’ve been trying to find something to keep me occupied without causing me to get really depressed at having to deal with tomorrow without sleep1. As such I’ve decided to blog. Please keep in mind that this will be a rambling post and probably won’t have any flow. Pretty normal for me, huh?
I finally got a laptop. What? I bought a new desktop last year (and it still rocks socks) but I thought I needed a laptop. Obviously I also needed a router. So I got one that would allow me to sit in my yard and surf the toobs. Of course, because I’m going to be going out into the yard I had to get the warranty that covers drops and spills. And, well, I had to have that fancy wireless mouse. Wheeeee!!!!!!!! That was quite a chunk of change2.
Speaking of work, Vince gave me some feedback on the site3 and I’ve decided to make some changes. And I did. It’s looks pretty good, actually. I’ve got some weird ideas, I think, but I like being able to play around with it. I added some funky buttons and a jQuery video slider so, um, yeah, it’s pretty cool. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the most bomb-diggity site ever, but it’s getting close.
In similar news, and keeping with the spirit of this blog, I decided to ask Millie what she was paying her designer for her site. Well, Millie assumed I was going to ask her to hire me or some such nonsense and tells me:
My site is more than one page.
No shit. But just in case I’m as idiotic as she must be, she tells me that a couple of more times. OMG!! I can’t do more than one page!! Bleh. Oh, and the best part? There’s apparently stuff on the site I wouldn’t understand. This is where I said:
I’m kinda good at that stuff. And I am in school for this very thing. Graduating in December as a matter of fact.
WTFever, heiffer.
So, she tells me she paid this woman $2000 for her site (Whis is MORE THAN ONE PAGE!!!) and pays her $250 a year for hosting. This is where I was kind of taken aback. Why did she need that kind of money for hosting? I told her that my hosting is just over $100 a year and you could justsee her deflate.
Mwahahaha!!! You got took. How’s it feel? Oh, yeah? Her husband does your computer work? The dude you paid $75 to defrag your hard drive? Hahaha!! Still a dummy I see. Pssst. I could’ve done that for you for free but who am I? Just the mother of your only grandchild and the wife of your only child.
Sorry, where was I? Oh… So, she’s starts again telling me why I’m not qualified to do her website (meh) when I tell her I’m just trying to learn pricing structures. I don’t want to work for her (meh). So she tells me this chick charges her $30-40 to change an image on the site and for other changing other types of information. Really? Well, of course I’m intrigued. Changing an image is was easy, right? What’s it take? About 35 seconds (if you’re not waiting for the image to upload)? This is sounding good to me. And I find it hilarious that she could be helping her daughter-in-law enlarge her portfolio for a fraction of that, but is insisting I’m too stupid to breathe.
So, I break out my laptop and show her friend the new site I just did. Her friend is impressed but Millie isn’t interested. I told you– HEIFFER. That’s ok. I go on to say that I’m going to undercut the competition and try to offer the same kinds of services for not quite so much. Her friend doesn’t realize that Millie is a heiffer and agrees with me that I had a good idea. We’re talking about my business goals but Millie will have none of it and declared the conversation boring. Ha! Who doesn’t hate being shown how they’ve been taken straight to the cleaners? Sucks to be her.
Then TheMan and I come home and I go to Millie’s site so I can get the link to her designer’s site. First, her site sucks donkey turds4. I looked at the source page and it was built with Microsoft FrontPage 2005 with all inline styles that are, get this, capitalized. Anyone who knows W3C standards knows that CSS is preferred and tags should be lowercase. Ahem. Anyway, with my browser, which is 1300+/- wide, her site floats to the left. The images are pixelated and there are typos.
Can I laugh again? Hahahaha!!!
So, I click on the link at the bottom of the page and get… a “This Domain for Sale”. No shit. Pffft.
$2000 for a site that is not standards compliant, was built in FrontPage and is just not attractive (seriously, no :hover affect? REALLY?) isn’t really something to laugh at. I applaud chick for getting money for that stuff. Here I am working hard to learn the code and to make it as compliant and semantic as I can and here I could’ve built that shit in Expression Web and been done with it. Another Pffft.
My friend told me not to take Millie’s insults personally, but I did. And so laughing at the result of that $2k makes me feel better. She didn’t even look at what I can do. Didn’t even give my skills a second thought. So, I’m going to build her a brand new site with beautiful graphics that will resize with different browsers. Then I’m going to show it to her. And then I’m going to tell her she can’t have it.
Because I really am that spiteful. ;P
TheMan’s dad says his VFW commander may need a site and is going to give him my name. He’s also going to let me build him a personal site so I can build my portfolio. That’s nice. I’m glad part of my inlaw family isn’t off the deep end. I told him he will be blessed with awesome Karma– but not until I actually get the work. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Oh, and I’m over my ill feelings toward Millie now. I feel better after a good rant.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Sphere: Related Content- Holy flare, bat person!! [↩]
- Just under $1k) but thankfully George Soros/Rahm Emanuel finally sent out those
refundsshill checks and I was able to swing it. I’m going to use the laptop primarily for work, though, so hopefully I’ll be able to write that off next year.
At any rate, I’ve finally joined the 21st century with this particular acquisition. My next planned big work purchase is Adobe Creative Suite 4 for students– at a big $349. Oh yeah. That’s way cheap. I’m saving up for that mother. When I start school again in the fall I should be able to buy one of the school’s old systems and stick that bad boy on that. Then I’ll be able to get rid of that old one finally. I’m thinking of giving the old one to my little sister as she’s taking Graphic Design in her high school and can’t afford a PS on her own. Considering the fact that her school sucks I’m going to teach her how to use it too. Then I might hire her ((That’s me wishing for lots of work and tons of money. [↩]
- Which I can’t link to from here, but that’s ok [↩]
- I’m trying sooo hard not to cuss [↩]
4 Comments
Site looks much better. I couldn’t get the scroll stuff to work in Safari on the videos page, but I’ll try IE and Firefox.
You’re downright evil to redesign a site then not give it to someone. But you’re right, that woman got seriously took.
If you want something else in your portfolio, I wouldn’t mind a real design for my band’s website. It kind of sucks right now (since web design is not my forte). Let me know if you’re interested.
I was reading that javascript is disabled by default in Safari. I’ll look into the problem. Hopefully it’s an easy fix.
I’ll definitely get a hold of you about that site. The email address will be different, though I’m sure you’ll recognize it when you see it.
I see a lot of that in my area. Lots of small resorts and there are local “pros” who create static websites for mucho $$$$$ then charge them for each word or image that is changed and they charge them for hosting. I started creating sites for a couple of friends who have little resorts (fishing) and other businesses using WordPress (set more as a CMS than a blog) and teaching them how to update everything themselves and directing them to my favorite hosting sites. So even the people who kept their static web sites …. don’t change images or anything they just included a link to their bogs and do all their own stuff there. Everybody is happy except the “pros” who just set up a system that kept their cash stream coming while I “taught them how to fish” so to speak.
Our little resort towns and businesses are struggling and can’t afford for one man’s profit to bleed them dry.
There are still those
Hi, Onedia!
I’m in agreement 100% with the “teaching them how to fish”. What would happen if I did all their work and then suddenly decided I’m retiring and am no longer able to do it? They’d be stuck. I’m glad I’m not the only person that sees that as a big ole negative.
So, I’m going to offer training as a service, I think. I got the impression from Millie that she’d rather chew her own arm off than to have to deal with her website, but most people, I think, would like to have their own control. For those that want me to do all the work I’m willing to do that too. But will let them make that choice.
Also, I’m not going to charge crazy money unless the task is very difficult. I feel like what that lady is doing to Millie is almost unethical. No, I’d not make as much money as her, but then I’d be able to live with my conscience. I can’t imagine doing that to someone. I guess that would probably doom me as a business person, but I’m ok with that.