It sounds like you've done the right things so far and lawsuits and name & shame are like firing off nukes, you don't want to have to resort to those as long as there are alternatives.
You know the client, your relationship with them and the future of your business better than any of us so you are ultimately always going to be in the best position to know what to do.
My nature is to be gentle but direct when confronted with excuses and would ask "Do you really intend to pay us? When?" Get it in writing or email, then when that date comes round, repeat. That has worked for me several times.
I've also paid a lawyer to just write a letter asking on my behalf about their intentions and what reasons they may have for not paying. Sometimes that's enough,.
They are behaving like weasels though. If you can avoid it, I hope you won't do any more work for them, or at least not without payment up front.
I wrote my first real program on a Sinclair. It was for TV troubleshooting and it took you down to the section. Storage was a cassette tape and the output was composite video for black & white TV.
Then I bought the memory expansion, took it to work and made a program for it to do cost estimate calculations. It was the 2nd computer anywhere in the company. I got promoted from cost estimating to Systems Administrator all in one go. I stayed with that company almost 30 years, then I left to start my own software company.
A few years ago I was telling that story to a client. He pulled a mint condition Sinclair -- still in the original box -- out of his desk and gave it to me. He said it bought it to learn computers and never used it. It was like giving me the keys to my first car.
If the sea level would just rise about 30 more meters or so my house would be on the beach, plus -- and this is a big plus -- no one would ever have to smell New Jersey again.
Atlanta, GA 1998 and I was walking around outside the hotel in the early afternoon.
Not a bad neighborhood mostly office buildings, hotels and a few restaurants.
A little car pulls up beside me and stops, then from the passenger side a guy opens the window few inches and asks for directions to some place, kind of mumbling. I said sorry I don't where anything is I'm not from around here. (yes, dumb answer, now I know better) and so I keep walking.
I hear the car door open and turn around. There's this young black kid pointing a gun at my chest. Probably a.22 but looking down the barrel it seemed really big, cannon big. His hand was shaking. I couldn't take my eyes off the gun barrel.
He said "give me 'yo flip phone" It was on my belt (yes, dumb, now I know better) and I handed it over... then he wanted my wallet, handed it over. He told me to "turn around" then "get down"
So there I was kneeling on the pavement and I thought he was going execute me so I said "can I say my prayers?" All I was thinking was who is going to take care of my daughters after I die.
He said 'go on an pray you honkey mutha f##ka" and fired.
I think he must have been heading back to the car as he pulled the trigger because it hit me in the foot. I thought "I'm supposed to be dead" and laid down on the pavement. I heard the car peel out and I could see it tear around corner.
The bullet only grazed me and after I just had to use a cane for a few weeks (yup, luckiest man on earth)
My personal take is that Gene Roddenberry was an alien whose goal was to nudge us in the generally correct direction without apparently doing so. To do this, he (it?) created a TV series called 'Star Trek' in which all advances we'd need were demonstrated to agile minds. Once it has been conceptualized, if it is possible, someone somewhere will eventually do it...
Best thinking I've seen on/. in ages -- had I mod points you'd be +5 right now
You make a good point and some Adobe products are amazing (but I do wish the Studio UI team would go back to the drawing board)
re: speculation -- a lot of proprietary software designs rely on "security by obscurity" with plenty of secret stuff that no one is supposed to ever find about.
the problem has always been that it would cost too much to change -- all the tooling (i.e. steel dies, taps, etc) would have to be changed. It would also make it more costly to replace components. Instead of just buying a 9/16" socket head cap screw for $2.00 it would mean re-tapping the hole for 14mm for $45
Where it's free and painless it has already been done, e.g. soft drinks come in liters
agreed: in 2008 a friend in China explained that while Chinese writing is unified there are so many spoken dialects that few know them all and while visiting one of his cousins in the south they agreed to speak English so they could understand each other.
Actually one can install apps; https://chrome.google.com/webstore and local storage or offline use is handled via Google Gears. eg, the notepad app permits local storage. Downloads are also stored locally.
In the 80's people would say "no one ever got fired for going with AT&T"
In the 90's people would say "no one ever got fired for going with Microsoft"
Anyone who has floated to the upper echelons of the DOI more likely got there by playing it safe, not rocking the boat and schmoozing the in-crowd - not by being smart - so while Google's technical arguments may be correct they don't fit the prevailing "cover your ass" mentality.
Here's hoping the law suit rips the DOI a new paradigm.
Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror. -- Ming the Merciless
A local company was featured in this month's Chamber of Commerce magazine. Three brothers who co-own a small chain of eight doughnut shops described how their father started the business by working every day from 1:00am to 4pm and how tough financially it was at the beginning.
I am firmly convinced that if you look back far enough every US business in existence started out with some individual doing way more than just enough to get by, made personal sacrifices and was probably considered a loser by casual observers who had either never tried or had given up long ago.
About this time last year I was working as the IT manager for a multinational manufacturer. The IT group was targeted for yet another round of cost-cutting; they gave me an hour to decide who would get a buy-out package and a shove out the door. I talked them into letting it be me, put the buy-out money in a rainy day account and started my own software company. I told my wife that if we weren't cash positive within 6 months I would give it up and start looking for a real job. Over the last 12 months we've made more than they were paying me in the "real job" and we've never actually had to fall back on the rainy-day account, in fact we've almost doubled it.
Starting my own company was not easy. I have to sell, communicate well, be easily accessible 7/24 and give my clients plenty of sound business reasons to keep coming back in between turning in top quality work on time. I'd have to work my a** off and most days are 12~16 hours long. I have still managed to take two vacation weeks since I started and we have a third week schedule for May... on vacations I do have to keep one eye on my email and be willing to get up a few hours early to handle anything that can't wait until we get back.
There are no sick days or personal days. Working for yourself means you both have all the time in the world and no time. Before when a stupid boss would make unreasonable demands or mistakes I just had to deal with it. When a client makes unreasonable demands I just charge more. They can be as unreasonable as they want $$$
To start your own company, software or otherwise;
- be prepared for long hours, don't let a client down even if it means pulling all-nighters until your not sure what day it is - force yourself to learn the new things consistently, figure out where your clients need to be 6 months from now and learn or do whatever it takes to be there waiting for them - find an accountant you trust to handle the tax laws - find an attorney you trust to handle the legalese
Q: what do you call 80 tons of lawyers on a slow boat to China?
A: a good start.
Seriously though, if we really could figure out to export lawyers; it would balance the trade deficit, and just think what it would do for the quality of life domestically.
I have a play list of up tempo favorites for programming which just about always gets me in that zone where all distractions are tuned out. Since most of my work is remote online I can crank it up to the optimum level (ie, one notch down from where my ears start bleeding)
For those working in an office with people around them why not use ear phones?
follow up: the NDA states "The parties acknowledge that the other party may be evaluating similar proposals of competing vendors and may be considering currently or in the future internal developments similar to those being discussed by the parties. "
IANAL but I would think it's going to be hard to show that B&N did anything to actually violate the NDA... and so I bet it boils down to arguments over who knew what and when did they know it *ugh*
so... lots of legal fees, no big payday for Spring Designs, and B&N's Nookie Book launch is slightly tarnished... but that's about it.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds like you've done the right things so far and lawsuits and name & shame are like firing off nukes, you don't want to have to resort to those as long as there are alternatives.
You know the client, your relationship with them and the future of your business better than any of us so you are ultimately always going to be in the best position to know what to do.
My nature is to be gentle but direct when confronted with excuses and would ask "Do you really intend to pay us? When?" Get it in writing or email, then when that date comes round, repeat. That has worked for me several times.
I've also paid a lawyer to just write a letter asking on my behalf about their intentions and what reasons they may have for not paying. Sometimes that's enough,.
They are behaving like weasels though. If you can avoid it, I hope you won't do any more work for them, or at least not without payment up front.
I wrote my first real program on a Sinclair. It was for TV troubleshooting and it took you down to the section. Storage was a cassette tape and the output was composite video for black & white TV.
Then I bought the memory expansion, took it to work and made a program for it to do cost estimate calculations. It was the 2nd computer anywhere in the company. I got promoted from cost estimating to Systems Administrator all in one go. I stayed with that company almost 30 years, then I left to start my own software company.
A few years ago I was telling that story to a client. He pulled a mint condition Sinclair -- still in the original box -- out of his desk and gave it to me. He said it bought it to learn computers and never used it. It was like giving me the keys to my first car.
If the sea level would just rise about 30 more meters or so my house would be on the beach, plus -- and this is a big plus -- no one would ever have to smell New Jersey again.
What has ever caused more human suffering than religion?
Look online at the software engineer and developer job descriptions posted by respected companies.
Then pick the title where most of the descriptions generally match up well with what you are good at doing.
+1 if you make an algorithm that does the match ranking for you automatically and can demonstrate it during the interview.
Atlanta, GA 1998 and I was walking around outside the hotel in the early afternoon.
Not a bad neighborhood mostly office buildings, hotels and a few restaurants.
A little car pulls up beside me and stops, then from the passenger side a guy opens the window few inches and asks for directions to some place, kind of mumbling. I said sorry I don't where anything is I'm not from around here. (yes, dumb answer, now I know better) and so I keep walking.
I hear the car door open and turn around. There's this young black kid pointing a gun at my chest. Probably a .22 but looking down the barrel it seemed really big, cannon big. His hand was shaking. I couldn't take my eyes off the gun barrel.
He said "give me 'yo flip phone" It was on my belt (yes, dumb, now I know better) and I handed it over... then he wanted my wallet, handed it over. He told me to "turn around" then "get down"
So there I was kneeling on the pavement and I thought he was going execute me so I said "can I say my prayers?" All I was thinking was who is going to take care of my daughters after I die.
He said 'go on an pray you honkey mutha f##ka" and fired.
I think he must have been heading back to the car as he pulled the trigger because it hit me in the foot. I thought "I'm supposed to be dead" and laid down on the pavement. I heard the car peel out and I could see it tear around corner.
The bullet only grazed me and after I just had to use a cane for a few weeks (yup, luckiest man on earth)
My personal take is that Gene Roddenberry was an alien whose goal was to nudge us in the generally correct direction without apparently doing so. To do this, he (it?) created a TV series called 'Star Trek' in which all advances we'd need were demonstrated to agile minds. Once it has been conceptualized, if it is possible, someone somewhere will eventually do it...
Best thinking I've seen on /. in ages -- had I mod points you'd be +5 right now
These eponymous connections almost never pan out.
Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was not beheaded with one of his own devices.
Dr. Richard J. Gatling was not shot by his own invention, nor was John Garand or John T. Thompson.
In fact if it wasn't for Mr Blunt Object the whole idea never would have got started in the first place.
I was working on-site in South Korea a few years ago.
They said that since I was only going to be there for the week they would not provide me with a chair.
So I just stood at a make-shift workstation and it wasn't really all that bad after the first day or so.
I still do stand up and work for a few hours at a time -- just not all day.
You make a good point and some Adobe products are amazing (but I do wish the Studio UI team would go back to the drawing board)
re: speculation -- a lot of proprietary software designs rely on "security by obscurity" with plenty of secret stuff that no one is supposed to ever find about.
Did you RTFA?
This is slashdot, right?
the problem has always been that it would cost too much to change -- all the tooling (i.e. steel dies, taps, etc) would have to be changed. It would also make it more costly to replace components. Instead of just buying a 9/16" socket head cap screw for $2.00 it would mean re-tapping the hole for 14mm for $45
Where it's free and painless it has already been done, e.g. soft drinks come in liters
We have encountered the Borg ... and they are us.
+1 for the new design - I think it is easier to read this way.
agreed: in 2008 a friend in China explained that while Chinese writing is unified there are so many spoken dialects that few know them all and while visiting one of his cousins in the south they agreed to speak English so they could understand each other.
Actually one can install apps; https://chrome.google.com/webstore and local storage or offline use is handled via Google Gears. eg, the notepad app permits local storage. Downloads are also stored locally.
In the 80's people would say "no one ever got fired for going with AT&T"
In the 90's people would say "no one ever got fired for going with Microsoft"
Anyone who has floated to the upper echelons of the DOI more likely got there by playing it safe, not rocking the boat and schmoozing the in-crowd - not by being smart - so while Google's technical arguments may be correct they don't fit the prevailing "cover your ass" mentality.
Here's hoping the law suit rips the DOI a new paradigm.
I suppose now we will need tin foil underwear too
Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror. -- Ming the Merciless
A local company was featured in this month's Chamber of Commerce magazine. Three brothers who co-own a small chain of eight doughnut shops described how their father started the business by working every day from 1:00am to 4pm and how tough financially it was at the beginning.
I am firmly convinced that if you look back far enough every US business in existence started out with some individual doing way more than just enough to get by, made personal sacrifices and was probably considered a loser by casual observers who had either never tried or had given up long ago.
About this time last year I was working as the IT manager for a multinational manufacturer. The IT group was targeted for yet another round of cost-cutting; they gave me an hour to decide who would get a buy-out package and a shove out the door. I talked them into letting it be me, put the buy-out money in a rainy day account and started my own software company. I told my wife that if we weren't cash positive within 6 months I would give it up and start looking for a real job. Over the last 12 months we've made more than they were paying me in the "real job" and we've never actually had to fall back on the rainy-day account, in fact we've almost doubled it.
Starting my own company was not easy. I have to sell, communicate well, be easily accessible 7/24 and give my clients plenty of sound business reasons to keep coming back in between turning in top quality work on time. I'd have to work my a** off and most days are 12~16 hours long. I have still managed to take two vacation weeks since I started and we have a third week schedule for May... on vacations I do have to keep one eye on my email and be willing to get up a few hours early to handle anything that can't wait until we get back.
There are no sick days or personal days. Working for yourself means you both have all the time in the world and no time. Before when a stupid boss would make unreasonable demands or mistakes I just had to deal with it. When a client makes unreasonable demands I just charge more. They can be as unreasonable as they want $$$
To start your own company, software or otherwise;
- be prepared for long hours, don't let a client down even if it means pulling all-nighters until your not sure what day it is
- force yourself to learn the new things consistently, figure out where your clients need to be 6 months from now and learn or do whatever it takes to be there waiting for them
- find an accountant you trust to handle the tax laws
- find an attorney you trust to handle the legalese
I've never been happier in my career.
Wouldn't it be cheaper just to call Al Gore?
Q: what do you call 80 tons of lawyers on a slow boat to China?
A: a good start.
Seriously though, if we really could figure out to export lawyers; it would balance the trade deficit, and just think what it would do for the quality of life domestically.
I have a play list of up tempo favorites for programming which just about always gets me in that zone where all distractions are tuned out. Since most of my work is remote online I can crank it up to the optimum level (ie, one notch down from where my ears start bleeding) For those working in an office with people around them why not use ear phones?
follow up: the NDA states "The parties acknowledge that the other party may be evaluating similar proposals of competing vendors and may be considering currently or in the future internal developments similar to those being discussed by the parties. " IANAL but I would think it's going to be hard to show that B&N did anything to actually violate the NDA ... and so I bet it boils down to arguments over who knew what and when did they know it *ugh*
so ... lots of legal fees, no big payday for Spring Designs, and B&N's Nookie Book launch is slightly tarnished... but that's about it.