datawalke

First Impression: For some reason, unless I can see an example of exactly what this looks like / a demo I can't see myself signing up.

Signing up was fairly quick. However making my first post was a little troublesome: Hitting the "enter" button when didn't seem to post anything. The overall feel here feels less like a diary and more like a self-contained twitter feed. I think it's the atmosphere of the application that is throwing me off the most.

Congrats on shipping a product though! I'll continue to try it out.

Congrats on shipping! The application looks great. I am going to give it a try out later on tonight.

From time to time I suffer the same issue. I look back hours later and get angry at myself for 'wasting' so much time. There are a few things you can do to help you out that others have mentioned. However this works for me the best:

I edit my hosts file (Windows: /Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts, Mac: /etc/hosts) to look something similar to:

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

127.0.0.1 techcrunch.com www.techcrunch.com

127.0.0.1 reddit.com www.reddit.com

etc.

Alternatively you can use other tools to block traffic. RescueTime (http://www.rescuetime.com/)is an awesome tool as well.

BurstNET is located very close to where I am. About a year and a half ago I toured their facilities for a colocation project. Upon walking in I was horrified. They rows of tower based servers with their cases ripped off on the wire-frame racks you would find in a home improvement store. After seeing that and hearing they lacked any fire suppression system I respectfully walked away from their bid.

Thanks for pointing this out, I really appreciate it. I reviewed some of the zones today and something was out of wack on the nameserver.

I think it really comes from the ease of the exit and the disconnect from anything human. Even when you come down to it on a snail-mail level there is still a human element to that communication. Whether it be the signature at the end, or hosting a physical object in your hand, I think something makes it more real.

When you are online everything fits into the same type of frame: Words in a font on a screen. It looks just the same just about everywhere. I think it may be that these people believe they are yelling more at a screen and some text than a real human being on the other side.

I have contacted 37Signals and they informed me they will look into the issue. Thank you for the link to David's post as well. I am giving it a read over now.

Yes, I have contacted the guys at 37Signals. They said they would be in touch with the creator of the listing to verify all of the details.

As I commented before I think it is a bit of me still trying to give everyone a chance. From the brief it did seem like that something was off. I just have to keep developing on letting certain "opportunities" pass at certain times.

About four months ago I had a client who received their licensing information put in a claim on me. Even though I sent full documentation showing that they received their license they still refunded this individual. That did get me quite upset with PayPal. Since then I really haven't done that many transactions with them or any online freelancing. I'll have to keep the wire transfer in mind for the future. Thank you bosch!

Absolutely. Once he IM'ed me I was looking for a way to get out of there without seeming rude. I cringed when he agreed to the price I gave. I thought it was going to end the conversation there. I am still working on growing a pair and walking out of things as soon as I want out instead of trying to find a way to make things work. It is still a transition for my mind to get into "It's okay to say 'No.'"

Update: Thank you all for your help and blunt honesty in this matter -- I deeply appreciate it. Taking your advice I am wrapping up a few final projects I have outstanding and updating my resume. I will keep you all posted on the outcome of the situation with a blog post that I will post to HN later this month. Thank you again for your time, advice, and support.

Thank you lkrubner for the article. I will be reading it over shortly.

I actually have listened to this on audio tape. It is an awesome book and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Will do! Thank you. :)

Just make sure to never treat your employees mine has treated me!

And I wish it was Drupal, he refused to move away from .NET. I will say the CMS we used is the worst experience I ever had. It is horribly bloated.

> Having 2 kids makes it much more important that you immediately go find something that pays better.

And that is where I am headed.

As alexwyser said, I'm a bit odd.

My wife first got Pregnant a few months after I got this job. (I worked there a bit over 14 months now. The first two months were really just be doing a design or two. for them.) Before this job the money from the other startups was even more sporadic. This, was almost a relief, having a solid amount of money per week at a job where I could do what I liked. (The area has few other tech companies.)

And you are completely rational in saying that it is irrational to expect to live on $500/week with two kids. However it is absolutely possible to do with one child, trust me. At the time this was the safest thing for us to do. My wife breast feeds, cloth diapers, and stays at home with our daughter. (If you ever have a child the first two will save you a significant amount of money.)

We just found out about the second child being on the way. This plays into my emotions and thoughts on having to do something about the situation I am currently in.

nods Thank you.

This experience on HN has been extra eye opening for me.

Oh, I mean raising my rates on new clients only. The rest of my clients would receive an early notice.

Freelance may be my best choice at the moment. I do however have to make sure I have a little more in the bank before I make the jump if I don't have a full time position lined up. Instead of killing myself with extra side-work raising my freelance rate may be in order just to have a little bit more of a cushion. If I didn't have a family to care for I wouldn't be as worried.

Thank you for your advice.

Thank you very much for your reply.

I agree with you on all aspects. It would be too risky for me to do anything but act normal until I settle my future plans out. One mistake I would have made would have been on the disclosure of my salary -- Thank you.

And admittedly, working at this company has been very fun and a great experience for me. However the nature of how the founder is and the current compensation drove me to where I am right now.

Thank you again for your advice.

Pennsylvania.

No equity.

I am trying to keep this post fairly generic, however we are located in the Northeastern United States Lower than New York, Higher than Maryland ;)

This could be a possibility. On #1 I know he will say no to. Actually, I believe all your steps would come out just as you laid them out there.

I'm sure your great as well!

Hell I'm 21 and I still can't do most advanced algebra. When I was nine my passion started working in GeoCities and Tripod. I don't know any nine year old who can actually do real web work. ;)

I agree with mnemonik.

You wouldn't be able to gain experience in those listed skills without using them for something. There has to be some work of yours out there somewhere. And if not, start doing some freelance work or launching some of your own ideas/projects onto the web. It's a great way to get real experience out there and extra rewarding when you see users interacting with your work!

I do agree that my colleagues do need a little guidance in the situation as well. They are almost all new-hires right out of college and were never exposed to anything else.

With bills it comes down the items I listed before (housing, car, student loans, credit cards, utilities) Food/misc wasn't included.

The issue with this area is it's fairly stuck in the old' days. People expect to pay $200-$500 for a website, regardless of what it does. It could be one page, or it could have all the functionality they would ever dream of but only expect to pay a one-time fee.

Thank you for the kind words.

I think the key to my next situation is making sure the next group of people I work with give me my fair share.

I think this falls into what a lot of people experience is the doubt in not knowing what you are worth. In my area typical entry programming positions are at around 35k/yr. I feel my time and experience puts me well past any entry based position. I am always somewhat unsure of exactly where I stand.

I thing renegotiation is out of the question. I feel even if I renegotiated and it ended up being the perfect compensation/benefits position the day-to-day work environment would become hostile -- and that is something I do not want to happen.

I honestly don't know what I was thinking. -- Well actually I do: Back in 2008, a year and a half into college, I won a local business plan competition and dropped out. (The competition gave office space and some startup capital.) The college I was in was a small community college and the classes weren't that great for the IT field. Going into college I thought everyone would have the same passion I did. Into the first semester I was helping teach my major related courses.

Unfortunately, not having any sense about business and being somewhat misguided by my other founders, the business flopped. I started a second business which did slightly better, and again won the business plan competition again. However our overhead was too high compared to the cashflow coming in. We started working with the company mentioned in this post and I was basically made an initial offer to work exclusively for them. (Mistake.)

Going back to my reasoning: I felt that if this company did go somewhere, that there would no longer be a need or a way to get roadblocked by not having a degree. I am a strong believer in work and passion than a piece of paper. I know I would have never hired any of my classmates from that college.

Although the justification is/was not sound at all. Getting out know is the only way for me to continue to seize my potential. I know continuing down this path will only lead to my own destruction.