As today's economy continues to flounder, you find more and more programmers/web developers/designers are becoming "contractors" or "consultants" to make ends meet.  After all, 3 months of work is better than nothing, and 3 months of a pay rate your worth is MUCH better than 3 months of unemployment while you watch re-runs of Cheers on Netflix, right? But what are the benefits to the company doing the hiring?

Payroll

We're gonna use a 1 year project as the basis here. Let's say you are building a killer web app that is going to make your company a ton of money. You've decided that you will need 1 more web developer on your team to do the work. Let's break it down.

Making Copies and Buying Laptops

The other thing to keep in mind is expenses that the employee will incur while he/she is under your roof.  Every copy they make, the electricity they use, the coffee they drink, the water they use, the laptop you need to provide them with.  All these thing add up and they add to that $99,550 cost above.  Obviously, if you require the contractor you hire to be on-site every day, they will incur the same costs, but if you hire a contractor to work from their own office - they incur all those costs.

Toby Flenderson is the Devil

Well, at least according to Michael Scott, anyways. Seriously, though, if you hire an employee, you have to abide by the rules of hiring, firing, and laying off that HR has put in place (b/c of the state & federal rules & regulations, of course). There's paperwork to fill out, sign, duplicate, get another signature, and so on when you hire an employee. If the employee doesn't perform up to standards, has a mental issue, or the project gets killed, it won't be do easy to just let them go. With a contractor - all of that goes away. You do some homework at the beginning to find a good contractor (or you hire an agency to do that for you), and then you're off to the races.  If the contractor doesn't perform up to your standards, call the agency and get a new contractor.

Guard the Secrets

Former contractors don't usually blab about the good or bad things they saw while working on your project.  They are building their own business, so they need to keep all clients (good or bad) happy - word of mouth is a very good thing. There are usually contracts they sign that says they won't share secrets.  Former employees might be the weak link here.  Someone who happens to just "work for the man" doesn't think clearly; if you let them go, they might talk about things they saw (just how does that software work). Better yet, they're having beers at a friend's house and they talk about some stuff they've seen.

The Small Business

Chris Harrington Interactive is perfect for a small business that is building a new app or re-freshing their website.  We promise that we won't bug you to become a full-time employee.  We are web developers, that's what we do - and we do it as a contractor; which probably works out best for you :-)

A recent study by Cisco Systems (http://bit.ly/kdTQJ6) shows that by 2015, people that are using the Internet will have an average of five devices to get there. Fifteen percent of that usage will be made by non-PC devices such as smart phones. In 2010, only 3 percent of Internet traffic came from non-PC devices. I know that I use my smartphone to do “quick browsing” - address, phone number, look up how many cheerios are in a box (http://bit.ly/jv5uPd), but I don’t think I do a lot of in-depth browsing. Mainly this is because the screen is just too small compared to my 22 inch monitor that I have sitting on my desk at home.

However, I do look up things that I see, such as web addresses on billboards, in the newspaper, on the radio, or friends/associates tell me about. With that in mind, I want to be able to get a brief idea of what the site is about. I want to be able to make a quick decision for use right then or for later reference (when I get home to my bigger monitor). The problem arises when a website is only optimized for a regular monitor, it won’t look good on my Motorola Droid - I’ll have to scroll left & right and up & down just to find the information I need. That is frustrating!

Things to keep in mind...

When making a mobile version of your site.

1. Landing page should be simple - no need for fancy use of flash, and be sure to limit use of graphics 
2. Easy access to address - most smart phones have a GPS available to them. If the user can find your address, they can find you via GPS. 
3. Click to call button - the user is on a smart phone. Hint: no need to call 411 :-) 
4. Have a link to the “full site” in case they want to see it all on their phone 
5. If the first 4 things are unclear - remember this one: Simple Is Best  

Don’t break your budget

You don’t need to create a new line item in your budget for the mobile version of your site if you keep those 5 things in mind. Chris Harrington Interactive can create a customized mobile version of your site while we respect your budget. Contact us today to find out more!

I started playing with PC’s back in the early 90’s. The girl I was dating bought a computer from CompUSA (back when they had “bricks & mortar” stores), so she could write her papers on it. If I recall correctly, it cost $2000, and it ran Windows 3.1. Why Windows and not an Macintosh? One word - Office.

Now, a lot has changed with regards to PC’s over these 20+ years, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is viruses. I’m pretty sure there’s a country somewhere in Europe or Asia whose #1 export is viruses. Some conspiracy theorists say that the big companies like Norton, McAfee, etc. employ “virus writers” to keep the need for anti-virus programs very high. Talk about how their business model has changed over these 20 years.

• 1990’s - buy the antivirus program once and get free updates once a month for as long as you own the software.
• Early 2000’s - buy the antivirus program once a year and get free updates for a year.
• Late 2000’s - buy the antivirus program online just once, and they automatically renew it every year to the credit card you used to buy it.

I started programming “Active Server Pages” in 1998, and to this day, I still program .NET, so I’ve had every version of Windows since 3.1, and I’ve tried just about every antivirus program. I’m partial to Norton/Symantec on Windows boxes.

Fast forward to the Spring of 2010. I’m now happily married (not the girl in paragraph one, but don’t worry she’s happily married, too, just in case you were concerned), and our oldest daughter is getting ready to enter college and my wife & I said we would buy her a brand new laptop for college. We asked her to do her research and we would buy it for her. She decided on the 13” MacBook Pro for various reasons. Power consumption, availability of “Office compatible” programs, it was not susceptible to viruses, and Apple’s customer service is great. Believe it or not, I was very happy. I didn’t have to worry about getting the 11pm phone call saying “dad, it won’t print, and the computer lab is not open”. Trust me, when you work on Windows all day, you don’t won’t deal with all the “it won’t work”, “it won’t print”, “what the heck is that icon” questions when you get home. To finish this trip down memory lane quickly, within 6 months, all the computers in our house had been swapped out for Mac’s. Yes, I still work on a “dual booted” MacBook Pro that has Windows 7 on it. That’s a story for another time. On to the real reason behind this posting.

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk in the technical world about malware attacking Mac’s:

• Coming Soon to a Mac near you: serious malware (http://zd.net/kqfPvr)
• Apple continues to tell support reps: do not help with Mac malware (http://zd.net/kz6uZA)
• Mac OS X security expert Charlie Miller addresses MAC Defender malware (http://bit.ly/mblYsG)
• Mac Malware: Hype or Real? (http://on.wsj.com/jlZx5F)

I’ve personally seen this malware ad on MSNBC.com in the form of a popup.

Image 1 (Click to enlarge)	Image 2 (Click to enlarge)

• They’ve heard all the Apple apologists rave about the fact that they’ve never once had a virus in all their years of using a Mac
• They’ve read and/or the ads that Apple has put out saying the same thing.
• They heard the sales person who sold them the Apple say the same thing.

When they see the ad in the images above, they “freak” and become confused because everyone told them that Mac’s don’t viruses. A couple clicks later, they’ve bought a program to get rid of the malware. After all, people who don’t know computers well enough, freak at just the mention of a virus. It’s like yelling “fire” in a crowded nightclub.

If you’re a new Mac user - I congratulate you - it’s probably the best computer decision you’ve ever made. The next decision is to get an antivirus program installed on it, so when you see these “fake” ads, you can know they are fake, and simply disregard them.

If you’re a veteran Mac user - get your head of the sand. Get an antivirus program installed on it, so you won’t have to call Apple support and hear them say they cannot help you with your virus issue.

Here’s a list of the bigger companies that make antivirus programs for the Mac:

• Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition (http://bit.ly/kDQvDX)
• Norton for Mac (http://bit.ly/jWSbfy)
• McAfee Internet Security for Mac (http://bit.ly/l41zj5)
• ProtectMac (http://bit.ly/l7dR56)

Apple’s share of the computer market is over 15% now, so the virus writers are starting to go after the unsuspected Mac user with their virus-writing skills.

Be protected, be alert, and if you’re unsure of something you’re seeing - ask a computer friend of yours - don’t just install something because it looks pretty official, like the images above :-)