Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
How much would XYZ web site cost?
March 13, 09I get this question a lot: “How much would it cost to make a web site like ‘XYZ Stuff!’, except with A, B and C?”
It’s not a bad question, and honestly, ask any one who’s built one or more sites before, and you’ll get a different answer from each. However, I just recently responded to one such question, and thought I’d share with you, in case you were wondering the same thing. It might not help or be applicable to your case, but just in case it is…enjoy =]:
Q: How much would it cost to build a site like [small-to-medium sized somewhat-custom web site]?
A: To answer your question, you could build what you need for free, with just a monthly hosting cost ($5-$50) to keep it running, using tools like Mambo, Drupal, or Joomla (a Google search should bring up lots of info on these). However, these free or low-cost solutions are pretty complicated and buggy to get running just the way you want them, so you always trade cost for comfort, pretty much. If you had someone build what you want it shouldn’t cost more than 5-10K to get the basics up and running, but you’ll be paying more every month to get small changes, bug fixes and new features. Another option is looking at higher-end services like Kick Apps, a Facebook community or a YouTube group to house what you want to do.
To be honest, there are a lot of easy options for an individual to post and share docs, videos, blogs and chats with everyone in the world – but they’re not very customizable. There are also lots of free tools for businesses to use to put together custom experiences (like the example given), but you have to be really technical and patient to figure them out.
Probably the most economical solution would be to find someone or a small web development group to set up a Joomla, Mambo or Drupal site like your example site has, then teach you how to keep it running. You might still pay $5-$10K for it, but you’re more likely to get something that will last longer for your needs than a custom-built web site would. I don’t think either of those 3 tools would have a problem hosting or storing videos for your combines.
As always, your mileage may vary, but I would be wary of anyone who promises to build an entire web experience from scratch for less than $1000, and especially wary of someone who promises you an exact duplication of a moderately successful, well-running web site for less than $20K. These numbers, of course, depend on what the site does and who does it, but honestly, would you spend 3 months of your life to make $500, or would you trust your business to a web site built in 8 hours?
Anyway, hope this is useful. If not, I’m always open to other opinions and perspectives =]
Bryan
Monster Commute a free steampunk webcomic about traffic
February 17, 09From the “oh FINALLY” file…
February 15, 09They don’t make em like they used to
February 9, 09I think my house has gremlins …or maybe critters.
Things keep breaking all over the place. Old things. New Things. Complicated things. Simple things. Things that shouldn’t break. Things that broke before, were fixed, and are now broken in a completely different place.
Broken crap.
All over the danged house.
What I hate the most…what *eats* at me…is that I can’t fix any of them.
I have a garage full of (mostly non-broken) tools – very expensive and well-cared-for ones, at that – yet all the king’s screwdrivers and all the king’s hammers cannot put humpty the dishwasher together again.
Here’s a very short list of the things that broke – all by themselves, look-ma-no-hands – in the past year:
- Dishwasher – those little plastic wheelie things keep falling off the racks after snapping in half
- Oven – The heating element burst into an awe-inspiring display of fireworks and melted right through itself. I thought there was an arc-welder in my kitchen
- Lawn mower – The steel bolt that holds the left side of the handle on broke, so now it mows in circles
- Heater – Our 5 year old heat furnace blew a propeller. No idea how or why, it just rusted right through.
- Garbage disposal – Started leaking. Mind you – it’s the third one we’ve installed in 4 years
- Fire alarms – Every 2-5 months, on a random day of the week, half of them go off by themselves, mostly during naps, dinner, showers and other mostly inappropriate times. Changed the batteries and vacuumed every six months.
- Refrigerator – Don’t get me started. Plastic doohickies and thingamabobs fly off constantly. The water dispenser stopped working for a month, soon after the whole cooling element was replaced.
- Washing machine – Recently started spouting water when we wash pillows
- Laptop – Compaq or HP. One or the other. It’s our fourth one, and died last month just like all the others – internal power supply is completely shot.
- Lawn Umbrellas x 2 – Fell over once and the spokes broke. Whee.
- Vacuum Cleaner – The handle broke clean off. Snapped right in two. I swear I didn’t hit it, and I’m pretty sure all we did was *vacuum* with it.
- Stereo receiver – Volume now works backwards. Clockwise turns it down, counter-clockwise turns it up.
Now, we don’t buy always buy the most expensive stuff – we tend to go middle of the road + a little more, most of the time. Almost all of the above are name-brand products known (more or less) to be respectable.
What I would really hope (in my wildest dreams) is that some enterprising company (or companies) out there can figure out a way to market and sell products that last longer than 2-3 years.
Then again, maybe my expectations are too high.
Bleah.
Never ceases to amaze me…
February 6, 09Every single time you sit down to do something you haven’t done in awhile, it takes 2-3 hours to get everything situated just the right way again. I’m missing the Tekton font, and I have NO idea what I did with it.
*sigh*
How do I miss thee…
February 4, 09I finally quit smoking again the other day. This time, I just did it completely cold.
No patch.
No gum.
No nuthin.
Saturday afternoon at 4:06 pm, I handed my wife all of my credit cards and cash and quietly said, “can you hang on to these for me, I’m out of smokes and I’m not getting any more.” I haven’t smoked since.
Yeah, sounds pretty ballsy, right?
Seventy three minutes later, there are 73 carpenter bees crawling around inside my head, each of which is missing nicotine quite severely.
Those commercials showing people quitting and forgetting to do the most basic tasks are 100% accurate. The one where the lady can’t figure out how to back out of her driveway – she keeps turning the wrong way to look over her shoulder, and takes out the neighbor’s trash cans – that’s my favorite. It’s like that.
The first few days are the worst.
It’s not that you forget how to do simple things. It’s like having someone follow you around, throwing tennis balls at you so incessantly that you can’t remember how to put one foot in front of the other.
The most difficult part about quitting smoking isn’t *not having a cigarette*. The most difficult part is *not buying them*. If you’re in a non-smoking environment, where no one else smokes or has cigarettes, and you have no way to immediately acquire a cigarette – it’s easy to stop. You have no choice.
It’s so difficult to avoid buying cigarettes because even if they cost $30 a pack, you can always convince yourself that you’ll just have one and throw the pack away afterwards. There is also no immediate or obvious consequence to buying a pack, other than the hit to your wallet. Oh yeah…the wallet part, and of course the total sense of failure and disappointment. But hey, who’s counting =].
If you care to know what it feels like, here’s the best analogy I can think of:
Using a single thread, voluntarily tie (with a slip knot) your left hand behind your back. Then pay a few friends (or enemies) to throw tennis balls at you non-stop for three days. Try to catch or deflect them all with one hand.
The analogy works because it’s ultimately up to you to keep your hand tied up, and excruciatingly tempting to give up on the whole thing after the fifth ball hits you in the neck.
At any rate, the bees aren’t so active today. It’s been four full days now (or is it five?). I’m feeling better and a little more “with it”, and I’m really happy my family is happier about the whole thing.
It’s worth it, just for those smiles. “I’d rather have grumpy than smoky, Daddy” – that’s what my daughter says.
Bring on the tennis balls…keep em comin’. Feel like Bonnie Franklin singin ‘One Day at a Time’…
Whoops! I forgot to mention
February 4, 09It completely slipped my mind, but I was going to write this awhile back:
I finally rejoined the start-up world and joined PrepChamps last friday! I’m starting on Monday and I can’t wait to see how it goes =]
I LEGO N.Y. – Abstract City Blog – NYTimes.com
February 3, 09I LEGO N.Y. – Abstract City Blog – NYTimes.com.
I can’t help it. I love Legos, and this is…simply…amazing.
