With time comes experience

[GooglezNvincent]

Well this is basically just to vent a little and share my excitement.

About a year ago I met a guy through my mom (her friends husband) and he does website designing. We talked for a while and he said he would hook me up with a website for around $500! I know great deal, I never though to have a contract with him or any documentation because I was very ignorant of this situation. Time goes by and he is slowly doing my website and very flaky (he blew me off 7 times when we were supposed to meet) He then ignored my e-mails and calls for 3 months and 2 weeks. He then e-mailed me saying that I am immature and entitled and hes not going to do work for me anymore. I was shocked and very saddened because the website was not complete and had many problems. I found an employee where I work that does web designing and hes really chill and is now making me a new website for a very cheap price.

I was very excited only to be brought back down again. My new designer asked me to get a psd file of my logo so he can animate the home page. I contacted the guy who helped me do my logo and he says he is not going to give it to me because it causes copyright problems for him. Thinking that i gave him my idea of what i wanted and he made the logo and i paid him for his services I just thought naturally it was mine and I wouldn't have to worry about copyright problems. He since last week has ignored 2 P.M.'s. I am just saddened by people and how they find ways to weasel in and out of deals just to get some extra cash in their pocket. So now I have a new logo being made (me and my bro) which i think kicks A and is way better than my last logo. Thanks for the relief and venting!

 

[chams1]

Preaching to the choir, man. Preaching to the choir. My website is 2 years old and not-updated in that long for that very same reason. While it does suck, you absolutely live and learn. Just now looking to have it updated and may actually just be scrapping it and starting over. Luckily, I've met a lot of good people who do web design in those 2 years (a couple of which would be willing to take a cham for their services....).

 

[GooglezNvincent]

Preaching to the choir, man. Preaching to the choir. My website is 2 years old and not-updated in that long for that very same reason. While it does suck, you absolutely live and learn. Just now looking to have it updated and may actually just be scrapping it and starting over. Luckily, I've met a lot of good people who do web design in those 2 years (a couple of which would be willing to take a cham for their services....).

Ha ha ha its all about the connections! Yeah, I know how it feels! We get really bummed and then we look for people and then we get really excited for the new possibilities! Good luck with the new website! Scrapping the old one is usually a good decision because we can take the really good parts of the old website and integrate it with the fresh new ideas!

 

[Rocky]

I've been messing around with www.weebly.com and www.wix.com for making it myself. Weebly is cool and very easy to use and wix has a bunch of flash templates that you can use and edit basically everything.

With weebly and wix they are free, but it says .weebly.com or .wix.com, however you can pay to have that removed. Also, what you can do is put a redirect at your main domain (example, www.radiantreptiles.com) and it would redirect it to radiantreptiles.wix.com anytime someone typed in your regular domain.

If you want something done you gotta do it yourself

 

[chams1]

Ha ha ha its all about the connections! Yeah, I know how it feels! We get really bummed and then we look for people and then we get really excited for the new possibilities! Good luck with the new website! Scrapping the old one is usually a good decision because we can take the really good parts of the old website and integrate it with the fresh new ideas!

....Oh yeah, and I've also met a guy that does fabulous booth design/display for shows, businesses, etc. who is/will be helping me out getting some new stuff (in case anyone is interested).....AND he happens to be a forum member.....

 

[chams1]

If you want something done you gotta do it yourself

But what if you're a moron like me when it comes to that stuff?? Plus, I have no time to figure it out. Anything worth doing is worth paying someone else to do.

 

[panthercham]

Thats the trouble when you pay for something but dont have anything in writing or a simple contract to who owns the image or logo.

If you have a receipt or can prove the payment to him you can go to the trouble (and extra expense) of hiring a lawyer but I have been down this path and its not worth it....just learn from it

Depending on your website I would go with a Joomla template as its user friendly (you can change things yourself as you want) and then you can use someone like rentacoder.com to finish it to your liking. Its a bit of a hassle to join and be verified but its well worth it. You can post any job either big or little that you want from a logo, coding to a full website build and they all have examples of their work on the site.

By using a service like this if there is ever any dispute it is all documented through them and rentacoder will actually use one of their arbitrators to come to a settlement. The best thing about it is you enter into a legal agreement with the worker so you are both covered.

I use them all the time....in fact I found my 2 latest full time programmers on here and i have more websites than I can shake a stick at and have been in this business for the last 9 years.

Sitepoint.com is another good site if you just want to hire someone to design you something. Check out their forum and search and educate yourself on service agreements and make sure you have one!

 

[GooglezNvincent]

Thats the trouble when you pay for something but dont have anything in writing or a simple contract to who owns the image or logo.

If you have a receipt or can prove the payment to him you can go to the trouble (and extra expense) of hiring a lawyer but I have been down this path and its not worth it....just learn from it

Depending on your website I would go with a Joomla template as its user friendly (you can change things yourself as you want) and then you can use someone like rentacoder.com to finish it to your liking. Its a bit of a hassle to join and be verified but its well worth it. You can post any job either big or little that you want from a logo, coding to a full website build and they all have examples of their work on the site.

By using a service like this if there is ever any dispute it is all documented through them and rentacoder will actually use one of their arbitrators to come to a settlement. The best thing about it is you enter into a legal agreement with the worker so you are both covered.

I use them all the time....in fact I found my 2 latest full time programmers on here and i have more websites than I can shake a stick at and have been in this business for the last 9 years.

Sitepoint.com is another good site if you just want to hire someone to design you something. Check out their forum and search and educate yourself on service agreements and make sure you have one!

Wow, nice! good info man the site looks legit.

 

[dodolah]

Trevor, unfortunately you get what you pay for.. there a lot of sleazy self proclaim web designer out there. the 500 dollars rate was very cheap.. for how many pages he initially promised you to make?

You are right.. in any case, it is always best to lay out a contract and give each other deadlines.
Ask how the artist work and the steps required for them to finish the work.
ask also about the copyright. Whether they allow you to freely use the logo or the artwork for any type of commercial purposes or they only give you a limited right.

 

[GooglezNvincent]

Trevor, unfortunately you get what you pay for.. there a lot of sleazy self proclaim web designer out there. the 500 dollars rate was very cheap.. for how many pages he initially promised you to make?

You are right.. in any case, it is always best to lay out a contract and give each other deadlines.
Ask how the artist work and the steps required for them to finish the work.
ask also about the copyright. Whether they allow you to freely use the logo or the artwork for any type of commercial purposes or they only give you a limited right.

This is a good thing to know. I wish I did in the beginning, but as I said you live and you learn!

When I first met the web designer we talked and he agreed to make 9 pages that is on the site now, its just glitches and the fact the shopping carts and purchasing don't really work that screws me, along with other problems. Anyways all is well, my friend is legit and we have everything draw up and written out. So stoked for the new logo too! its a rough drawing now but i can totally imagine it and it's going to look amazing!

 

[GoFast]

....Oh yeah, and I've also met a guy that does fabulous booth design/display for shows, businesses, etc. who is/will be helping me out getting some new stuff (in case anyone is interested).....AND he happens to be a forum member.....

NICE!

This is a good thing to know. I wish I did in the beginning, but as I said you live and you learn!

When I first met the web designer we talked and he agreed to make 9 pages that is on the site now, its just glitches and the fact the shopping carts and purchasing don't really work that screws me, along with other problems. Anyways all is well, my friend is legit and we have everything draw up and written out. So stoked for the new logo too! its a rough drawing now but i can totally imagine it and it's going to look amazing!

I am glad you got a new source for your site. As others have said, shake off the last guy, chalk it up as a learning experience, and only look forward.

Even though this new guy is a friend/acquaintance of yours, still be sure that you write down an agreement between the two of you. You definitely want to be sure that if something happens with your friendship, you have all of the master passwords, files, and other pertinent information you will need to do anything to the site including changes, server moves, etc...