Clusterfuck of a thread here. :thumbsup

What a confused mess.

Not an attack here but you must be a much better application designer than I am because there is no way I could give an accurate quote with the information available so far.

Oh, I see. So you are hoping that your half hour is good but you need additional work involved to cover your ass in case you're low on it :thumbsup

If a new programmer is not asking lots of questions then I would suggest you beware of them.

No 2 systems are exactly alike, what you want done, if done properly, involves interacting with your existing system and database. Without knowing what the system looks like (what language it is coded in, whether the code is encoded or not, etc etc) and without knowing what the database looks like there is no way (in my opinion) that someone can give you an accurate read of what effort and time will be required to pull off what you want to pull off.

I have numerous email confirmation/activation routines I have put together across the years and one of them might be a very nice fit for what you want to do but I cannot make that decsion without digging down to get more information.

Nah, there are lots simpler things we do for clients all the time.

Because it's a simple job. User joins, gets e-mail saying "click this link", user clicks link, and is allowed to access member's area. Regardless of software he's using, it should be quite easy, unless it's encoded with IonCube or something.

If for whatever reason the project turns into a pain because he chose a shitty software platform, I'll just add a little extra on my quote for the next project to recuperate. Good clients don't give a shit. They just want a quote, approve it, get the job done, and move onto the next item.

As long as both are happy with the total amount outgoing / incoming, then all is fine. Doesn't matter if it takes me an extra couple hours to complete a certain project, and I add those extra hours onto a future project. Good clients won't care, and they definitely don't want to waste their time bickering over an hour or two of rates with a developer. As long as they know they're well taken care of, and you're honest, they're happy.

In other words, good clients appreciate someone who is good, quick, efficient, and to the point.

No, because I'm not looking for new clients, but am always open to them. If I was looking for new clients, I'd have contact info in my sig. Clients who are only capable of throwing you a couple hundred here and there, generally aren't worth dealing with, and are more of drain than anything. These are the guys who usually try to fuck you around, and squeeze every last free minute they can out of you.

I'd take a project like this on as a test of my abilities, but under somewhat of an understanding, assuming I prove myself to his satisfaction, there'd be at least a $1500 project waiting for me. Otherwise, it's not really worth it.

Sent you an email. I think we may be on the same page "generally" speaking. Everything "except" charging client more next time for job underbid first time but am willing to overlook that comment... or at least interpret it differently then it sounded :thumbsup

You are making some assumptions there.

I agree completely that an email confirmation/activation module is a fairly simple task for the most part.

However, that said, without a clue to the infrastructure involved, that is an assumption. As with any assumption, it may be right and it may be wrong.

This script would have to interact with an existing user database. The output of it, from what the op has said, is a double optin compliant email list, in addition to the user activation functionality.

A double opt in database requires 5 pieces of data minimally:

email address
ip of original opt in
date time of original opt in
ip of opt in confirmation
date time of opt in confirmation

Mod 1:
The first task is making the program send an email at sign up time. In that email would be whatever text the owner wants plus a link to the confirmation page. This could be a link to a static page where the user enters information or it could be to a unique link that when clicked will do the confirmation/activation automatically.

To do this we have to know where to hook in to the sign up routine (probably right after the user table write) and we need to send them to a page telling them that they will get a confirmation email. We also need to make sure that the user record is not activated yet. We also might have to create a unique link generator of some sort.

Mod 2. We need a script to capture the confirmation. This script needs to analyze data passed in from the link that was clicked to pull in the appropruate user data or have a screen for the user to enter their username and password OR email address to pull up the record. Whether the record is pulled up automatically or we pull it up from data that the user enters we then need to wrte the confirmation data somewhere and then mark the user as active so that they can now access the member area.

Database considerations:

Do we modify the existing users table or create a separate ancillary table to hold the new information? If we modify the existing user table then we might create a snowball effect down the line. Are there hard coded queries that additional fields will interrupt? Are there hardcoded backup/restore routines that will lose the fields, etc, etc.

If we go to an ancillary table then we need to modify the sign up routine to write the intial record to our ancillary table or we can create a database trigger so whenever a new user for a free trial is added a record is automatically created in our additional table. Again, there are database considerations to take into acount if we go with a trigger.

Site considerations:

Is the site templated or not ? Do we have to interact with smarty or another template system in some fashion? Is there a designer that will take our code snippets and integrate them properly with the existing layout or are we going to have to do that integration?

The answers to all of these questions affects how much time is involved in this quite simple project.

Just in my ever so humble opinion, of course.

Ooops. misstatement. wiped the post. sorry about that

Carry on ;p

sarettah, you're missing my point. Do you really believe any potential client gives a flying fuck about what you just wrote? Of course not. We're the developers, and it's our job to take care of these things. That's why we get paid.

For example, say a client tells me, "ok, got 10 new boxes online, so please setup SMTPs on them with rDNS, SMTP auth, SPF records, and DKIM. let me know once done!". Do you really think he wants to listen to me explain specific Postfix configuration options to him, or listen to me gripe about how it took much longer to setup DKIM than I originally expected? Of course not. He just wants his SMTP details, so he can plug them into his mailer, and we can continue on with the next project.

Then the next week when he sends specs for a 25 hour project, I'll quote 30 to recuperate my lost time on the SMTPs, he approves it, and we're both happy. Obviously, it takes a good 3 - 6 months of building a business relationship for the client to trust you like this, but once you have that, it's awesome.

Again, that's why I don't look for new clients anymore. Clients like that are 1 in 10,000. I'd rather just work on my own things versus. dealing with the other 9,999. Those few good clients can be quite beneficial though in the long-term.

I didn't write it for a client. I wrote it in response to you, a programmer. ;p

But, that said, if a client has unreasonable expectations, it is also our job to educate them as to what a reasonable expectation is.

Carzydude.

When you get this done and all could you update us and let us know how long it took and how much it ends up costing you?

Thanx in advance, I just always like to know how a story ends :thumbsup

It took a few hours and reason being the code is disorganized. That being said I am extremely happy with how things are proceeding and am going forward with a bunch more sites/tasks because I was satisfied with the guy's ability to decipher a site that was put together poorly from the start and made it happen anyway.

Like I originally said, I wanted somebody who can do the job and not charge outlandish fees and a bunch more work will be given as a result :thumbsup

Good stuff. I am glad it worked out for you :thumbsup