Drive recovery

Dave McGuire wrote: As long as it's not a RAID0 array! I've had the opposite experience -- usually getting people to pay up is like pulling teeth. The only exception to this was an electronics design company emailing me completely out of the blue and asking me to make them a bootloader for a PIC microcontroller. "We need this, this and this, and we like your existing bootloader -- make it like that if possible." That was pretty painless, though a bit more formal than usual (I sent them a quote, they sent a Purchase Order and some demo hardware, then I sent an invoice and they paid it). I've stopped doing "informal" development work because there's always some argument about what was requested, what's been delivered or how much it's going to cost. If I could stand up in front of a class full of software development students and give a few pearls of wisdom, this is what I'd say: Don't write a single line of code until you have an outline specification of the application and a formal purchase order (or price quote) sitting on your desk, both agreed to and signed by the customer/client. Make certain you've agreed a deadline (and ideally a couple of part-way milestones) and a price with your client. Otherwise they're almost guaranteed to argue that "you said it'd {be cheaper, take less time, make coffee, walk the dog}." "I don't know what I want but I know I want it" type work is never profitable. Rent-a-Coder is worthless unless you're happy to work for less than a pound an hour. Open-source work looks good on a CV though, especially if it's for a major project (Linux kernel, gcc, ...) [I'm still working on that last one!] Geez, I've only done this "semi-professionally" for about five years, and I already sound like my Large Systems Environments lecturer... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/