Career, commerce and project / task management in questions and answers at the Toaster

Especially for the readers of “Megamind”, our editorial board decided to collect and summarize in one place the most interesting questions across the whole range of topics related to our resource for the last calendar month - April 2016.

It turned out a lot of them, as well as answers on the most acute and topical issues posed and resolved by users of the community.

Want to find out what is being asked on the “Toaster” and how to answer questions in the field of business, career and project management?

Section "E-commerce"

Interest Ask:
')
- “Choice of payment aggregator-2016. Which is better?"

I choose a payment aggregator for a small site (PI). Need a system that would be connected in a reasonable time and with reasonable requirements. The payment interface is also important - so that it is understandable to the user (in some interfaces, up to 70% of failures occur at the payment stage). I studied hundreds of pages of forums, accumulated information that I presented below. It is very difficult to make a decision - everywhere a lot of pitfalls. Share your opinion, please.

First, a brief theoretical summary from one forum:
Most people pay with Qiwi, then in the popularity rating are bank cards, Yandex money and WebMoney.

What I read in the reviews and news:
Webmoney - are experiencing serious problems at the moment due to the check of the Central Bank;
Rbk Money - work well with cards. But do not accept electronic money;
Robokassa - good reviews, but high commission. At the moment, they are experiencing serious problems due to the sanctions against Oceanbank, on which they were based;
Sprypay - a lot of negative reviews;
Interkassa, Liqpay - cooperate with the Ukrainian Privat-Bank, customers in Russia often have problems;
Paypal is a convenient system, but not yet common in the Russian Federation;
Onpay - generally positive reviews, but not very convenient payment interface;
Moneta.ru, Payanyway - good reviews, but demanding (you must specify the legal address on the site, etc.);
Wallet One - in general, good reviews, but there is a complaint that there are often failures;
Qiwi - accept only Qiwi and bank cards;
Yandex.kassa - very slowly considering applications for connection, not interested in small customers;
Oplata.com - no Qiwi;
Paymaster - positive reviews, but a lot of bureaucracy and slow connection.

Yandeks.Kassa - 100%
Applications are considered at the speed of light.
But there, interest kaneshn ... But - all inclusive.

Section "Finance"

Interest Ask:
- “How to make money on the algorithm?”

Hello

Let there are some "global" algorithms, as the recognition of automotive state. numbers or video coding, which in their implementation are ready to bring "tangible" benefits. There is even a serial about the video compression algorithm, i.e. This is a product that can be sold. But even then, two options can be seen: sell in the bud or make the product yourself and sell it ready.

But what about algorithms whose execution leads to a “better” result (faster, more precisely, etc.) compared to existing solutions, but these are “local” algorithms, for example, the square root algorithm, the algorithm of numerical differentiation. How to deal with these algorithms? Can I make money on them? Does anyone buy them, are there selling ways?

Through patenting can? But most likely it could be a couple of lines of code or a couple of mathematical formulas ...

UPD:
Example:
Image binarization - to the end user with a probability of 99.99 ..% will not be needed. But the “good” binarization algorithm comes in handy when solving many computer vision problems, and this is potential commercialization.
But you did binarization and don't want to fit it to anything. You just want to earn on it. How to do it?

UPD 2: <- Solution!
VZVZ comments that “Local” is sold as libraries. What seems like a sound idea.
And the question arises, how many problems should be solved in the library then (and apparently from one area)? And what if one problem is solved?

UPD 3:
Puma Thailand offered through active sales, sending letters, to interest and sell the algorithm to companies. Did anyone have this experience?

Sell ​​the algorithm - is unlikely. But you can try to make yourself this name. Patents, publications in specialized editions, contribution to open-end projects, reports at conferences. You make connections, you will be recognized and, perhaps, invited to some interesting project. In any case, I see it so.

Section "Jurisprudence"

Interest Ask:
- "Are there any VPN services that ignore the requests of law enforcement officers?"

The question in the title of the topic is interested in such information, since I remember how one person spoke to me, saying that there are such services that do not engage in legal content on the Internet. And is it really possible, for example, if you rent a server, make a VPN yourself? on the condition that the owners ignore their request when they request law enforcement? In general, the question is whether there are server tenants or VPN services that ignore all requests for who uses their services from law enforcement officers?

All services ignore the requests of law enforcement officers. For laziness.
All services meet the requirements of law enforcement, because I want to work, and not have problems.

There are many services that claim that they do not keep logs, and do not respond to the demands of law enforcement.
There are also many officials who claim that they do not take bribes.

Somewhere exist, but you will not have a 100% guarantee. Many logs lead, even if they say they do not. It is better to raise your VPN and before that it is very good to think about whether it is worth contacting crime. And be sure to read the book Forensic - computer forensics, to be aware of what will happen if you get into the development of strengths

"Copyright" section

Interest Ask:
- “How is software licensed for Delphi?” How are components licensed? ”

Good day!

Faced an almost moral problem. Quite a long time familiar with Delphi, I have a small project on it, which I slowly saw.

So questions: are there any restrictions on software written in Delphi? That is, suppose I bought a Delphi license, then I can distribute programs written on it? I suspect that there should be no restrictions (tell me if not so).

And if I don’t have a Delphi license, can I somehow distribute this software? Those. Suppose I have a friend who has a license - can I use it Delphi to compile my program? Or do I have Delphi in high school, for example, can I take advantage of this?

More importantly, (since one license can be bought) how is the work on Delphi OpenSource projects being conducted? It turns out that all developers (as well as end users, if only source codes will be distributed, without binaries) should have a licensed Delphi? Are there any workarounds (within the law, of course, because outside the framework of the decision are more obvious)?

But what interests me more is how Delphi components are licensed? That is, Delphi (as I understand it) includes a number of source code, all those plug-ins in uses, as well as a library of visual components. Can I use this code? If there are restrictions on its copying, how is this process regulated? Ie. Is it possible to borrow pieces of code? Units entirely? If you cannot copy a piece of a unit, can you look at it carefully, understand how it works and then write your own, which just looks like? In theory, having a Delphi license, I can freely distribute the programs written on it (I think, correct, if not right).

But what will be, to put it bluntly: someone buys a license, and then writes another IDE (with non-dull wallpaper, aha) to Delphi, which makes maximum use of the source code supplied with the delphi - is this permissible? Is it possible to take the same VCL components and make of them a library (dll) of widgets ala wxWidgets or Qt? Will it be free to distribute?

Maybe there is an article that tells you what to do with Dephi, what can be distributed and what are the limitations.

PS The option “not to use Delphi” is generally considered, but for now I want to understand how things are going with it.

PS Lazarus, alas, is not suitable, because for that particular project, because of which I’m interested, it doesn’t have the necessary features

Update: What happens in this case:
- there is some project that is being transferred from Delphi to Lazarus;
- Lazarus does not have some component that is in Delphi; (for example, some kind of graph display component)

You can do something like a wrapper for this component and put its functionality in the dll. Question: Is it possible to freely distribute this product that uses this dll?

If so, is this practice common? If not, then why? In other words: if there is a large community of people who need certain Delphi components (which can be brought out this way), can they pull them out in such a way and not switch to Lazarus? That is, a set of besolatny, but not open components, which could be used, would be obtained.

www.interface.ru/home.asp?artId=21283

Licenses for development tools are of three types:

A commercial license allows you to: use the product for software development / distribute the developed software / distribute software components (for example, BDE) that are listed in the distribution license.

Introductory (Downloads) license: allows to familiarize and research software / is limited in time (30 days) / does not allow to conduct any development

The Academic license allows you to: Use the product for the purpose of studying in programming courses / Use the product to teach programming / Does not allow development to be carried out, which can be used outside the learning process

Here is the list of available commercial licenses www.embarcadero.com/ru/app-development-tools-store/delphi

Pay attention to the item “License for commercial use”, in which Starter states “With restrictions”, which means:

It can be up to $ 1,000 per year. If you are a small company, you can also use the Starter Edition. Once your company's total revenue reaches $ 1,000, or your team expands to more than 5 commercial license.

The remaining licenses allow you to distribute your software without restrictions.

Section "Internet advertising"

Interest Ask:
- “What if the ad blocker completely blocked our site?”

They never defended against ad blockers and did not punish users who blocked advertisements and did not even display a warning to them. Suddenly, the AdGuard blocker did something that caused our site to become inoperable (the site opens, but links are not clicked).

The blocker is freely distributed directly in the add-ons store in Google Chrome browser. How to correctly complain that Google Chrome removes a malicious addition?

Most likely, there will be no answer to this question, but I will collect the proposed crutches:

1. Update the layout, monitor blocker updates, update the layout again in case of errors.
2. Try to separate the containers with advertising from the content as much as possible, so that the blocker would be easier to block ads.
3. Add tips to the blocker to make it easier for him to block ads.
4. Show users a warning that they have a blocker enabled and the site may not work correctly. Ask to disable the blocker.
5. Watch for updates of all blockers and each time with errors contact the administration of these blockers with a request to correct these errors.
6. Tell users that this blocker is working poorly, ask to switch to another blocker.
7. Send a complaint to the Chrome Store to mislead users regarding the functionality of the blocker and to mindless damage to sites.
8. Remove ads from the site (not an option, because even without ads, websites spoil + we don’t want to remove ads).
9. Initially, do not use bad names of styles, files, domains, etc. (not an option, because we don’t use them, but anyway new rules are added all the time + all bad names are not known initially).
10. Add a hint to the blocker next to those elements that cannot be blocked (not an option, because there are many such elements, although we added hints to some elements).
11. If the site is very popular, there is a chance that the developers of the blockers will listen to the recommendations.
12. Do nothing, leave as is

Section "CRM"

Interest Ask:
- “How to choose a project management system for a small freelance team?”

Good day!

Actually, the question in the post topic, I need a project management system that meets 2 of the following requirements:
1. Time tracking of employees with fixing screenshots from the screens of their monitors.
2. Separation of tasks and employees into groups

I would be grateful for the recommendations. Thank.

Check out worksnaps.com
There are screenshots and time fixation.

Section "Internet"

Interest Ask:
- “How to combine the desire to engage in several areas of IT?”

If you are interested in several areas of IT, such as: system administration, information security and creation, support, promotion of the site, how can this all be combined to make it the main activity and profit?
Is it possible to add to this the desire to do this anywhere with Internet access?

Learn to delegate and manage.
It is not necessary for you personally to do everything with your own hands.
First, you can kill your whole life for this, endlessly work, learn, improve professionalism, etc. I do not think that you want this. You would not want to be tied to the workplace, do your favorite business, while earning income and ensuring your life. If I understand you correctly?
One option is to open a company that provides services in these areas.
Hire employees, though not immediately professionals, but promising, purposeful. And give them the opportunity to develop within your company. So to say - intangible motivation. Invest in your employees, train them (courses / webinars / exchange of experience, etc.). Create them a high-performance workplace and doystoy zp.
Develop yourself, not only in professional terms. But also as a person.
Develop a corporate culture. Develop customer focus not only external, but also internal. Your internal client is your employees. If your employees are not motivated to work with you and work well, sooner or later everything will fall apart.
It is not necessary to start immediately with a staff of 100 people. Even if it will be 2-3 people. If business goes, the company will develop and grow further.
And as you progress, you will have the opportunity to participate, to be a generator of new directions or an observer in each of the directions.
Why am I all this ... having learned to delegate and motivate people, listen and hear them (not to be confused with indulgence), you can make your business independent. Spending a couple of hours of work a day will be able to spend more time for yourself, your life, family. You will be free.

Startups section

Interest Ask:
- “How to make money on teaching programming?”

Comrades, share your experiences and unusual ideas!

have an idea to teach through the website - interactive lessons
and using your mobile application - code editor

An important distinction is its own PL (simplified subset of JS)
and without learning frameworks and libraries - a bias in the basics of programming

I want to create a system from scratch that will willingly be willing to learn
how to make people stunned and I earned my ruble unobtrusively?
how to choose a monetization scheme?
maybe in the beginning to do everything completely free?

I want to make an unusual scheme - take a penny with a huge number of participants
need your ideas - Wishlist, Blackjack, etc.

There are 2 options:
1. You row the loot and teach govnododit
2. You study well, but it is impossible to cut down some money normally.

So that people willingly learn:
1. Do everything pretty
2. To make interesting and easy to understand lessons, without details.
3. Add a social component
4. Add a pathetic description and put yourself as a guru with going wildly
5. Constantly do skidos, and a bit of free content for review
With this approach, the money will be, but to teach people at least something useful, no. Another Popov)

It is worth adding at least something more difficult to such a scheme if / for: in-depth study of OOP, DDD, patterns, SOLID, testing, workflow, CVS. Something that might come in handy at work. Immediately leave those who thought that everything is simple and interesting.

Therefore, either you learn or you earn.

Learn the experience of javarush.ru

Section "Project Management"

Interest Ask:
- “The project has become too big for one developer, what to do?”

I have been working with the same client for several years, I am practically the only developer of its applications. One project began to grow successfully. The client, of course, is happy, and does not want to understand or notice that the resulting load is simply too big for one person. It's one thing when once a week some user declares that “nothing works” - you can safely sort out the problem. But if there are 10 of them per day ...
The client does not take the idea of ​​taking other developers into the team seriously. Type, the budget can not increase. In addition, everything is done on a samopisny framework, which, to put it mildly, will complicate the search for other developers.

How to act? Directly a dead end of some kind.

Go to the hourly rate. Each treatment is charged separately.

You can approach the problem simply: do your job at your own pace. Inevitably, unsolved problems in the queue will start to accumulate, the client will inevitably be interested in why there are so many “hangouts” in the bug tracker. And you, in return, collected statistics for the last week-month-year: there were so many requests before, I had time, but now there are N times more, and I still have only two hands. And it is already possible to reasonably and convincingly raise the issue of expanding the team and the like.

As to the impossibility to increase the budget, this is clearly contrary to the thesis. One project began to grow successfully. If it grows really successfully, then revenues from it should grow accordingly. And if they do not grow, then this is already a signal to the client that he is engaged in garbage.

if before problems with loads did not occur - take hosting or VPS with large parameters.
if there are many clients, it’s elementary to connect freelancers

In addition, everything is done on a samopisny framework

it is quite easy to do it - lay out the framework in open access and advertise, at least a dozen of three will find trained specialists with their own tips. Here you have a live potential freelancers.

Advertise on social networks and specialized services such as TOSTER - test your framework

Raise the bet, he will agree, you have a trump card "samopisny framework." Hire an assistant, pay him some of the money, unload yourself. Enter the subscriber once a month. the amount of money from the client will be received, (correction of errors, online functional support, etc.). This amount will allow you to hire assistants with a salary, and this is a guarantee that they will not be thrown.

Services Section

Interest Ask:
- “What is the minimum set of functionality for a business card site?”

The task - having knocked to the client and having communicated, throw in the link to the page for ... (is this why they are sent to the sites?) And what should he see there and what can he do there?

At least one main page with feedback form. The rest is already necessary to finish at the request of the customer

Here in two words you will not tell.

Personally for me - 100% should be contact details, feedback form, description of the scope of activities - i.e. who you are and what you do.
And then the sections depend on the sphere - maybe a gallery, a portfolio - if you are a person of creativity (an artist is there, I don’t know, a designer), maybe a text section with articles, or a portfolio in the form of completed websites, etc.

I think you get my point

You can post a business card on the site: name, contacts, location or “how to find us”, a list of services with or without prices, a brief history of the company, description of activities, gallery of works, customer / client feedback, feedback. Maybe even an online chat for advice. Yes, whatever you wish, in general. It depends on the scope of activities and what you want as a result of the site.
The minimum set, in my opinion:
Name
Sphere / Activity
Location
Contacts

#example
LLC "Pupkin and Co."
Entrance / interior doors
Pupkin, st. Pupkina, 3
Specialist in working with customers
Vasya Pupkin, tel. +7 (000) 000 0000
E-mail: pupkin_forever@mail.ru

Section "Analytics"

Interest Ask:
- “How to predict the next date of the client's visit?”

There is an array of distances between the dates of visit by the client, the type, for example:
came in 5 days, then after 5, after 10, 7, 20, 30, etc.

It is necessary to predict on the basis of this series when the client may come next time (it is necessary to track when the client did not arrive at the estimated time - that is, there is a chance that he will become a lost client and he should send an SMS reminder.) This is about a beauty salon where customers go quite periodically.

I tried Median, arithmetic mean.

Are there other methods or formulas? I would like the methodology to ignore cases when the client went on vacation or something else.

Upd: I would like a solution easier, without neural networks.

I help a friend automate a beauty salon. So, for each service he set the time after which it is necessary to call the client and invite him to repeat the procedure.
Simple and tasteful.

nirvimel — - , . — - , . (, ) — - . , — , , — (, , ). .

, — — www.coursera.org/learn/vvedenie-mashinnoe-obuchenie . — Python numpy, sklearn pandas — - . , - .

, , . , , . . , - , ( ), .

«»

An interesting question:
- “How to quit correctly?”

Please advise how to quit correctly.

At the current moment:
- Salary is gray, white salary is negligible
- Vacation is not spent

Task:
1. Resign and get paid for vacation
2. Ideally, do not work two weeks.

In what sequence, what statements to write? (to be dismissed, to leave, to get sick?)
I need to get a new job in 2 weeks, I'm afraid they won't let go of the old one.
Interested in how to do with the greatest comfort for yourself.
Other aspects of the question, please do not touch.

1) . , , . , , .
2) 2 . , 2 . . 2 . — . , 2 . . , .
3) .
4) , . . , , .

. . .

.
, , 14 , .

Section "Business"

Interesting question:
- “To whom to retrain from a programmer?”

Hello! I work as a developer for over 5 years. He started in a small studio as a designer-maker, then he learned PHP, SQL and JS and went into freelancing, a couple of years ago he became engaged exclusively in front-end development. Now I clearly understand that I have cooled down to programming and keeps me here only the need for money, therefore, I consider changing the field of activity to an adjacent one. In addition to web development, there is a good experience in the design of interfaces, which also do not really want to lose. In which areas can I use my current knowledge? Only PM comes to mind, but I do not quite understand the requirements necessary for working in this specialty.

! , >80% , « ».
, .
: , . , , . .

.

«»

Interesting question:
- “How to convince a client to order a site in a crisis?”

In a crisis, I don’t want to risk anyone, but how to convey to a client that his current crappy site burns money in Kazakhstan and it’s better to spend money on a normal site than to die slowly.

It can be explained by what the client best understands - in money and specifics.
That is, not just “your site is shit, you lose money, I’ll make you on Bitrix and you get rich,” but “support for this costs so much, it’s a lot, after processing it’s so much (or not needed at all)”

, , , , « ». . . , . . . , . « », .
, . .
, . .
Do you know what prompted one of my customers to order? Partners laugh! Laugh, Karl! What a profit, what money ... There's not about it at all. And do not need any profit from it. Just do something else!
Standardly, the first meeting is just needed in order to understand what the client needs. Need a profit - with your numbers. I need an image - with your design. It happens that you need competence - with you a small lecture on CMS, SEO, and so on. You will fall in need, - further business of technology.

Task Management Section

Interesting question:
- “How to check the quality of the layout for the layout maker?”

Hello.
What are the methods to check the quality of the layout of a person who is not imposing, but is familiar with html, css and in general with the code?

Are there online services other than validator.w3.org ?

- — https://habrahabr.ru/post/114256/

« »

Interesting question:
- “How to control external communications of employees?”

In search of a system for internal use and communication among themselves, employees have to partially use extra-corporate uncontrolled communication management tools from the management. In a conversation with employees from other organizations, I find out that they distribute up to 80% of official information through “their means”, that is, not everything is fixed in the corporate environment. In this case, there are no intentions, so as not to shine once again - if everything is good or not a strong problem, then you can bring the discussion inside the organization. In this case, the authorities as it were in the know. The question is - what about the security of which are aware and signed in contracts and contracts?
— , , , — . . , , … .
. , , , . ?

:
1. —
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. . .
7. . — . !

, , , , . .
, . -, .

Up to date
— , , , — .

It became very interesting how it ended. If after that she was not even fired, but simply punished with a fine, then you have a guide in the organization where you drive. If employees can all fall into the manager's office and squeeze it into some kind of indulgence, then it can end up very sad for the company.

Employees harm the company on the principle of "how do you treat me, and I to you." Probably the company offended them with something. Check whether they have the motivation to work honestly. Is there fairness in the reward? How does the company relate to their proposals?
The basic principle of automation is feedback. Find out what employees care about and never punish for criticism, but on the contrary - encourage (for constructive, of course, not for demagoguery).

Ask and learn on the Toaster !