Reply to: Intranet

[NewbieContractor]

Thanks guys, Im going to look at some figures and let you know... ive got a feeling will be in order!!

[Stan]

how much should i roughly be looking at charging!?!

How long do you think it will take you to do this project? How much is your time per hour worth?

[errorista]

I'd say naff all.

Webdesigners are ten a penny. Good ones are not but this is only a intranet, not a global website.

agreed

Ten a penny = Flash 'developer'

Good = Serverside and database developer

2c

[Sockpuppet]

I'd say naff all.

Webdesigners are ten a penny. Good ones are not but this is only a intranet, not a global website.

Most places will create you a five page site for £50 ish. I'd say £10/page and no more depending on if they give you the content.

If its a 20 page site £200 and that should take you no more than a day.

[chicane]

More work than i thought so i will be charging for this now...He has asked me to come up with a price..

how much should i roughly be looking at charging!?!

If you're genuinely confident that you have the skills to take on this job (and I have my doubts if you don't mind me saying), spend an initial week at an agreed cost interviewing him and his staff to actually understand the purpose of the proposed intranet/extranet, and the benefits it will deliver to his business.

Then, write up a detailed document covering the functionality of the proposed solution, work out how much you want to charge for it, and how long it will take. Review this document with him (and staff if necessary), making sure that he actually understands what you're trying to communicate (acknowledgements of "uh huh" do not necessarily indicate understanding). Once you've got agreement from him, get to work on the solution and regularly show him the progress of your work. Keep an eye on timescales and feature requests - "scope creep" is likely to be your worst enemy.

Alternatively, just get a brief idea of the direction he wants to go in, and start work on an hourly rate. However, this approach is likely to end in tears, if he even agrees to it (which is unlikely in an SME scenario).

[chubba]

Oh My Word.

And this guy is your mate? Hope he stays friends with you when you take twice as long to set it up as you quote for and it breaks within weeks of it being finished

Seriously. You want us to tell you how to set it all up and then put the quote together for you too? How many hours? Multiply this by your hourly rate. Job done.

[NewbieContractor]

Thanks for all this guys..

Ive decided to base it more as an extranet, and build of the website.

More work than i thought so i will be charging for this now...He has asked me to come up with a price..

how much should i roughly be looking at charging!?!

[Ardesco]

If you want to fire and forget you are better off using some of the newbie admin guides to set up a LAMP box. Linux requires very little interaction to continue to serve pages, whereas windows will auto update itself a couple of times, change random things for no apparent reason and stuff will stop working now and then requireing a reboot.

At least that is my experiance with windows as a non-IIS web server.

[PerlOfWisdom]

If they don't have linux skills, you can set up Apache, mysql, perl/php etc on a windows box. Doesn't have to be windows server operating system.

[Cadbury]

If they have a windows 2003 server just install Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sh...503841033.aspx) You can be pretty much up and running straight away and it can be branded as need. Oh and it's free

[Ardesco]

How hard would a linux based server be for him to set up?

Good set of tutorials for the newbie linux admin here:

http://www.howtoforge.com

will take you through the basic linux install and how to set up apache php and mysql too.

[Cowboy Bob]

Download Centos / BlueQuartz iso, burn it to disc, boot from it on spare PC, add IP etc, give it a name. 5 mins later you have a working web server all the trimmings (PHP, MySQL etc). Nice web interface to set it up your site(s), couldn't be easier.

http://www.nuonce.net/bluequartz.php

Thanks for the link. I've been using CentOS, but didn't realise there was a version with the RaQ frontend. I may have to play with that myself...

[errorista]

How hard would a linux based server be for him to set up?

Its not just a matter of running a webserver. Its about delivering a usable intranet. . . configuring changes and features and integrating with a database may also be required depending on what the end user wants.

Doing this will probably take more than a weekend. To build a 'fire and forget' system requires planning. This would appear to be in short supply considering the circumstances described above.

[Cliphead]

How hard would a linux based server be for him to set up?

Download Centos / BlueQuartz iso, burn it to disc, boot from it on spare PC, add IP etc, give it a name. 5 mins later you have a working web server all the trimmings (PHP, MySQL etc). Nice web interface to set it up your site(s), couldn't be easier.

http://www.nuonce.net/bluequartz.php

[DanTheMan]

How hard would a linux based server be for him to set up?