Comments on vWorker Latest News Blog: Rent a Coder / VWorker going to cloud computing in...

2010-06-18T07:56:38.399-04:00

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Joe, >>I have comment about Emran's com...

2010-05-10T22:54:21.130-04:00

Joe,

>>I have comment about Emran's comment. As a buyer, sometimes, I get these $20 bids on work that I know will take a whole lot of time to do properly. Those $20 bidders are ridiculous. And they are almost always newbies. It would be nice to eliminate some newbies by filtering them out.

I personally would like to see a quick way to setup filters.

For example I want to set up these filters:
- Allow only coders who have over 20 ratings on site to place bids
AND/OR
- Allow only coders who have an a cumulative average of 9.5 average on this site
AND/OR
- Allow only coders who have an average of 10.0 average on this site on their latest 5 projects
.......
or something of the like ..

That is a good idea. As a side note: I often tell sellers that just because a person bids low, it doesn't mean the buyer will choose them (and not to waste their time getting upset). You're a good example of a buyer for whom that's true. This has been been appended to the earlier suggestion to add tighter filters for coders as well on projects. Thanks.

Ian

Mr. Bluffspot, >>Hi Ian - on being an affi...

2010-05-10T22:49:32.443-04:00

Mr. Bluffspot,

>>Hi Ian -
on being an affiliate of the site... the idea of bringing in Coders who may not have heard of the site to bring in more outsourced people - hence, being able to keep the project on vWorker instead of the Customer bouncing to elance or guru. We know that most customers often post a project on several sites - that being said, if it were the coder that found vWorker through my aff link - it would only seem fair to gain a portion of that profit from their first job. Much like getting a portion from the Buyers.

I see what you're saying. So perhaps half the bounty could go to the employer referrer and half to the worker, or something similar. We will definitely consider it...thanks for the idea.

>>Also - would love to see a couple more items I had requested in the past.

>>1. Notes - the ability to keep a small 250 character note on "Favourite Coders" - often I'll save the profile of (example) a Graphic Artist - but not remember why I thought enough to save their profile - same goes for clients - would be ideal to blip a little reminder of why they were important enough to save.

2. Ability to Block/Ban Clients/Coders. Often we receive requests from clients we wouldn't ever work for or through their background reason for ourselves why not work to for them - same with a vWorker - would be fantastic to block them from responding to our projects or contacting us for work.

Both of these are good ideas and already on the list. Thanks.
Ian

YanKleber, >>Lots of server errors, SQL fai...

2010-05-10T17:41:16.560-04:00

YanKleber,

>>Lots of server errors, SQL failure and wrong pages, to not mention the usual delay on response to searches and load simple text pages.

>>Hopefully, I will not be around too very often to feel myself bothered with that as I am busy with outside projects

This sounds less like a specific request for help and more like venting. But if you would actually like some assistance on any connection problems you are having getting to the site, please contact us via the phone or email.

Ian

YanKleber, (part 2) >>About payments - I thi...

2010-05-10T17:40:52.906-04:00

YanKleber,
(part 2)
>>About payments - I think that RAC should consider to expand to more options. When I started working with RAC, my first payment was a NY check that I couldnt withdraw anywhere (I am from Brazil). Hopefully I had an american customer, so I sent the check to him by regular mail, he deposited the check in his account and then sent the money for me through MoneyGram. Nowadays, fortunatelly, I get my money through PayPal and then use XOOM to transfer it to my bank account in Brazil. But I keep thinking about several other coders that have similar problems in other countries.

Yes, if you started with us several years ago, we had only 2 or perhaps 3 payment methods. And since then those have expanded to many more including:
PayPal
Western Union
Snail Mail
Payoneer

And for those countries who can't receive the above:
Intl. Priority Mail
Intl. wire

>>Finally, I don't understand that crazy RAC thing about to make an international phone call to me to confirm if I am really buying a service. A couple times I needed to act as a buyer and performed scrowings with my credit card and then someone from RAC made a phone call to my house - it was very stressful because I couldnt be in home and my wife do not speak english.

I apologize that it was stressful. At the same time you were not singled out. Every single buyer on the site goes through the same process and it is to prevent payment fraud and increase the ability of coders to trust buyers who have been verified. And we warned you in advance (both in your welcome email and then when you posted your project and then when you ran through your first payment) what was going to be done, so that you could make arrangements if you needed to.

Ian

YanKleber, >>After to read a few comments, ...

2010-05-10T17:40:46.269-04:00

YanKleber,

>>After to read a few comments, and talking now about RAC policies, I have a few comments about it too. I like the way RAC protects coders mostly of times

Thanks.

>>but I don't like the way as RAC step aside in other situations. Nowadays I have almost 200 projects concluded, and as far as I can remember them only time I got a rating that wasn't a 10 was when I picked a project from a begginer buyer (it was her first project), and regardless the fact I have done on time everything that she asked me, she gave me a 6 just because I have used red letters in a message and then she thought I was 'shouting' to her. Because this misunderstanding, I got my overall rating screwed forever. In that time I have asked help for RAC in order to fix that, but RAC guys just told me 'sorry, pal, but we cannot do nothing about that'. I really felt frustrated about this, and think that RAC actually do not mind about mediate situations unless their comission is in jeopardy. Once the project has been accepted and they got their cake slice, everything else is just 'details'.

First, YanKleber, please keep your language appropriate to a business setting...or we won't be continuing to converse. Your complaint is that you were "sc#$ed forever" by this 6 rating given to you by a buyer. This brings to mind a number of thoughts:

1) You're complaining this incident caused you irrepairable damage early in your career, but also revealed that you won 200 projects. There are many coders who wish their careers were so damaged as to win 200 projects.

2) Even if #1 were not true: what you're saying is not totally accruate on what RAC's policy is. RAC will change ratings when it is appropriate (see: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/RatingAndRatingCommentChangePolicy.asp)

As an example, we will interfere if the buyer rates you incorrectly (i.e. gives you a poor rating, which is a 3 rating of below) on a project you completed . It's important to understand that this is because that is factually verfiable as incorrect. However at the same time, we only change factually verifiable errors. It is impossible and not desirable to change things that are not (such as opinions). If you have an opinion that a buyer you're working with is just an "average" buyer...even if their own opinion is that they are "perfect 10"...we cannot tell you that you are wrong and the buyer is right. Both of you are entitled to your opinions. Our role is to be as transparent as possible and show everyone what the opinions are, and let them make their minds up for themselves.

The same is true in the opposite situation. Perhaps you felt you were a perfect-10, but for some reason this buyer's opinion of you was that you were just "average". If so, that buyer has a right to express that opinion.

3) Even if #1 and #2 were not true: one bad rating will not ruin a record. Many people recover from ratings as low as -3 and go on to succesful careers by just working a little harder in the next project and not doing the same mistake. In your case, you did not even have it that bad: you did not get a bad rating because you completed the project, and it obviously could not have completed ruined you forever, since you went on to win 200 projects.

(continued in part 2 due to size limit)
Ian

After to read a few comments, and talking now abou...

2010-05-08T16:34:59.529-04:00

After to read a few comments, and talking now about RAC policies, I have a few comments about it too.

I like the way RAC protects coders mostly of times, but I don't like the way as RAC step aside in other situations. Nowadays I have almost 200 projects concluded, and as far as I can remember them only time I got a rating that wasn't a 10 was when I picked a project from a begginer buyer (it was her first project), and regardless the fact I have done on time everything that she asked me, she gave me a 6 just because I have used red letters in a message and then she thought I was 'shouting' to her.

Because this misunderstanding, I got my overall rating screwed forever. In that time I have asked help for RAC in order to fix that, but RAC guys just told me 'sorry, pal, but we cannot do nothing about that'.

I really felt frustrated about this, and think that RAC actually do not mind about mediate situations unless their comission is in jeopardy. Once the project has been accepted and they got their cake slice, everything else is just 'details'.

About payments - I think that RAC should consider to expand to more options. When I started working with RAC, my first payment was a NY check that I couldnt withdraw anywhere (I am from Brazil). Hopefully I had an american customer, so I sent the check to him by regular mail, he deposited the check in his account and then sent the money for me through MoneyGram.

Nowadays, fortunatelly, I get my money through PayPal and then use XOOM to transfer it to my bank account in Brazil. But I keep thinking about several other coders that have similar problems in other countries.

Finally, I don't understand that crazy RAC thing about to make an international phone call to me to confirm if I am really buying a service. A couple times I needed to act as a buyer and performed scrowings with my credit card and then someone from RAC made a phone call to my house - it was very stressful because I couldnt be in home and my wife do not speak english.

I think that RAC should review these points.

These are cheerful news, but... I prefer to see fi...

2010-05-08T16:11:12.750-04:00

These are cheerful news, but... I prefer to see first and then party later.

I have been a RAC coder for 7-8 years now, and I cannot remember of one single time that I have had a smooth experience in their website.

Lots of server errors, SQL failure and wrong pages, to not mention the usual delay on response to searches and load simple text pages.

Talking now about a complete and drastic change in a website that couldn't be tuned and barely behaved as a beta version along almost a decade, sounds very scary for me - from the point of view of the user.

I believe that RAC staff is full of good intentions, but based on my past experience as a RAC user, I think that it is going to be more like a big disaster than a remarkable improvement.

Hopefully, I will not be around too very often to feel myself bothered with that as I am busy with outside projects, but talking for whose ones that have not the same luck and depends on RAC for living, I sincerelly hope that I am wrong.

I second Mr. Bluffspot's two requested feature...

2010-05-07T18:40:22.506-04:00

I second Mr. Bluffspot's two requested features:

1. Notes - the ability to keep a small 250 character note on "Favourite Coders"

2. Ability to Block/Ban Clients/Coders.

Hi Ian - on being an affiliate of the site... th...

2010-05-07T18:26:16.069-04:00

Hi Ian -
on being an affiliate of the site... the idea of bringing in Coders who may not have heard of the site to bring in more outsourced people - hence, being able to keep the project on vWorker instead of the Customer bouncing to elance or guru.

We know that most customers often post a project on several sites - that being said, if it were the coder that found vWorker through my aff link - it would only seem fair to gain a portion of that profit from their first job. Much like getting a portion from the Buyers.

Also - would love to see a couple more items I had requested in the past.

1. Notes - the ability to keep a small 250 character note on "Favourite Coders" - often I'll save the profile of (example) a Graphic Artist - but not remember why I thought enough to save their profile - same goes for clients - would be ideal to blip a little reminder of why they were important enough to save.

2. Ability to Block/Ban Clients/Coders. Often we receive requests from clients we wouldn't ever work for or through their background reason for ourselves why not work to for them - same with a vWorker - would be fantastic to block them from responding to our projects or contacting us for work.

Hi Nick, >>Hi Ian - great job and am lookin...

2010-05-07T12:28:17.412-04:00

Hi Nick,

>>Hi Ian - great job and am looking forward to it.

Thanks...me too.

>>Big question on affiliate links - will there be payments for bringing new coders on board in the near future - as well - any new banners?

There will indeed be new banners. As far as coders, we pay affiliate payments based on the income you bring in. Unlike other sites that charge coders a subscription fee, we don't. So there would be no income to split with you. Hope that makes sense.

Ian

Hi Ian - great job and am looking forward to it. B...

2010-05-07T02:08:30.370-04:00

Hi Ian - great job and am looking forward to it. Big question on affiliate links - will there be payments for bringing new coders on board in the near future - as well - any new banners?

Nick.Clark
RAC Provider
www.webtemplex.com

Ian, I did not ask for this to be done for free by...

2010-05-06T17:08:11.071-04:00

Ian, I did not ask for this to be done for free by the coder or anything remotely like that. I want to pay him/her to get it compatible. As you can see, I already paid for the previous version in 2009.

I wanted the same guy to make the changes since I will not need to explain to him what is needed. I was just showing how important that "feature" was to me.

Arslan, >>Wao, this blog is actually very e...

2010-05-06T17:06:13.858-04:00

Arslan,

>>Wao, this blog is actually very enlightening So since we are talking openly here, any chance of my account getting unbanned IAN? It was banned because of confusion and misconceptions. I hope since Ian is talking more frankly here, I'd be able to explain things in a better way. Arslan

This is offtopic to the discussion. If you have an issue with your account, you can call in or email a facilitator. If we made a mistake we'll fix it, but on the other hand, if no mistake was made then your account will have to remain banned.

Ian

JoeSmith, >>It seems that most of these app...

2010-05-06T17:01:34.683-04:00

JoeSmith,

>>It seems that most of these apps are not able to login. Even though, I first will log in, and clicked on remember me.

That is very strange. Is the https/ssl the problem? If so, this product says it supports https:
http://www.surfoffline.com/

>>I did pay someone $200 to create a app specific for RAC (Bid Request Id: 1283097). There were some changes on the HTML make up of the site and not it is not working well. I tried to contact the coder but got no response.

I see you posted it back in 2009, so yes the site has changed since then. Since you released funds 100% we can't help you with arbitration...but even if we could, it wouldn't be fair since the coder did deliver to his contract at the time.

You could post it out to someone else if you wished.

>>I wish there was a way where RAC itself allowed for an organic ONE click backup on my pc.

Thanks for the suggestion...it's been added to the suggestion box. Just to let you know, this is not something that many others have asked for (in fact you are the first). With over 500 items in just our short list and many, many more requests beyond this, more users would have to want it as well in order to prioritize it higher.

Ian

Ahsan, (same as Haik since your message was essent...

2010-05-06T16:20:58.409-04:00

Ahsan, (same as Haik since your message was essentially the same).

Ian

MT, >>I would also suggest to atleast add M...

2010-05-06T16:20:24.794-04:00

MT,

>>I would also suggest to atleast add MoneyBookers as an additional payment gateway as it Supports Pakistan and is much cheaper than western union. Western Union not only takes a high free but also offers much less exchange rate. I vote for MoneyBookers.

I appreciate your feedback. At the same time, this is not a situation where any of us have a vote. We're waiting on MoneyBookers to reply to show that they can address the 2 issues...which is going to determine what happens.

Ian

It seems that most of these apps are not able to l...

2010-05-06T16:08:41.490-04:00

It seems that most of these apps are not able to login. Even though, I first will log in, and clicked on remember me.

I did pay someone $200 to create a app specific for RAC (Bid Request Id: 1283097). There were some changes on the HTML make up of the site and not it is not working well. I tried to contact the coder but got no response.

I wish there was a way where RAC itself allowed for an organic ONE click backup on my pc.

Joe, perhaps someone else will post. However, wha...

2010-05-06T15:57:52.997-04:00

Joe, perhaps someone else will post. However, what exactly didn't work with those programs with RAC?
Ian

Looks none of these work on RAC ... If anybody kno...

2010-05-05T23:11:17.752-04:00

Looks none of these work on RAC ... If anybody knows a way to do it, I would appreciate it.

Also, this $16.95 app seems to be the same exact freeware here:
http://www.httrack.com/page/1/en/index.html

JoeSmith, >>Hi Ian .. Thank you for the qui...

2010-05-05T22:33:41.480-04:00

JoeSmith,

>>Hi Ian .. Thank you for the quick reply. Can you recommend something good?

You're welcome.

We wrote our own spider, so I haven't used any commercial programs, but here are a few that turned up from a google search (in order from cheapest to more expensive). I hope this helps.

Ian

Free:
http://download.cnet.com/WinWSD-WebSite-Downloader/3000-2377_4-10562531.html

$16.95:
http://www.web-site-downloader.com/entire/?pu=false

http://www.websitemanagementtools.com/robot-manager/standard.php

http://www.inspyder.com/products/Web2Disk/Website-Downloader.aspx?referrer=goog&gclid=CMDnw-y7vKECFQRinAodcgG2_A

Hi Ian .. Thank you for the quick reply. Can you ...

2010-05-05T22:08:17.766-04:00

Hi Ian .. Thank you for the quick reply. Can you recommend something good?

Joe, >>I wish there was a way to back up my...

2010-05-05T22:02:33.876-04:00

Joe,

>>I wish there was a way to back up my projects on my local pc before this upgrade. I'm worried that there is chane even if very little that my data might be lost.

I understand your concern. The company we've hired to do the conversion has done thousands of conversions and is very experienced and the project plan takes every possible precaution to protect the data. Despite that...if something unimaginable happens, your data will still exist on the old servers as well, and those won't be decomissioned until at least a month after the conversion (just in case). At the same time, I still can understand your concern. You may wish to purchase a spidering program for a few dollars that will spider your web pages on the site and download all the attachments, etc.. associated with your projects. That way you will have your own private backup (in addition to our backups) that you can immediately access and control.

Ian

I wish there was a way to back up my projects on m...

2010-05-05T21:28:18.164-04:00

I wish there was a way to back up my projects on my local pc before this upgrade. I'm worried that there is chane even if very little that my data might be lost.

Poster, >>As a buyer, I applaud RAC for not...

2010-05-05T13:50:12.848-04:00

Poster,

>>As a buyer, I applaud RAC for not having a minimum project size. If I need a file converted or a few minutes of technical help, that may only be worth $10 or $15 but at least I can still use the same marketplace as I do when I have my larger $500+ projects.

Thank you for your support. I pesronally have used the site for these sorts of things and both parties found it mutually beneficial. I think people get frustrated with buyers with low budgets for lower projects, and want to block projects like this...not realizing that the two are not always related.

>>Also I am looking forward to the more streamlined vworker web interface.

Thanks...so am I!

>>Why did you find VMWare to be a better choice than AWS

It was substantially cheaper for our volume while offering essentially the same features, plus the advantage of control of the infrastructure (there is a risk when using a 3rd party: Amazon can go bankrupt or even if not, could decide to shut down AWS, etc.)

Ian