Oh, how the issue of quotes refuses to die

Every once in a while I will encounter someone, whether online or off, wondering how much it costs to get a site built.

The most accurate answer is, “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” At least, not if it’s going to be any good and more than a weblog.

I’ve already talked about the thought that goes into estimating. Lacking the answers to those very basic questions, I usually answer “$1500 and up.” [It used to be $1200, but inflation, ya know.]

…So I will say it one more time: tell me what you actually want, and I will tell you how much it will cost, mkaythxbai. If you don’t know what you want, expect to pay more for the time I will spend helping you figure it out.

Update, 3 hours later

Ross has a much pithier reply to the question at hand.

The good, bad, and indifferent southpaw

“Things Lefties Are maybe Not So Good At!” turned up on StumbleUpon, and I found it whiny. My own take:

• Public telephones: not a problem. If ya just gotta do the full smash left-handed, you hold the receiver between shoulder and ear and let your fingers do the walking just like anyone else. Working a cellphone keypad right-handed is hell, though.
• Remote controls: huh? They suck, end of story. See also my comments about cellphones.
• Tone arms: again — huh?
• Writing: since this can’t be taught with the mirror method, it takes a lot of practice to get up to speed with one’s right-handed peers... but after controlling for extensive computer use, my printing’s always been spiffy. My cursive is another story entirely. And I never, ever bother with felt-tipped pens for writing, and I would sooner take the time to do a slideshow than attempt a whiteboard presentation; while more time-consuming, the former approach ensures that people will actually be able to read the ideas I’m trying to express.
• Scissors: like so many items on this list, a non-issue for kids (and consequently adults) who suck it up and go to the effort of catching up.
• Trousers with one back pocket: again, a non-issue. You get into the habit, and on blue jeans and the like, the left pocket always goes empty.
• Zippers: not a problem, except that I didn't get the hang of them until I was well past my ninth birthday.
• Recreation requiring sticks or clubs: now this list starts to make some real sense. I refuse to learn golf because of the hassles that go along with being a left-handed golfer. I’ve never shown any aptitude for hockey or baseball (though I suspect that has more to do with my comparatively poor depth perception), and I struggled through learning billiards, which I shoot right-handed except when forced into shots that other players make behind-the-back.
• Shoelaces: the mirror method rulez, people. Problem is, no-one figured that out to my benefit until I was seven years old. That was one of my more significant humiliations as a kid.
• Notebooks: looseleaf paper, sewn/perfect binding, and top-set spirals are da bomb — and chances are on any given day that you can go to a store that sells them.
• Checkbooks: oh, puh-leeze. Tear the leaf out before you write on it. How hard is that?
• The chained pens at the bank: oh yes, now you’re cookin’ with gas.
• ATM machines: huh? The greatest risk for me is losing my card in the older machines that don’t return your card before spitting out your money, because the focus of my attention drifts to the left as a matter of course. Actually operating the things is not any particular challenge, though.
• Keypads and mice: again, practice makes perfect. I can easily pass ten-key tests aimed at non-experts, have been able to since I was a teenager. And mice pretty much need to be on the right, since the housings of most mice are molded specifically for the right hand. Even a mouse that’s symmetrical on the axis parallel with the direction I’m facing is a pain in the ass to use left-handed, after so many years of right-handed mousing.
• Duelling elbows in restaurant booths: now, this one I feel with my gut. If I’m out to eat with you, I will insist on sitting on your left, and that will be the end of the conversation.

Moving on from the list on the linked page, the two things that always drive me up the wall are cabinet video games and kitchen setups, which almost universally demand the greatest dexterity from one’s right hand if one is to avoid crossing or switching hands in the course of using them. Bleh.

Preemptive tulips, anyone?

Microsoft has handed 240 million dollars to Facebook in return for an exclusive relationship, and I am mystified as to why. If Facebook has their act together, that sum of money makes Croesus out to be a piker.

[I have long been of the opinion that given clear objectives, five tightly focussed people, and half a million dollars, any site or application that needs building can in fact be built in less than a year. So why on Earth would Facebook need nearly five hundred times that much money, unless their hosting bills are higher by orders of magnitude than I suppose?]

What I beg to understand is, why? What’s in it for Microsoft? I see benefits, but not 240 million dollars’ worth of benefits.

The more I struggle to spin golden knowledge from the straw of this purchase, the more lost I become.

The environment feels altogether too much like that of late 1998, but at least the attendant false hopes are confined to a much smaller place in the public consciousness.