*NOTE: this is long, so get comfy. i apologize ahead of time.

have you ever been to clients from hell? whether you just want to know that you’re not the only one dealing with a terrible client, or you want a good laugh, i highly recommend it. i have had more than a handful of scenarios that are worthy of being quoted on this site, which reminds me–i really need to start writing them down.

if i haven’t said it enough, i love my day job. my Big Girl Job. i love information security. it fascinates me. i have learned more in the past 9 months than i learned through all of college. i enjoy my day at work, and when i come home every night, i generally get right to working on websites. brett or i will cook dinner–he settles in playing his xbox, and i get to coding. my hours are weird, because not every freelance web developer has the same routine. that’s one upside to any kind of freelance work–making your own hours. i’ve realized that clients don’t always understand that. sometimes… sometimes they think that because you make your own hours means they can help you *define* those hours.

example: this morning, i got a call from Company X (i will leave all names anonymous from here on out) at 7:38 AM. this is the same client i was griping about yesterday on twitter. i didn’t answer the phone. i let it go to voicemail, and moments later received the voicemail, accompanied by an e-mail.

it is not out of the ordinary for things like this to happen. that does not make them acceptable. a few months ago, i got sick of allowing my clients to walk all over me (which was 100% my fault, there need to be boundaries) so i defined my own hours. i told them (nicely) that i am at my Big Girl Job during the day, and everything else (website related) is to be taken care of during the week, in the evenings between 5 and 9 PM. that is a small window, but so far it is working. they can e-mail me all they want, but for the most part, all website related work will be done during those 4 hours.

well, this winter things picked up a bit. i had a lot on my plate, and still do. some odds and ends are being tied up, some projects are just hanging there waiting on the client to come forth with updates, and some are just starting up. it’s a big mix, but i keep track of everything in spreadsheets and i’m pretty good at keeping it all organized.

one thing that i make SURE of, whether i stay organized or not, is that there are invoices. invoices, invoices, invoices. and some form of a binding statement that says, yes, i will pay you this amount of money. there are a couple (literally) that i don’t worry about because, A) they are friends, and B) they have been loyal to me for years. because the moment a client starts changing numbers on me–there’s a problem. man, i just started realizing how many nightmarish stories i can tell you all. so many blog entries to come of this. i must not forget.

anyway, way back in september, i was contacted by Client X (who i have recently found out is actually an independent contractor for Company X, which i mentioned earlier). Client X needed 2 websites to be completed because their company, Company X, did not have enough resources (whether it was time, money, or people, i don’t know) to get them done. we both signed a contract, saying i would be subcontracted to complete these 2 websites. i sent Client X 2 invoices–one for each website. the invoices stated that 50% of the website would be paid for up front, and the remaining 50% would be paid upon completion of the site. this is how i do every project, and so far it has worked out in my favor. i promptly received the first 50%, for both websites, via PayPal. we were good to go, i thought.

i completed both sites fairly quickly. there were a few minor changes that were done over the course of 2-ish months. basically, the sites have been completed and sitting, waiting on my server for about 4-ish months now.

now, i found out a couple weeks ago that Client X is no longer working for Company X. this only came up in conversation via e-mail (which have been few and far between, terrible communication on their part) after i sent the 523th bitchy e-mail, demanding i get paid for the work i did. MONTHS ago.

i’ve been bitching and moaning to and about Client X for months now, but never took any kind of legal action. the amount of money i am owed is not a small amount, but in my mind, it is not worth going to court over. the only reason i asked about lawyers on twitter yesterday was to get other opinions on how to get things moving in the right direction so this can be finished. if that did not work, then i would be more inclined to take some sort of legal action. evidently, a lot of people thought small claims court was a feasible idea. i know nothing about that sort of thing, so the thought alone scares me. i’d like to avoid that if at all possible.

i started making phone calls. i called Client X, roughly 4 times, before i got any kind of feedback. i called Company X at least 20 times yesterday, and all i got was answering machines. FINALLY, a representative from Company X called me, but because i can’t have my phone in the lab i work in, i missed it. awesome. phone tag really blows.

on my drive home, i spoke with Client X. he finally answered his phone, and i’m sure he regretted it immediately afterward. i was not psychotic, but i was not exactly friendly. my e-mails started out friendly, but over the last 4 months, they got a little uglier. i’ve heard the exact same story at least a dozen times from Client X, and yesterday’s phone call was no different. i hung up, and because i was so fed up with everything (i already had just one of those days yesterday… forgot my badge, spilled coffee TWICE, spilled ravioli EVERYWHERE, spilled pears EVERYWHERE, smashed my finger, it was just irritating), i went home and took a 20 minute, scalding hot shower, followed by 20 minutes of laying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. then i asked brett to go buy us a case of beer. thank you, babe–you are awesome.

after all that, i didn’t exactly sleep well last night.

and then i got the call from Company X this morning at 7:30. i did not need that. but after listening to the voicemail, and reading the e-mail this morning, i’ve decided that Company X is not who i need to be angry at. Client X deserves to feel my wrath. all of it. come to find out, he hasn’t been working with Company X for “a long while now” according to them. which COMPLETELY explains why this is a nightmare in the first place. if an independent contractor leaves a company, and continues to deal with Company X’s clients, that is a recipe for disaster. and serious communication FAIL. and confusion. and all of the above. depending on what kind of contract they have, that can be considered breach of contract–something i do NOT want to become involved in. Company X told me that if i put the sites back online (i took them down, hoping the process would speed up with some motivation), he could get the deal finalized with their clients (the companies whose websites i’d created) and i will be paid by next week.

with all that said, i should have gone to Company X months ago. however, i did not know to do that since i had no idea, until recently, that Client X didn’t work there anymore. all along, i thought i was still dealing with Company X through Client X. definitely *not* the case.

currently, i am waiting for an e-mail response from Company X about this whole ordeal being patched up. the sites are live again and their clients are viewing them, and *hopefully* giving them the final payments. which will hopefully be given to me by next week. hopefully this nightmare will be over. hopefully. thank you, representative from Company X, for not screwing around. you are a good man. cross all your fingers, all your toes, all your eyeballs, please. i will let you know what happens.

way back when, my web server sat in my old room at my mom’s house. years ago, she decided to get rid of her internet and, as we all know, a server is a moot point without any access to the internet. i moved it to my dad’s house and kept it there until i got out of college. it now sits in the corner of my living room and has been downgraded to a development server for my client work. this is largely because godaddy’s dedicated linux servers have proven themselves to be a spectacular investment of a small $6.99/month. as spectacular as they may be, i cannot stand their commercials.

several weeks ago, the damn power supply on said server decided to take its last breath. i had 2 choices–1) buy a new power supply, or 2) toss the entire PC and buy an enclosure for the 3.5″ IDE old-as-dirt hard drives rotting away in there so i could get my crap off. by crap, i mean 20GB of photos (YES, just photos, from everything i ever did in my life), 80GB of old home movies (my dad ripped very VHS my family ever created and gave them to me for safe keeping), several gigs of pirated DVDs, software (OMG Photoshop 5.0 is still on there), and about 60GB of whatever crap music i was listening to in high school. to my surprise, there was actually a good collection of pantera on there. i didn’t totally let myself down.

fast forward to this weekend: i told brett i’d buy him modern warfare 2 for valentine’s day. his old xbox died and he threw it out, but kept the hard drive. he planned on buying a new xbox on the 12th when we get paid. i told him i’d front him the money so he could go ahead and have an early valentine’s day–he can pay me back later. so we went to gamestop, purchased an xbox, and MW2.

gamestop is right next to best buy… it was inevitable. originally, i was going to buy a new power supply, but this caught my eye instead. surprisingly, i don’t own an external hard drive. i need something new to use as backup, so i bought it. thank you, tax returns.

we went home and i decided to start working on my server. it has a fresh build of CentOS on it, so i wanted to at least salvage the hard drives. i had an extra power supply in the box of ancient and random computer hardware in my closet, so i gave it a shot. it was dead, too. instead of going back to best buy, i called compuzone–a local computer repair shop.

my original plan was to buy an enclosure for the drives and toss out the computer. get this–they wanted $75 to transfer all my crap to the new external one i bought, but they’d sell me an encosure for $40. i told the guy i’d buy the enclosure, do it myself, and then return the enclosure. i am pretty sure he didn’t like that answer because after telling him that, he agreed to do the data transfer for $30. SWEET.

i told him i’d go home, grab the drives, and bring them back to the shop for a transfer. then i realized–i really don’t want two 18-year-old computer shop guys doing my data transfer. i worked at tech. support for 4 years. i am well aware of what goes on. i went back inside and told them nevermind, i’ll just buy a power supply. they were $34 at compuzone, which was much cheaper than best buy. FOR GOOD REASON.

i went home all excited. i gutted the computer, cleaned it out using almost an entire can of air duster, and took out all the tacky cold cathode sticks and fans that my ex boyfriend from high school bought me. in 2003, this computer was seriously badass. i built it just so i could play day of defeat and battlefield 1942. it glowed green in my bedroom and at every LAN party in high school. ohh, memories. i am so glad i didn’t get rid of it just yet.

i put the new power supply in and right out of the box, the damn thing was dead. that’s what happens when you buy a crappy 450W power supply for $34 at compuzone.

the crazy part was when i took it out and put my old power supply back in, crossed my fingers, hit the power button, and it freaking worked. i tried it at least half a dozen times earlier and nothing happened. but somehow, by the grace of god, it decided to come back to life. my server is now being run by a zombie power supply–who knows how long it will last. i waited all afternoon for all my crap to transfer to my external hard drive.

IN THE MEANTIME, i decided to have a reformatting party by myself. brett was preoccupied putting together his xbox. i had nothing better to do until the super bowl came on. before i started reformatting, and because i was already fixing everything else i own, i decided to do a “quick” upgrade on my router. alas, in the middle of the firmware upgrade, something went seriously wrong. while i was pulling my hair out, brett was trying to get his xbox live account working. no internet == no xbox live. he kept trying to access the internet, and i was all like IT ISN’T GOING TO WORK UNTIL I FIX THE DAMN ROUTER LEAVE ME ALONE. so… the living room was very tense for about 20 minutes.

somehow the upgrade caused the modem to crap its pants (wtf?). either that, or it was just horrible timing. it took me 15 minutes of cursing and mashing the reset button with a pencil to realize it wasn’t the router giving me hell. i reset the modem, and everything was peachy keen. HOORAY.

i downloaded unetbootin to do a netinstall of fedora 12. fyi, if you’ve never used unetbootin, try it sometime. i love it. normally, it’s a painless process. since my laptop was purchased in 2007, the graphics card is (geforce go 6150) a bit outdated. i tried 4 times with 4 different configurations to get the video drivers to cooperate. it was just not working, so i went back to fedora 11. worked like a charm.

this is the only complaint i have ever had about linux and that is getting nvidia and broadcom drivers to cooperate on the first go-round. or the second. i’ve reformatted my laptop at least 30 times in its lifetime, and i have NEVER had the same install process twice.

anyway, it’s all working together nicely now. and the funny thing is, i told a guy at work this entire story yesterday. he came into work this morning and said, “i woke up this morning… AND MY POWER SUPPLY WAS DEAD”.

i totally jinxed him.

since i sat down this morning, i’ve been listening to lectures (i acquired some very helpful training lectures in MP3 format), going over practice quizzes, and doing my best imitation of a sponge. the lectures are from a SANS CISSP course, and they are amazing. aside from the fact that it’s like… over 40 hours of lecturing. i got through almost 4 today. it’s still much better than reading, and the guy doing the training is excellent.

i am NOT substituting reading with the lectures, by any means. i’ve got the SYBEX book, CISSP for dummies, shon harris, ISC2’s official guide… i have too many books. i used the SYBEX book for my CISSP/Sec+ class in college–it’s easy to read and i’ve read most of it already. shon harris’s book is the one everyone raves about, and a lot of people said the CISSP for dummies was all they used. i’m kind of stuck. and the lecturer stressed how it’s not always a good idea to use so many books because they might have different information from what ISC2 currently uses. the ISC2 book itself is NOT an easy read.

i also have the pass4sure test bank of practice questions, which is over 2300 questions. plus the practice quizzes from the lectures. plus smaller study guides containing key points from each domain.

i think i’m set on material. my boss came by and dumped even MORE books on me today, which i have not listed, because i’ve just given up on those. i need to pick 2 and stick with them. and the lectures. seriously–a godsend. i’m going to burn them to a CD and listen to it in my car. that man’s voice is going to haunt my dreams by the end of march.

and i know this post’s title stresses how good of a day it has been. the lectures are actually kind of fun (i’m aware of how dorky that sounds), but today was also the day my TAX RETURN got deposited into my bank account. i really needed to replenish my savings after paying for the exam ($550) and the dental work ($700+), so a load has been lifted. and replaced with a nice chunk of change.

something else spectacular happened today, which i am not going to write about until it is a done deal. it will be soon, however, and i could not be more excited. i do not want to jinx myself.

PLUS… UFC 109 is tomorrow. and the super bowl, of course, is sunday. i’m counting on lots of celebrating, lots of sleeping in, and steak. and i’d REALLY like a whiskey sour tonight.

oh, and my resume/portfolio can now be found at www.WhitneyPowell.com. i splurged a bit with my tax return and dropped 10 bucks on a domain. finally.

i finally broke down and put up a new layout. i hated staring at the other one and it’s been a while since i’ve actually made one myself. just laziness, i guess. i spend so much time working on websites for clients and by the time i get around to taking care of my site, i lose all motivation.

it’s cute. and it’s better than looking at a plain white screen. it looks best in firefox/safari/chrome because of the rounded corners, so if you’re in IE… you will just have to live. ;)

i took a break writing it and we went to dinner. brett and i went to the kickin’ chicken (if you don’t have one in your area, it’s better than it sounds) to watch the game and have a couple beers. and wings. lots and lots of wings. it was a pretty good deal, too. we got 24 wings with 4 flavors for $15. what put us over the top was the dessert (my bad) and the bottled coors light. after realizing they were $3.50, which is so not worth it, we switched to yuengling on draft.

i love getting desserts but i don’t know what i was thinking. since the dentist hasn’t fixed my teeth yet, every bite i took hurt like hell. i even had to drink my beer through a straw. on top of that, the vikings lost. i really wanted to see them in the super bowl.

i tried to get my fillings fixed last week but when i got to the dentist and got settled into the chair, the power went out. and we waited. and waited. and waited. it never came back on, so he put “fluoride” on my teeth. this fluoride was nothing like any fluoride treatment i’ve ever had and i couldn’t get it off my teeth (or any other surface i accidentally got it on) to save my life. it was a mess, and it didn’t help the sensitivity whatsoever.

so i’m going back tomorrow. since mondays don’t suck badly enough, i have to go to the dentist, too. i can’t wait!

i can’t always tell what you guys enjoy reading about. i’ve noticed that the posts that spike the most interest are ones wherein i make myself look like an idiot. while this is probably true, i still wanna hear it from you.

send me ideas, questions, or whatever you think i should write about or post on here. i’ve also thought about video blogging but i think my voice sounds like that of a 5 year old. tell me what you want! just keep it “tame”. please.

i don’t know why i thought it was a good idea to take on as many projects as i have lately. i think i was thinking that the more i stay busy, the less time i have to sit idly and drive myself crazy. i think that was a dumb plan.

i love doing freelance web design. love it. the extra income is freaking fabulous. but i’ve become a workaholic the last few weeks.

generally, i work on 1 (maaaybe 2) sites at a time, and usually i’ll have clients who need small updates here and there. which is fine. but what have i done? i took on 3. plus i’ve kept up with necessary updates and maintenance. plus i’ve worked on a few odds and ends for one of my favorite clients in charlotte (brandon, you are awesome) more than usual this week, in particular.

3 websites from the ground up. 2 of which are e-commerce. and maintenance for a handful of websites. i either want to die early or i’d just really like to accelerate the gray hair and wrinkles.

i don’t think it’s the workload as much as it is keeping up with my clients. i’m constantly tied to my phone (except when i’m at work, can’t have it in my lab) and/or e-mail so there really is no down time. at least, i don’t give myself any. i read and respond to all my e-mails at work. i read and respond to all my e-mails when i’m carrying my phone around. regardless of the time of day. i usually don’t give myself weekends off and only recently have i stopped bringing my laptop with me when i go out of town (forcing myself to quit working on crap).

i left work yesterday, went to my dentist appointment, and went home. upon getting home, i cleaned up the apartment, did 2 loads of laundry, ran to wal-mart for a few things, and came home and cooked dinner (chicken & rice casserole = very important comfort food). i started working at 6:00 and i am pretty sure my hands did not leave my keyboard until my head hit the pillow at 1 AM.

i am NOT bringing my laptop to boone this weekend. right now, the plan is to wear sweatpants and sit in front of the TV the entire time. also, steak. i’m officially cutting myself off until monday. it’s gonna be tough, but i think i’ll manage.

the CIS curriculum requires that we take an “internet technologies” course which is basically a web design class. it teaches, HTML, XHTML, CSS, ASP.NET, PHP, MySQL, and some other things that i can’t remember. i finished all my assignments and got a new one this morning.

the assignment was to make 2 websites with entirely different layouts. same HTML, different CSS. it’s weird because i can NEVER think of ideas for this stupid website, but i came up with 2 right off the bat for the assignment. i don’t get it. and i actually like them.

anyway, here they are. if you like them, take them.

Layout 1
Layout 2

the only thing is the first one doesn’t validate 100%. it gives me 4 errors. evidently the opacity settings aren’t compliant? i found this post about it but that’s just a pain in the butt. i’ll deal with 4 warnings for now.

despite the complete validation on the 2nd one and 99.9% validation on the 1st one, neither work correctly in IE. it’s a work in progress.

if you need a website, i need business. i’m looking for some personal projects to get started on. i’ll design the smallest projects to full websites at reasonable prices. i’m re-designing my portfolio/resume with all of my latest completed projects so that should help. e-mail me if you need something.

i’m in the middle of upgrading wordpress and i’m tired and irritable and i think if i stare at anymore SQL tonight i’m going to freak out. i had enough of that at work today as it is. and i didn’t even get any of my client’s work done tonight that i was supposed to do. i guess… i’ll do it on my lunch break. fjwejfiaw;ef!!!!1#($$#@*

and i accidentally deleted my smilies. sam, can you send me yours in a zip? because you have the same ones i had. i will love you forever. poo.

the new design is a work in progress. i don’t know what got into me tonight, but after adam cooked dinner for me and passed out on the couch, i couldn’t reach the remote without moving and waking him up so i suppose i was forced to. i kinda like it, though. it’s very… sparkly. and i like sparkly.

the pages and crap will be up tomorrow most likely. unless i stay up all night finishing in it in which case, it will be up before 9AM tomorrow. i have this thing where if i start a project (ie. homework, a design, a book), i try to finish it in the same day. needless to say, i’ve been sitting here working on this design since like 7. i need to get a new hobby that doesn’t involve anything electronic. i think i need to go buy a fishing pole or a shotgun or something.

i finally found a theme i like and have fedora looking SPECTACULAR! :lol: i love it. it’s so pretty and shiny. i just want to stare at it. i used this application theme and this window border theme. wallpaper is from n.design studio.

mwahahaha! it has begun! i started this website about a week ago and was originally going to make it a wiki but that got to be too much of a pain in the ass. so alas, i now have 2 blogs… one slightly less dorky than the other.

instead of going to my marketing class today, i stayed inside and worked on this and tinkered with fedora slightly longer than i should have… ALL because i was scared to even leave my room because my face broke out so badly. i walked out of my room and yelled at my roommate 3 feet away on the couch, “DON’T LOOK AT ME MY FACE HURTS!” and yanked my hoodie over my head, got my drink out of the fridge, and ran back in my room. man, i can not WAIT to go to my ob/gyn next week. maybe she can fix me.

after talking to my dad on the phone a month or so ago, we came up with an idea for a website that i finally put together and got up and running. it isn’t 100% right now because there are a couple aesthetic things that need to be fixed and so forth, but it’s there.

Postcard to Heaven is now live. i hope to keep changing things and making it nicer and more creative in the long run, but i really wanted to put something on the website since it’s already being paid for. comments and suggestions and ideas are more than welcomed and i really hope to make something out of this. i think it’s pretty cute… and i normally hate the designs i come up with. anywho, there it is. i will go hold my breath while i take on the constructive criticism.

also, pictures from AppalachLAN IX can be found here, here, and here.