On 5/31/06, Ilias Lazaridis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The term 'Audit' explained here: > > http://case.lazaridis.com/multi/wiki/ProjectOverview
That page is a lot of marketing speak along with a note that open source projects can order your services at a "reduced rate". So now you sound like you're conducting the email equivalent of a sales call on us. There's a nasty word for making unsolicited sales calls via email, you know. > Please feel free to send me any concrete criticism about my website via > private email (your comments are very welcome). OK, let's see what we find on your site: * http://lazaridis.com/index.html <-- despite being fairly wordy, this doesn't actually tell me what you do. You "audit"? For "strengths and weaknesses?" Are you a usability consultant? A hardware consultant? An efficiency consultant? A marketing consultant? You'll help me define a "Coherent Requirements System", but you can't even give me a coherent one-page description of what you do, so why should I believe you can give me a coherent description of what I do? * http://lazaridis.com/services/index.html <-- OK, so if I actually click through from your home page you'll tell me what you do. Let's set aside for a moment the fact that if I'm a potential client I've already left your site to look at someone else, and take a gander at this flowchart. To start with you'll "retrieve first impressions". That's a good start, but why should I trust your ability to do this reliably given that your own site doesn't give a good first impression? The rest of this chart is so vague in its descriptions of steps that it's hard to know what's going on. Will I be getting a report from you? Will you be writing code? Do you bring in third-party consultants to help with the "transform" step? * http://lazaridis.com/services/description.html <-- OK, now I know a little more; at various points you'll give me reports and apparently I can pay you to act on them. How do you conduct "hardware verification" over the Internet? I still don't know if I'm dealing with you or with subcontracting consultants when we get to the "Transform" stage. You say you offer "Website Redesign"; where are the samples of your design work? * http://lazaridis.com/samples/index.html <-- disclaims any actual customer relationship with the projects you say you've audited. To an experienced eye this is an indication that you have yet to find a customer for your services, and that you have never actually conducted a professional project audit. * http://lazaridis.com/samples/com/ActiveState/index.html <-- Perhaps David Ascher, if he's reading this, could clarify whether you've ever had a customer relationship with ActiveState, since you won't say. Your suggestions are "Free", "Change", "Simplify"; "Free" for non-commercial use -- where's a statistic to back up this suggestion as being good for increasing ActiveState's sales of Komodo? "Change" how? "Simplify" how? It says "This sample demonstrates how a simple website review can lead to several findings which affect product management and marketing." No, it doesn't demonstrate anything; the only concrete suggestions you've made are the "free for non-commercial use", which doesn't have anything to do with the usability of the site, and to change "killer" to "dynamic", which you don't provide any explanation for. How do these suggestions affect product management and marketing? * http://audit.lazaridis.com/schevo <-- the first line of this page seems to indicate that they were doing you a favor, not that you were providing them a service. Which is it? "The documentation is not yet completed." What good is this as an example for me as a potential customer if I can't see the results? And I've clicked through several wiki pages but still can't find concrete details of both the suggestions you made and whether, when implemented, they resulted in Schevo achieving its goals more effectively. * http://lazaridis.com/samples/com/ActiveState/continue.html <-- "Please remember: one main goal of thes sample is to showcase the services." "More information within the service section." If this is showcasing the services, why do I have to go to a different page to get concrete descriptions of the services? And the "services" section has already been covered above; I'm still confused about how exactly you work. And, like a number of pages on your site, there's a typo. If your own site is lackign even in copyediting, how can I expect you to improve mine? * http://lazaridis.com/efficiency/graph/overview.html <-- At this point I just feel like making you read Edward Tufte over and over again. All the flowcharts in this section could easily be replaced by a few short paragraphs explaining each step of the process, with a link at the end to request more documentation. Ideally, each step would list an example of how it was applied on a particular project and what it contributed to the eventual result. * http://lazaridis.com/pj/index.html <-- Again with the flowcharts. Also, according to the color key for this chart you've got a step which is still underway despite a later step in the process, which can only be reached after the completion of the still-in-process step, being "fulfilled". How did that happen? * http://lazaridis.com/efficiency/example/definition.html <-- This flowchart seems to be saying that 51% efficiency yields 51% output. In other words, you've used a flowchart to tell me that 0.51 == 0.51. Were you afraid my system had floating-point rounding errors? And why is this under "method"? Does your method only provide 51% efficiency? * http://lazaridis.com/about/index.html <-- where are your credentials? Relevant study and work experience? How long have you been working in IT? How long have you been doing whatever it is that you claim to do? * http://lazaridis.com/resumes/lazaridis.html <-- Oh, it's here. I see you've worked for "Software Company". I've worked for them, too! And you've worked for "Startup Company" and "Hardware Vendor" and "Own Project". This is your *resume* -- this is where you have to name names to make claims, or potential clients simply will not trust you. Based on this brief audit of your site, I have to say that if I were a business I would not want to contract for your services. And one more thing: you've said, in response to the existing schema evolution project, that "I sense several problems for the SoC project". Yet the page on your wiki you linked below that statement did not provide any indication of this; it simply stated that Django is "difficult to understand", apparently because Django is object-oriented. Could you provide a more concrete description of the problems you say you sense? You mention that you can further document what you're talking about "if the project/team is interested", but I'm unsure whether this means you'll only tell us if we pay you; if that's the case, and if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a check to be mailed. -- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." -- George Carlin --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
