How much should I charge for fixed-price software contract?

[jan V]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 23:22:45 -0700, Robert Maas, ...wrote:

..& wrote and wrote and wrote.

You probably cannot get work becasue you bore
people to death. Go away Robert.

Maybe "Robert Maas" and "Xah Lee" are advanced psychology research programs
which feed this newsgroup "stimuli" purely to collect the responses and
analyse them...

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Maybe "Robert Maas" and "Xah Lee" are advanced psychology research programs
which feed this newsgroup "stimuli" purely to collect the responses and
analyse them...

If that analysis contributes in any way to a study
that identifies which groups are 'ripe targets' for
trolling and spamming, I would like the comp.lang.java.*
heirarchy to rank very low.

[ And, ..hey thanks! I was waiting for someone to 'ask'. ;-) ]

 

[Guest]

Oracle was available, but only manually via keyboard/SQL interface,
with no way to make tables or find out what tables were already in the
database it connected to, hence no way to play with it either manually
or via JDBC.

You can use Oracle PL/SQL from the "keyboard" to create
tables and query the tables in the database.
The relevant commands are:

CREATE TABLE

eg:
CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE (
EMP_ID NUMBER(8),
LNAME VARCHAR2(30),
FNAME VARCHAR2(15),
HIRE_DT DATE,
SALARY NUMBER(8,2) )
PCTFREE 20
PCTUSED 50
STORAGE (
INITIAL 200K NEXT 200K
PCTINCREASE 0 MAXEXTENTS 50 )
TABLESPACE ts01
LOGGING ;

and

get_schema(GDA_CONNECTION_SCHEMA_TABLES)


--

Seek simplicity and mistrust it.
Alfred Whitehead

A witty saying proves nothing.
Voltaire

 

[Guest]

No, that's not correct. I might have placed first, or second, etc.,
there's no way to know, because the top five are bundled together with
the individual scores deleted from the record.

Does anyone really care ?
That was 40 years ago.


--

Seek simplicity and mistrust it.
Alfred Whitehead

A witty saying proves nothing.
Voltaire

 

[Shiro Kawai]

I did it all manually, using a text editor to build the text and
assemble the FTP data. Most of the raw data was posted to PACS-L, where
every few weeks somebody would announce they had found such-and-such
list or index and tell where to find it. I merely collected all these
pointers into my master index so that there'd be a single place
everyone could go to find all the important lists/indexes and
documents. [...]
my only active option was automating the process of
collecting CTW (Complain To Whom) data and validating it, and using it
to automatically complain about each new incoming spam just a few
seconds after it was noticed by my program that checked my inbox once
per minute. [...]
Lots of people used my computerized pseudo-typesetting (precursor to
desktop publishing) software before Knuth did his TeX. This was
a real-world task for people who had no other practical way to
edit their manuscripts that had complicated mathematical formulas.
(Even after TeX, some people preferred my software because with
Gosper's macros it automatically converted MacSyma output to nicely
formatted output, something TeX can't do.)

Do you want more examples of my software solving real-world problems
(college payroll, college class assignments, for example), or have I
made my point with those first two?

Actually, these are far more interesting than a resume filled with
buzzwords, at least for me. These are too detailed to be in resume,
but you may be able to make a link from each item under
'MAJOR PROGRAMMING PROJECTS' in your online resume to a document
that fully explains what you did.

An employer looking to fill a particular job, and getting resumes
labeled for that particular job, already knows which job the resume is
for, and merely has to check whether it is or is not suitable. He
doesn't have to guess, from the thousands of jobs offered by hundreds
of companies, what job each resume might be for. So your failure to do
a very difficult guessing task is no proof the employer wouldn't be
able to do that much easier task of noticing that I have a lot of
different qualifications including the ones needed for the job.

Being an all-around player actually put you in a difficult position.
Job market is not for such person. It may seem unreasonable that,
if one candidate can do everything so well, and another can do
just one thing so-so, and the company tends to hire the latter
when the one thing fits the job description. That's the reailty.

Jobs that require high skills are often filled by personal
referrals. I have been asked to find a good Lisp programmer,
or even I myself have looked for one to subcontract my own
project. Those jobs are not posted publicly.
Like it or not, once you got many years of experience, you're
expected to have enough personal connections. If you haven't
got them, probably you should start from making them...

 

[Greg Menke]

Greg Menke wrote:



Sorry to interrupt; why is that "ideal"? Does the software match up even
later sometimes?

I'm not proposing that it is. But theres not much alternative to
something like that when both the hardware and software are being
developed.

As you stated before, in that space you often must research the nature of
faults, and that research will occupy significant development time.

And for these hard problem, you have to test with the real thing because
any emulator is going to miss some (many) of these subtle issues. For
the many easy bugs, an emulator (or maybe simulator) makes a good deal
of sense, but its no panacea.

In my experience, many teams are too busy doing "foo" because they did not
carefully plan a development environment that reduces the odds of "foo". I
suspect your team does have a good development environment, so we may be
talking past each other now.

How do you reduce the chances of bugs by writing an emulator thats as
least as complicated as the real system, and that is essentially
guaranteed to have different & unknown bugs which will limit its
fidelity at some ill-defined point? Do you really think that teams
working on systems like this don't spend a lot of time trying to
minimize the opportunities of bugs showing up? There is lots of
code-reuse, walkthroughs, reviews, etc... on both the hardware and
software- emulators and simulators where feasible; for example, opnet
may be used to evaluate task and network schedulability in all sorts of
circumstances before the software is even started.

As we speak, I'm helping deal with a crash-on-reset problem on the
production hardware that doesn't happen on the development hardware,
plus weird edac behavior to go along with it. Analyzing this problem
requires a top to bottom analysis of the system will all sorts of
inter-team documentation of whats going on. How is an emulator going to
help here? At best it will exhibit the same problems (but we still
don't know what the problems are), at worst it will not duplicate the
behavior. It hasn't gotten us any closer in the former case, in the
latter its worse because project management is now nervous because its
presenting another difference from the real system yet they're (supposed
to be) relying on it to help them test.

Now if you're talking about a high-level app that can afford to ignore
hardware issues, then a low-fidelity emulator doesn't have to address
the hard problems and so offers greater coverage.

Gregm

 

[Ulrich Hobelmann]

Oh well, it's Sunday...

Good suggestion. Here's the info:
NMR - contributing author
Robot - primary author
DiffAlg abstract - sole author
Others - unknown if any paper or not

The DiffAlg was only an abstract?? And you seriously have no idea what
papers were published with you as an author, or where they appeared?
You didn't ask anybody? This is sooo ridiculous

What if my supervisor did all the publishing arrangement?
Can you think of that?

And he didn't answer your question at all??

Having CGI that allows arbitrary Unix runnables
(both native binaries and scripts that use native binaries) is
different from Perl-only WebServers such as Tripod, and
no-CGI-whatsoever WebServers such as Geocities.

Here I actually agree. But most providers these days should provide CGI.

And what kind of description would fit on one or two lines of a
one-page resume that would convince you I had enough experience to do a
job you wanted me to do?

After reading this whole thread, and all your excuses for everything?
Hmm...

Or just forget the 1-2 line restriction. Let's say half my page is
stuff about relational databases. What could I reveal in half a page
to convince a skeptic that I really know how to write JDBC software?

You could create or participate in an open-source project and mention that.

MS ACCESS is the only DB available via JDBC at De Anza college.
Oracle was available, but only manually via keyboard/SQL interface,
with no way to make tables or find out what tables were already in the
database it connected to, hence no way to play with it either manually
or via JDBC.

Or you could again cancel your $20 shell account, get a used computer
for $50, get a free shipping of Ubuntu Linux, install that, install
PostgreSQL or MySQL or something else. For webspace and dialup service
there are cheaper alternatives than $20, too (at least in Europe).

If you require me to do that, you'll have to provide the money to buy
it for my Macintosh with only 17 megabytes unused disk space, or for my
laptop with no working modem or diskette drive or CD-Rom drive, hence
no way to install it without first fixing the modem.

Or you could come up with some really innovative excuses...

If you won't provide the money to do what you want me to do, then don't
order me what to do.

Who the hell orders you to do anything?? Remember? You came here
asking for help with your work life (if we want to call it with those
two words).

That's a fucking lie! I do too have 22+ years experience at writing
computer software.

Then mention some practical key examples that are appropriate to the job
you're applying to.

**** you! Most of my best work was unpaid.

Now you are ordering him to do things he might not want to do...

If your unpaid work resulted in anything useful (that interests the
$COMPANY), just mention it.

You don't even know what my skills are! The total time I've spent
writing computer software is at least equivalent to 22 years fulltime.

We know what you said they are. But we don't see lots of cool
applications that could have been written in that time.

Do you want more examples of my software solving real-world problems
(college payroll, college class assignments, for example), or have I
made my point with those first two?

Don't know about him, but I don't give a rat's ass (well, I don't even
have one). Some potential employer might, though, if it involves some
for him interesting technologies.

 

[Tim X]

You can use Oracle PL/SQL from the "keyboard" to create
tables and query the tables in the database.
The relevant commands are:

CREATE TABLE

eg:
CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE (
EMP_ID NUMBER(8),
LNAME VARCHAR2(30),
FNAME VARCHAR2(15),
HIRE_DT DATE,
SALARY NUMBER(8,2) )
PCTFREE 20
PCTUSED 50
STORAGE (
INITIAL 200K NEXT 200K
PCTINCREASE 0 MAXEXTENTS 50 )
TABLESPACE ts01
LOGGING ;

and

get_schema(GDA_CONNECTION_SCHEMA_TABLES)

Actually, thats just standard SQL, not PL/SQL. I would advise dropping
the storage, allocation, tablespace and logging commands - it can
cause problems if yo don't know what your doing, the dba probably
woldn't be impressed and for the level he is operating at, its just
another complication not required - let it just inherit the system
defaults. Also, it may or may ot work depending on whether his login
has the right privilages, such as create table etc.

Probably should mention that for development (i.e. not to be sold)
purposes, you can get a free copy of Oracle. The 10g version for Linux
is quite nice. Of course, I'm sure he won't be able to do any of this
as his position is so hopeless!

Tim

 

[Tim X]

Oh well, it's Sunday...


The DiffAlg was only an abstract?? And you seriously have no idea what
papers were published with you as an author, or where they appeared?
You didn't ask anybody? This is sooo ridiculous

I agree and doubt that they were ever published in anything reputable
or recognized. I also love the line where he says his supervisor may
have asked him to sign something, but he didn't know what it was for -
imagine that, signing things when you have no idea what you are
signing away!

And he didn't answer your question at all??

I published a couple of articles during my post grad work. Some were
with my supervisor and in each case, we had to sign copyright
statements, had some reviews and feedback from the reviewers and both
recieved free copies of the books/journals. For me his story doesn't
really add up. I suspect his "publications" were probably just
technical reports or he was just a minor (and possibly not
accredited).

Here I actually agree. But most providers these days should provide CGI.

The point I was making here and which Robert manages to twist by
judicious quoting was his original assertion that CGI and Unix were
linked. My point is that CGI is NOT limited to Unix environments. You
have CGI support with most multi-purpose web servers, like Apache and
they run on multiple platforms. I never made any statement that all
web servers provided CGI, only that CGI is not limited to Unix
environments.

Robert, if I'm honest, I would now say that NOTHING you say would ever
convince me of anything.

After reading this whole thread, and all your excuses for everything?
Hmm...


You could create or participate in an open-source project and mention that.


Or you could again cancel your $20 shell account, get a used computer
for $50, get a free shipping of Ubuntu Linux, install that, install
PostgreSQL or MySQL or something else. For webspace and dialup
service there are cheaper alternatives than $20, too (at least in
Europe).

I don't know about you, but I would be very reluctant to employ anyone
to solve my problems who cannot even solve the simple problem of
getting hs own reasonable computing environment together.

Or you could come up with some really innovative excuses...


Who the hell orders you to do anything?? Remember? You came here
asking for help with your work life (if we want to call it with those
two words).

Precisely. Robert strolls in here and despite far too many people
trying to help him out, he has an excuse for why every suggestion is
no good. He has no ability to take responsability and really doesn't
want help - he just wants an avenue to moan about how miserable life
is.

I love this bit! Robert has conveniently cut out what I wrote earlier
about only commercial experience being counted and pretends that was
not what the emphasis was on.

Then mention some practical key examples that are appropriate to the
job you're applying to.

Heee Heee. Now he is feeling boxed in and has to resort to base poor
language. He refuses to acknowledge that regardless of what you have
done outside paid employment, it doesn't count. What he doesn't
realise is there is a reason for this. Work you do on your own is
generally not reviewed by anyone, not used by many people and
therefore has no external evaluation, only his on subjective opinion,
which to an employer is worth very little. Now, if he had spent the
last 10 years working on some open source projects and atually
developed a reputation, he may have something. As it is, he is now a
bitter old man rappidly approaching 60 with no job.

Initially, I did feel for his situation, but now I realise he is
pretty much an obnoxious jerk who has got the life he
deserves. Possibly a bit harsh, I guess I'm beyond caring.

Now you are ordering him to do things he might not want to do...

If your unpaid work resulted in anything useful (that interests the
$COMPANY), just mention it.

Watch out - he will order you to go and use is computer aided learning
system for a few months just so that you can see how wonderful it
is. However, don't bother suggesting he gets some sort of demo
together which prospective employers can see how clever he is in under
half a lifetime - he has already rejected that suggestion.

He still misses the point that its not the time you spend, its what
you produce. In the last 10+ years, the only things he seems to have
produced are some pretty skanky CGi apps.

We know what you said they are. But we don't see lots of cool
applications that could have been written in that time.


Don't know about him, but I don't give a rat's ass (well, I don't even
have one). Some potential employer might, though, if it involves some
for him interesting technologies.

Nah, I'm beyond caring about robert anymore. As I said, he doesn't
really want suggestions or honest criticism, he just wants a venue for
moaning. No realisation that a job and working is a lot more than just
being able to write code - there is a little something called
personality and the ability to play well with others. I suspect to
some extent, past employers and colleagues may have some of the blame
- from all the things he has written, I suspect he has never been told
the reasons why he lost each job he had. People can be very cowardly
about telling people the truth if they think it will hurt their
feelings and I think its very likely Robert has been given all sorts
of made up reasons for why his jobs were terminated or contracts were
not renewed rather than telling him it was to do with his personality
and the fact he was difficult to work with. Its a pity really, given
true feedback and the support to make the necessary changes early
enough and he could have made positive contributions rather than just
being another burden on the welfare systtem.

My suggestion, ignore further posts and let the whole thread die the
death it should have had way too long ago......

Tim


Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!

 

[Patricia Shanahan]

In the case of the NMR research, the paper was by my boss, whose name I
don't remember, but based on a recent online search I believe it might
have been Olav Jardetsky. I contributed my description, which his
secretary re-wrote, or somesuch. I never saw the final copy of the
paper. I was promised a re-print, but never got any. I have no idea
what journal it might have been in.

With the additional name, I've been able to track down a candidate:

Biophysical Journal, Vol 24, 103-117, Copyright © 1978 by Biophysical
Society

ARTICLES
Magnetic relaxation analysis of dynamic processes in macromolecules in
the pico- to microsecond range

R King, R Maas, M Gassner, RK Nanda and WW Conover

A formalism based on the theory of Markov processes and suitable for the
analysis of multiple internal motions in macromolecules is presented.
Computer calculations of specific motional models for (13)C nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation, treated as special cases of the
proposed formalism, demonstrate the potential of this approach for
discriminating between different motional models on the basis of NMR
relaxation data.

Although this does not mention Jardetsky, it is referenced in a paper,
http://spin.niddk.nih.gov/clore/Pub/pdf/60.pdf, as:

King, R., Maas, R., Gassner, M., Nauda, RX.,
Conover, W.W. and Jardetzky, 0. (1978) Biophys.
J. 6, 103-117.

Only the abstract is available on-line. Does it look familiar to you?
The full article should be available at any good scientific library, in
the 1978 volume of Biophysical Journal.

Patricia

 

[Ulrich Hobelmann]

The point I was making here and which Robert manages to twist by
judicious quoting was his original assertion that CGI and Unix were
linked. My point is that CGI is NOT limited to Unix environments. You
have CGI support with most multi-purpose web servers, like Apache and
they run on multiple platforms. I never made any statement that all
web servers provided CGI, only that CGI is not limited to Unix
environments.

Sure it's not. But if you want a custom program to run as CGI, you
might need access to the local environment (compilers, headers,
libraries) to build your program for that environment. For those
servers who run Linux and do allow generic (non-Perl) CGI execution,
maybe finding a Linux machine somewhere else and doing a static link
might work. But then it might not, if the server's kernel interface
differs slightly for whatever reason.

I just got a small webspace account which gives me ssh (and scp) access
to a chrooted environment (with very few commands at all, no gcc, not
even tar and gzip), Apache, PHP, and CGI. I have to ask how I'm
supposed to be able to install CGI stuff without any way to compile
anything... Maybe I'll just get a different web-package when I need it
(this one was free for me for this year).

 

[Phlip]

As we speak, I'm helping deal with a crash-on-reset problem on the
production hardware that doesn't happen on the development hardware,
plus weird edac behavior to go along with it. Analyzing this problem
requires a top to bottom analysis of the system will all sorts of
inter-team documentation of whats going on. How is an emulator going to
help here?

The outer topic is your development environment. Yours is resisting this bug
as we "speak".

(You also had few opportunities to _prevent_ the bug.)

The inner topic is an emulator.

At best it will exhibit the same problems (but we still
don't know what the problems are), at worst it will not duplicate the
behavior.

Here's a completely unrelated topic. When you use "make menuconfig" to build
Linux, you get a zillion options for all kinds of hardware peripherals. You
can freely mix and match all the options, and build a stable Linux.

How could Linux possibly be stable if you activate some combination of
options that nobody ever activated before? The odds increase as you plug in
weird hardware combinations.

The answer is those combinations are not a zillion opportunities for bugs,
they are a zillion forces against bugs. Each cross-constraint, passing its
tests, reduces the odds of bugs in parallel situations. Constraint spaces
with a high number of dimensions are naturally sparse, so a viable Linux
kernel can only exist in very few states.

I would prefer code that passed both emulation tests and tests in real
hardware. Cross-testing is good, even when the emulator doesn't exactly
match the hardware. Sometimes it's good _because_ they don't match. Run such
tests more often.

There are indeed many reasons why an emulator might not be ideal for every
kind of embedded situation.

In _theory_, for each bug you debug in the hardware, you should force the
emulator to exhibit the same bug before killing it.

The decision to do that should be per-bug, not per-emulator.

It hasn't gotten us any closer in the former case, in the
latter its worse because project management is now nervous because its
presenting another difference from the real system yet they're (supposed
to be) relying on it to help them test.

Ah, so you are exposing your managers to implementation details.

Pay no attention to the little emulator behind the curtain!

 

[Phlip]

Or you could again cancel your $20 shell account, get a used computer for
$50, get a free shipping of Ubuntu Linux, install that, install PostgreSQL
or MySQL or something else. For webspace and dialup service there are
cheaper alternatives than $20, too (at least in Europe).

Why Ubuntu Linux?

(You had me Googling for some kind of funky Central African Linux with 'fro
themes, so I wouldn'a asked, but it's from the Isle of Man!)

 

[Phlip]

Oh well, it's Sunday...

Oooh, just one more!

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t wrote:

Well, that's the sort of blinkard, philistine pig ignorance I've come to
expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit on your loathsome spotty
behinds, squeezing blackheads, and not caring a tinker's cuss for the
struggling artist.

You excrement! You whining hypocritical toadies with your color TV sets and
your Tony Jacklin golf clubs, and your bleeding Masonic secret handshakes,
you wouldn't care would you, you black-balling bastards!

Well I WOULDN'T BECOME a FREEMASON NOW if you went DOWN on your LOUSY
STINKING KNEES and BEGGED ME!

(entirely from memory, folks...)

 

[Ulrich Hobelmann]

Why Ubuntu Linux?

Oh, a friend of mine gave me a PowerPC install+live CD just yesterday.
Turns out he got a package with four copies of CDs for PPC, x86, and
x86-64 each, shipped, and all for free on their website. That's why I
thought I'd mention it. Free is a good price, and I didn't know any
Linux organization would actually give you free CDs and shipping.

(You had me Googling for some kind of funky Central African Linux with 'fro
themes, so I wouldn'a asked, but it's from the Isle of Man!)

Hehe, no, it's just a repackaged Debian I think. But on my machine it
booted fine from CD out of the box, very nice. It didn't seem to have
stuff like gcc installed, but I think you could use the normal Debian
tools to do that after installation.

 

[Fernando]

Only an idiot would make it that easy for a potential employer to see
that I'm over 40 and toss my resume in the trash without even glancing
at the rest of it. You want me to be an idiot, I presume?

Probably not. ;-)

My site has many career and resume articles fro different 'job search
situations'. For example, if you consider that the most important
'employability' factor is you age, see these articles:

http://www.easyjob.net/career/job-interview-tips-for-seniors.html
http://www.easyjob.net/resume/senior-resume.html
http://www.easyjob.net/resume

If you have been unemployed for a long time and you think that is
reducing your chances of getting a new job, please see the articles
resulting from this search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=gaps+site:www.easyjob.net

I'm not aware of your situation, but have you considered other options,
besides getting a job? You don't need a lot of money to start a
software business, for instance.

Good luck!

 

[Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t]

With the additional name, I've been able to track down a candidate:
Biophysical Journal, Vol 24, 103-117, Copyright ) 1978 by Biophysical
Society
ARTICLES
Magnetic relaxation analysis of dynamic processes in macromolecules in
the pico- to microsecond range

Yes, that's the kind of research we were doing.

R King, R Maas, M Gassner, RK Nanda and WW Conover

Aha! I recognize the name "Gassner". He might have been my immediate
supervisor. I don't remember whether Jardetsky's name was mentionned
once or twice, or even whether I met him once or twice. "King" is such
a common name, with more recent memories (Rodney King's beating, Martin
Luther King's legacy) that I don't remember that name at all in
connection with my NMR work. We had no e-mail, so I never saw any of
those names in e-mail headers or mentionned in memos etc. That work
occurred over a mere nine-month period, 28-29 years ago, so you can
understand how I can't be really sure of names that I never was able to
learn in the first place due to my learning disability.

A formalism based on the theory of Markov processes and suitable for the
analysis of multiple internal motions in macromolecules is presented.
Computer calculations of specific motional models for (13)C nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation, treated as special cases of the
proposed formalism, demonstrate the potential of this approach for
discriminating between different motional models on the basis of NMR
relaxation data.

*my* computer calculations, based on formulas from a published paper.
Indeed that's exactly what we were working on and my software aided.
So this sounds indeed like a correct search result. Thank you very much!

Did you find the citation in some public index, or only in some
commercial index where you have to register or somesuch to use it?
Google doesn't have even one match for title keys and first author.
On the other hand, if I search for just 3 terms:
Magnetic relaxation Gassner
up come matches which contain the other terms Google said it couldn't
find!! I think the Google search engine is broken!!
A
nyway, these good results:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=708816&dopt=Abstract
Biophys J. 1978 Oct;24(1):103-17

http://www.biophysj.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/1/103
Biophysical Journal, Vol 24, 103-117

And this result which looks good from the Google end:
Linkname: THEORY AND PRACTICE OF NUCLEAR SPIN RELAXATION IN PROTEINS
URL:
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.phy
schem.47.1.243
but when I try to go there it refuses to let me see the article:
An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
I don't want to accept your fucking poison cookies just to view some
Web content! Cookies are for setting up sessions that persist through
multiple HTTP cycles/transactions, which is nothing I intend to do
here, or for spying on users to enable commercial advertisements via
spam and other unethical methods, and to commit identity theft, which I
vehemently object to!!

So anyway, thanks to you, I now have two different formats of the
citation, and I don't know which is the "standard" format that somebodh
else in this thread said I should include in my resume to prove I'm not
lying about having this paper published. (One other person actually
called me a liar, not using that particular word, but he said flat out
that he believes I'm not telling the truth that anything from my work
was ever published in a respected journal. But of course he'll claim
that he never heard of the "Biophysical Journal" so it must not be any
respected journal.)

Although this does not mention Jardetsky, it is referenced in a paper,
http://spin.niddk.nih.gov/clore/Pub/pdf/60.pdf, as:
King, R., Maas, R., Gassner, M., Nauda, RX.,
Conover, W.W. and Jardetzky, 0. (1978) Biophys.
J. 6, 103-117.

I don't have any way to view PDF from here.
I downloaded it to my shell account temporarily, just to see how
big it was:
704 -rw------- 1 rem user 701519 Aug 28 13:58 60.pdf
Let me convert to uuencode:
960 -rw------- 1 rem user 966563 Aug 28 13:59 60.uu
and then just start Kermit to get an idea how long it'd take to
download... after a half minute it's downloaded 14k bytes, so that's
28k per minute, so it'd take about 34-35 minutes to download.

Only the abstract is available on-line. Does it look familiar to you?

No, just the subject matter, not the abstract itself.
(I never saw the article or abstract, just the part I contributed to
the one article regarding my software.)

The full article should be available at any good scientific library, in
the 1978 volume of Biophysical Journal.

I don't have access to any such library, unless the San Jose public
library would have it (the new Martin Luther King library on campus of
San Jose State University). I suffer motion sickness riding the bus all
the way to San Jose, so I don't go there often, and when I do go there
it's to go somewhere else where I'm busy until 5PM or 7:30 PM, and the
library closes at 6PM so there's no time to sign up for an InterNet
terminal to find your reference then try to find the journal.

If I have any time during my one hour on InterNet terminal at Sunnyvale
public library, I'll check whether that PDF is viewable there.

Does anybody know of a free program that does OCR on PDF files and
keeps track of layout so as to convert to reasonable HTML or plain
ASCII? Or if I wrote such a program myself would anyone think it was a
good thing and pay me money for all that effort? Or am I the only
person who thinks that converting a megabyte PDF file to a 30K text
file would be a useful utility?

 

[Patricia Shanahan]

....
Did you find the citation in some public index, or only in some
commercial index where you have to register or somesuch to use it?
Google doesn't have even one match for title keys and first author.

I used Google. I started with a search for

Jardetsky Maas

That did not get many results, so I accepted Google's advice to
change the spelling to

Jardetzky Maas

Jardetzky has co-authored a lot with another Maas, so I went to advanced
search, and excluded "Maas, EV".

The top two hits did not look useful. The third hit was the on-line
paper that referenced your paper. That gave me the journal abbreviation
"Biophys. J" and the year 1978. A Google search for "biophys journal"
got me its home page, and then it was just a matter of scanning the
issue-by-issue index for 1978.

It's amazing what Google can do if you twist it the right way.

And this result which looks good from the Google end:
Linkname: THEORY AND PRACTICE OF NUCLEAR SPIN RELAXATION IN PROTEINS
URL:
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.phy
schem.47.1.243

This is more likely to be a review article referencing your paper, than
to have a copy of the paper you want.

In support of this, the Biophysical Journal web site says "Abstracts
only: Jan 1976 - Dec 1997". The lack of Google hits for title keyword
and first author also argues against the paper being stored in any
on-line archive.

Patricia

 

[gds]

I'm not aware of your situation, but have you considered other options,
besides getting a job? You don't need a lot of money to start a
software business, for instance.

The amount of money necessary to start a business depends on the type
of business, among other things. You may only need a few thousand US$
to build a small prototype, but you may need far more to build out an
infrastructure to support a client base of substantial size. Your
ability to attract investors may depend on being able to support the
substantial client base.

--gregbo
gds at best dot com

 

[Daniel Dyer]

Does anybody know of a free program that does OCR on PDF files and
keeps track of layout so as to convert to reasonable HTML or plain
ASCII? Or if I wrote such a program myself would anyone think it was a
good thing and pay me money for all that effort? Or am I the only
person who thinks that converting a megabyte PDF file to a 30K text
file would be a useful utility?

There are various command-line utilities. Search for "pdf2ascii",
"pdf2html", "pdftohtml", "pdf2txt" etc. Maybe your shell account already
has one of these available.

Dan.