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Upgrade Pricing on ColdFusion Builder 2

So, maybe I'm late to the game wih this, but I was just on Adobe.com and happended to look at ColdFusion Builder 2 in the store and saw they now offer upgrade pricing for Builder if you have any of the following:

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Freelance Pay Scale - What should you charge

So, this started out as a bit of a brain dump on the AZCFUG.org mailing list when someone asked what the going rate is for a ColdFusion Developer these days. I recieved a lot of positive feedback on it, so I thought it might be a good idea to share on here.

 

A good baseline for picking a rate is:

 

Take what you earn a year, say, $60,000

You work about 2000 hrs a year, so your hourly rate there is about $30 an hour

Being a full time employee has it's advantages (usually..) Steady pay, health insurance, paid time off... You get the idea.

Those "benefits" have a literal value, say roughly equal to your pay.

So as a baseline number, double whatever your assumed hourly rate a full time job would be, in this case somewhere around $60 hour

I then usually add or subtract based on the job itself: Taking over someone else's evil, poorly coded project that looks like a nightmare, I add 50% - 100%

If it's something cool that I've never done before and I can learn from it, I might discount it some.

Also, factor in that you need to pay taxes on this income (we all report all of our side income, Right???) So, assume your going to lose about 40% of the money you make.

The volume of work (guaranteed work), my availability, possible perks (free stuff they make or sell), how tight or loose their deadlines are, do they seem cool or are they going to be a pain in the a**, should all factor into that pricing.

(Comments added by Cheryl Novalis-Marine)
I think you also need to consider Industry and size of the company (maybe even more so than the location).  I have a long time client out of Manhattan NY, but they are a smaller company and because they are in NYC they have a lot of high expenses.  No way they would be able to pay $200/hour.  So, lots of things to factor in when deciding.

At the end of all of that, look at how much money you stand to take home once the job is done, is it worth the time/effort/stress

 

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Category: Windows 7

How to install CF9 on a 64 bit Windows 7 machine using IIS 7.5

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Posted by | Posted on March 13, 2010

Category : ColdFusion · Windows 7

My new work laptop is amazing, I love it. It's a Lenovo T400s running Windows 7, 64 bit Professional, with a dual core processor, 8 gigs of RAM and a solid state hard drive. It's easily the fastest and most responsive machine I've ever used (boots to a usable state in less than 30 seconds). That being said, I just this weekend got around to trying to install ColdFusion 9 on it. This is by far not the most clear cut process, neither Microsoft or Adobe has said much about it, but here is how I managed to get it all running.

First off, IIS isn't installed on a Windows 7 machine by default, you need to go in an install it. Thankfully, Win 7 makes that process fairly easy.

Start > Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows Features On or Off

Windows 7 - Turn Windows features on or off

Based on my experience using IIS 5 and 6 I assumed it would be as easy as simply installing the core IIS 7.5... It's not. IIS 7.5 is not a simple thing, Microsoft has made it's settings, add on and management tools quite granular, which I suppose means you have a lot more control and can make your system a lot more secure, but it sure does make something like this a lot more complicated.

From my testing, Prior to installing ColdFusion 9, you need to install the following IIS features and tools:

  • Internet Information Services (this will provide you with the core IIS engine and some default features)
    • Web Management Tools
      • IIS Management Console
      • IIS Management Service
    • World Wide Web Services
      • Application Development Features
        • CGI
        • ISAPI Extensions
        • ISAPI Filters
If you look at the image above, you'll see I turned on a number of other tools, these are not required to get ColdFusion 9 up and running, they are just tool sets I think I'll make use of.

Once you have these IIS features installed , Now you can install ColdFusion 9...

IF you installed ColdFusion 9 before installing IIS you will have to un-install ColdFusion, install IIS and it's add ons, then re-install ColdFusion.

IF you installed IIS, without the ISAPI filters add ons and then installed ColdFusion, you will have to un-install IIS and ColdFusion and then do it again in the right order.