Guy, That's a tough spot. I'm also not good at translating American the Canadian dollars. However, here's some thoughts I had. I am going to play devil's advocate here and there....with american dollar values. I've been developing CF for only 14 months or so, but did mostly database and some VB, GIS, and ASP work for three years before that (for conservation). I have heard the expression many times on this list, at user groups, and at the conference "we all want to make money, right?" Well yes we do. But that's not the main focus for many, myself included. Since I'm a biologist, I'll give you that perspective. I got a job for $8.00 an hour with a biology BA in the late '80s. 18-22K/yr was standard starting for a biologist, IF you could find work in biology. Now it's more like 20-24 K, at least in non-profits. These are not official statistics, but I read the job announcements. With a Master's degree (which I got in 1994) I was competitive in jobs starting at $28-32K. True, some higher paying jobs were out there, but biologists are willing to work for a pittance for some reason. I'm not saying they should, but they do. From 1994-1999 I slowly retrained in computers, but staying in bird conservation, my main interest. My pay did not rise enough as a biologist, let alone as a person with growing computer technical skills. But I dearly enjoyed my work. Eventually, I had to "move out to move up" the salary scale. Because believe me, once people have seen you survive on $12K, they will not understand why you want such a large pay increase. It looks like greed to them. In fact, many biologists I know did not reach $35K salary before age 30. That may sound ridiculous with today's IT salaries, and all the hype, and throw greed into the mix (you'll get this perspective more on computer lists), but it's true. So I am guessing that the average salaries you're looking at in your organization are people with lots of years of experience. It is easy to see why they might resent your requests, with your age and level of experience--it would be so different from how they did it, and what they earned. Now consider that there are two reasons to be unhappy with your low pay: 1) I can't live like this, and 2) I think I can make more. It seems as though their offer of $25, since it doubles your salary, is reasonable to meet the first reason. Maybe? Ah but the second one, there's the toughest spot, and a very personal decision. But from the tone of your message, it sounds like you've already made it that decision. I would just remember as you go through this that these people have a lot of experience of their own in their field, and that their offers are probably considered reasonable within their sphere. As may have been said already, they could end up paying you twice as much later as a contractor. If you don't burn your bridges. Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hello all, Looking for a little fatherly (or motherly) advice. Situation: 8 months out of college working at a non-profit, developing CF for a year. Webmaster managing and developing 8 (eight) domains, sole developer. Currently being compensated at about $12,000 CDN / year no benefits. Educated employer about market value and what their options were if I died tomorrow. (That being a starting salary of about $45k/year for someone straight out of college or they could hire the only other guy in the 100Km radius area that is at my developing level (or above) in CF for $100/hr) I also looked at public financial statement and deduced that the average salary for full-time employment in this organization is about $40K/yr (mostly biologists and administrators). I made a reasonable request of $35K/yr plus standard benefits. They're coming back with a one year contract offer of about $25K/yr no benefits, no negotiation. The group does good work and I'll always be a member, but this job is beginning to cost me money. I'm thinking I should request a two-weeks clause so that I can leave with 2 weeks notice and inform them that I will be looking for employment elsewhere. I'd like to know if this would be perceived as ethical by employers out there. Or any other courses of action that would be suitable and practical. Also, what does it take to get a job with a firm that focuses on CF/Web Development? I really want to grow and learn more. Please accept my apologies if this sounds like whining, I'm just running out of ways to deal with this. Yours In Conservation, Guy J. McDowell, Webmaster The Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (705) 748-6324 ext. 262 P.S. Check out the ALL NEW www.InvadingSpecies.com site as well as the rest of our lineup... www.OFAH.org - The flagship site for the O.F.A.H. www.AuctionForWildlife.com - Your chance to make your bid for conservation. www.EcoEd.org - an online adventure for kids in grades 1 through 8. www.HuntingDog.org - Celebrating our Hunting Dog Heritage. www.AHTV.com - Your online companion to the Angler and Hunter Television show. www.OHEP.net - Where to find out and learn about the Ontario Hunter Education Program. -----Original Message----- From: CF-Community [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 11:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CF-Community-List V1 #15 CF-Community-List Fri, 8 Dec 2000 Volume 1 : Number 15 In this issue: RE: Server for cf? RE: Server for cf? RE: Server for cf? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 08:32:18 -0500 From: "Guy J. McDowell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Server for cf? Message-ID: <000501c0611b$49fe7cc0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Just wanted to send a quick thanks to all involved in this thread. I've been wondering the same things as Al Musella as I plan on starting up a developing/hosting business in the new year. I found out more from that thread than 3 days of research. Gotta love the CF community! Yours In Conservation, Guy J. McDowell, Webmaster The Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (705) 748-6324 ext. 262 P.S. The ALL NEW www.InvadingSpecies.com site is now available. Ontario's best site on invading species info and control. www.OFAH.org - The flagship site for the O.F.A.H. www.AuctionForWildlife.com - Your chance to make your bid for conservation. www.EcoEd.org - an online adventure for kids in grades 1 through 8. www.HuntingDog.org - Celebrating our Hunting Dog Heritage. www.AHTV.com - Your online companion to the Angler and Hunter Television show. www.OHEP.net - Where to find out and learn about the Ontario Hunter Education Program. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 10:30:12 -0600 From: "Jim Nitterauer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Server for cf? Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For what its worth, here is what we use as far as servers and they work wonderfully, are reliable and manageable from a single workstation. Servers: Intel ISP 2150 Server with Single or Dual Channel RAID Controller, RAID 5 with 4 IBM 10 KRPM 9 GB drives, Windows 2000 Server (Blows NT 4.0 away), 256 MB RAM (More for shared hosting servers or as needed - handles up to 1 GB RAM), Min. single Pentium III 750 MHz Processor (Handles up to processors), CF4.51 Pro Service Pack 2 Server, hardware and software complete runs about $6500 total or about $235 per month lease. Co-location services with SQL connection is around $372.50 per month for the first server (each additional server only pays rack space - bandwidth is combined and billed only if it exceeds the base 20 Gb for the first server) All Web sites connect to SQL Server 7 residing on a separate server. The other often overlooked source of slow performance is bad network topology. All servers should be connected to an Ethernet Switch (not a Hub) and NICs configured to run Full Duplex if possible. There are other steps that can be taken to isolate traffic, etc such as a second NIC to connect to a separate switch connected to any database servers. The Intel server platform is very open and can be configured with any desired OS. Jim Nitterauer http://www.creativedata.net -----Original Message----- From: Al Musella, DPM [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 12:17 PM To: CF-Community Subject: RE: Server for cf? Thanks for all of the tips.. I think I will go with the Clone... I went through 3 Dell poweredge servers so far - and was never really happy with the service.. whenever I had problems, they would either blame Windows NT - telling me to just reformat the drive and reinstall everything, or to run the diagnostics overnight. Both of which are impractical on a live server. Also - the processors aren't very upgradeable - the motherboard only supported the speeds that I originally ordered. To upgrade to a faster processor requires replacing the motherboard - which was about as expensive as buying a new server anyway. They also required Dell versions of the processor, which was much more expensive than any other source. For my own office, I use a few of these desktop clones that a local computer store makes. Their service was fantastic - parts are available immediately - and they have been in business longer than Dell:) I can specify any motherboard / chip set - so which should I ask for?? My last computer came with the Tyan Tiger motherboards. Thanks Al >Agreed - also if they are "proper" servers, they'll be using server >m/boards, of which there are a limmited number of manufacturers anyway, and >an even smaller no of chipsets, so chances are a lot of the componentary >will be identical or similar... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. 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