Today @duward sent out a tweet asking what we use for contracts. I responded and so did several other people. We where talking about how our contracts are where hurting us, not helping. Nothing like having a false sense of security. We have decided to team up with a few other people to see if we could develop the “perfect” contract.

I want to have an open mind and make this an on going project. Ideally I want to have it so all can participate and all can use. For this stage in the project we will gather information, share past failures / success, and express ideas. There is a lot of information out there that talks about contracts, but nothing that is complete.

What is a Contract?

According to dictionary.com a contract is “an agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified” and it’s “an agreement enforceable by law”. So basically it is a piece of paper that states what we will do and not do for our clients. It helps the client understand what service they are receiving from you. It can also include payment information: how much, when things are do, and even late fees. Often contracts are very confusing to the average person. We either want to create a contract that can be read by all or a contract that is written normally with an additional sheet of paper that will help you explain what the contract are saying to your clients.

Why are we doing this?

We are doing this as an “open source” project. We figure there is a lot of people out that need contract and even more of them that need ones that will hold up in court. People often forget that web design and development community is still often under developed. There is no reason why there is not some complete contract already written up for us. Our goal is to help all freelancer and even companies to have a professional legal contract.

The master plan.

We plan on have a few stages that we will work threw. I will try to explain all the phases. For now it is very short, we will add more detail as we go.

1. Alpha – This is where we will talk and discuss all about the contract. What we are doing now.
2. Beta – We are going to start the actual formatting. This phase might have to be broken down in to smaller bits. We will need to have a lawyer overlook the contract. We will have to have the community agree (for the most part) about the content, look, and feel.
3. Launch – We will release an approved version of the contract. We might have sub contracts that include: hosting, retainer agreement, and [Fill in this blank]. These contract will be available in all formats (PDF, Word, Pages, etc). They will be free to download by all.

What type of contracts?

• Short Term (per hour)
• Project (per project)
• Retainer (per a set time)
• Hosting (hosting a site)
• Did we miss one? Let us know.

How can I help?

So you want to help the design & development community succeed? You can help by offering you advice and profession opinions. Ask others to join. Help develop a master plan. If you know a lawyer that might want to help us out. Send out a tweet. Just ask us how you can help and we will come together and work together.

Resources \\

• 5 Reasons You Must Work with a Graphic Design Contract
• The Bare Bones That Every Freelance Contract Should Have
• Free Graphic Design Contract
• Freelance Contracts: Do’s And Don’ts
• What to Include In Your Design Contracts
• Sample contracts for freelance work?
• Sample Web Design Contract, Budget, Timeline & Proposal

Contributors \\

• @kennedysgarage
• @duward
• @Ktomasso
• @RyanKovach
• @mr_trent

Talk more \\

• There is a conversation that is started over at forrst.com.
• Tweet this: Join the making of a universal open source contract for web designer & developers. http://bit.ly/bcpRGr #WDDcontract

1. Login into your admin panel.
2. Click the “Administration” tab.
3. Click the “Addons” link (it’s right underneath the tabs).
4. We are now looking for the link: SEO (requires URL manipulation engine – mod_rewrite or isapi_rewrite)
5. Change the status to “Active”

6. Click “edit”
7. Change the “product/page SEF URL format:” to “product_name.html” in the top pull down box.

Requires URL manipulation engine – mod_rewrite or isapi_rewrite?

Now if you are anything like me, you have this feeling that you probable don’t have what is required. I read what was required a few time and it still didn’t make much sense right off the bat. Basically all it is say it to make sure you have mod_rewrite installed on your server. Great, now I bet you are going to ask how to check to see if it’s installed. There are a couple of different ways.

WAMP

If you are using WAMP as your local sever, you are in luck. WAMP has made this a very easy task.

1. Go to http://localhost/ and click “phpinfo()” under tools.

2. Ctrl + F or search for “mod_rewrite”. If you have it, it should be under “Loaded Modules”.

3. If it is there great, it’s enabled. If not, go to the next step.
4. Left click on the WAMP icon in your system try.
5. Then go to “Apache modules”.
6. Then find “rewrite_module”. Make sure it has a check mark next to it, if it does not, click it so it does.

7. Now you have “mod_rewrite” enabled!

Hosted Server

If you are hosting your website on an actual server like www.GoDaddy.com , like I do, then follow along.

1. Open a text editor and name a new file: phpinfo.php
2. Inside this new file place the following code (w/o quotes): “<?php phpinfo(); ?>”

3. Upload this file to your base directory on your server.

4. Open up your favorite browser and go to your new page: http://yourwebsite.com/phpinfo.php
5. Ctrl + F or search for “mod_rewrite”. If you have it great, it’s enabled.
6. Note: Most hosting company have “mod_rewrite” installed as a default. In this case you will not be able to find it.
7. If you don’t know if your hosting company has it installed by default, either switch over to another hosting company like www.GoDaddy.com or call yours up and ask “Can you please add mod_rewrite to my Apache configuration?”

You’re done! Maybe?

So now everything should be working. Let’s go to the home page and refresh the page, then click on a link. Does it take you to the page or show you an error? If you went to the correct page congrats, if not, it looks like you are stuck with me for a little bit more.

The last fix.

1. Go to your root directory and open the file called: .htaccess
2. Open the file in a text editor and find the following: RewriteBase
3. Now replace that line of code with the following: RewriteBase /your_cscart_directory
4. Put a big smile on your face and leave us a comment.

Extra

I have found these pages from CS-cart and thought you guys might find it useful.

http://docs.cs-cart.com
http://kb2.cs-cart.com
http://kb.cs-cart.com

cocodenut is a new site that is being launched today. They have a growing number of code snippets everyday. Be sure to check it out and follow @cocodenut on twitter. They also have a page called Meat. The Meat is the core of any website as is the meat is the core to any coconut. Meat was designed as a blank canvas to start your web design. It includes a blank: index.htm, style.css, sitemap.xmp, robots.txt and some organization to get any website off on the right foot.

Links:

Magento

Special Thanks:

Arju thanks for helping us log-in in to Magento! He made a post over at Oracle in World called After installing magento can’t log in to admin panel

No Thanks:

Magento with their documentation on the post of How To Reset Your Password.

Main Features

• ALL CAPS, EVERYWHERE!

Screenshots

Take a screenshot of your blog and we will post it.

Download

Installation

1. Unzip and Upload the `billymaysovertake.php` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory.
2. Go to `WP Admin » Plugins` and activate the ‘Billy Mays Overtake’ plugin.

Q: How do I view the Path File?
A: Finder >> View >> Show Path Bar

Q: How to take a Screen Shot?
A: Command + Shift + 3

(There are other options for this: Taking Screenshots in Mac OS X)

Q: How to “Right Click” on a Mac?
A: Finder >> Applications >> System Preferences >> Trackpad >> Check the box labeled: Secondary Tap
Or you could go buy a mouse that has both left & right click abilities

Q: Does Mac have a “Show Desktop” feature?
A: Kinda, you can set it up, but it will not be a button you click on.
Finder >> Applications >> System Preferences >> Expose & Spaces >> Active Screen Corners >> Select one of the boxes and choose: Desktop.
I choose to put mine in the lower right corner. So now when I move my mouse to the far bottom-right part of the screen the current windows move away to show the desktop. There are other options that are just as cool, for the other corners.

Q: How to install a program?
A: I must have downloaded Firefox three times before I figured how to install it. Lets use Firefox as our example, since it was the first program I installed.

1. Download Firefox.
2. Open the file you just downloaded (Firefox 3.5.2.dmg)

3. The “install” window will show. Drag Firefox over to the applications folder, if the program does not show the applications folder automatically open it up and then drag it in to it.

4. Enjoy. It’s that simple. Do you want to guess on how to uninstall a program? Delete the file in you applications folder (update: this only works on some programs).

Q: How do I delete foward?
A: Fn+Delete

Q: Why does the maximise button not maximise?
A: It does.Well, kinda, it maximize enough to show all the files in the window. It does not maximize to the size to the screen.

Q: Why does the close button not close?
A: It does not close the application that is running, it only closes the window. To close an application you have to press: Apple+Command+Q or File >> Quit or Right Click >> Quit

Q: Is there a quick way to search?
A: Yes. Apple+Spacbar or download Quicksilver(warning: the old time mac user will say learn the OS before download third party apps. I would have to agree)

Q: What is your tip for the new mac users?
A: Yes, we want to know.

The part I had a hard time understanding is where wine installed my windows programs. I must have looked for three hours before I figured it out from a number of sources. I just figured that Macs where so simple. I found this program that is called Tinker tool. It allows you to show hidden files on your Mac, among other things.

For me the location of my files where:
Macintosh HD/user/kennedy/.wine/drive_c/
From here you will see you “Program Files” and other important Window files. (Replace kennedy with what ever you name your machine)

Another problem I had was, I did not want to go to the terminal every time I wanted to a run program. I found another great little app called Darwine. This program allows you to run .exe files from the folder and not the terminal.

Note: To all the Mac users out there: I am only using my window programs until I purchase my Mac programs. I have already heard form my Mac friends “I would never run Window programs on Mac”.

Links:

• Drupal