Email Project Manager Ticker Number

how is the shuffle script progressing?

I wanted to ask you a question regarding something which just occurred to me for my long term strategising. Besides remote desktop connection, is there a way I can look at someone else's computer screen while they are logged in and working? When I assign work to people when they are in- house staff, I often see how inefficiently they work and run over to give them good logistics tips. I'd like to extend this for the remote positions I am offering too. Not like to spy, but to agree with the person on set times and watch how they do things. Or they can watch me, so I can show them a better way. Or they can hand me control of their mouse, so that I can show them while talking to them through Skype. I discovered that one big problem with my server is XP does not offer fast switching between users, or allow multiple users logged in at any one time. Although I discovered I can get or buy some programs which hacks into XP and allow this (hope to start experimenting with this soon). This is the main reason the server was having all the problems, because as soon as a user would log into the server to do some work on the limited Remote Worker user account, and maybe log out, it would screw at least one thing running on the main administration user account. Perhaps once I get this resolved on the server I will be able to use the same system with my remote workers on their own computer? I don't know. Or do you have any suggestions?

I remember talking this with you a million years ago, and it popped in my head last night, and occurred to me that perhaps there is an easy way to solve it. Anyway, to repeat what I am after, I basically like to see my daily profits, and use that data to make a nice graph I can look at. But various jobs have various durations, have various profits, and start and stop on different dates. In which case each job has some different profits/day figure which contributes to things across a different set of days. I think I may have found a solution to this, but lack one small key. Here is my solution:

- for each order I have a start and end date, which I always punch in manually. The date I was assigned the project, and the date I delivered it to the customer. - from this I compute the number of days that job has been active, and based on the total profits of the project, it is easy to compute the average profits per day that the job is running. I already have a select query showing this basic information, but lack one crucial piece of information: the day's date (each date the project is active and running), and hence a duplication of each record for each day that it is running, with the appropriate cell showing each active day's date. - if I had that piece in the puzzle, then I would simply create a Crosstab Query, which would sum up all the daily profits associated with each particular date. In that case, I could have the date running down the vertical column with the daily profits for each job summed up into a single column next to it. Then I can simply take this data and create a nice horizontal running graph showing it all, rising up and down in its inspirational manner. Have any ideas how to create that one missing link I don't know? The cell with "today's date" for every day a project is active?

I just got another one of my crazy ideas, but I think it will be necessary. You know when you need support from some company, you log into their website, submit your question, and then you get an email with a ticker number in the subject, asking you to press Reply and put your response in a particular place? Like most of the email is some text explaining the procedure, various things, and the response written by some guy located in India or who knows where, and in the email is something like:

PUT YOUR RESPONSE BELOW THIS TEXT

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PUT YOUR RESPONSE ABOVE THIS TEXT

Well, do you think that in the future we could do something like that? Mostly when I approach a bunch of translators for a new project, and they all respond at various times whether they can take the job. I do not want to force them all to log into your communication scripts to be able to responsd, because I will probably lose translators this way. But this is yet another process which I find very time consuming and would need to eventually farm out. When they respond, I guess the communication script would have to do a search of the ticker code in the subject to identify who the translator is (CODE number in the USER table), so we know who we are dealing with. It would have to be set up so that the project manager only knows the CODE number, or perhaps the first name or Alias, just like when they are communicating with them through your existing communication scripts. How long do you think it would take to create such a project? Could we incorporate it into your scripts somehow? Could it be an independent script that I could assign to another programmer, with some instruction from you how to incorporate it into your scripts? I can have lots of interesting projects for you, but the KENAX engine site I'd generally like to break up among several programmers. This is more a project in the future when I have lots of work, and hence can afford to invest further into programming, but I am just trying to get an idea how much it might cost/how long it might take. Or maybe such a program already exists?

I see now why it is not working, as I expected you to use your own smtp settings. I was thinking of possibly letting PMs use the Desknow's smtp server, but I'd rather not at the moment. Do you not send out emails from your own computer? Such as from Outlook or something? Or do you do all your emailing online? You will need to contact your internet provider to find out your smtp settings. I'd rather not give you the security password for my smtp server.

can you communicate with Agava for me? My account with them is "transla2". I am in different internet cafes with quite high speeds and both your script and the other programmer's is ridiculously slow. When I .zip the database to a 2.6 MB file and try to download it, each time it downloads at between half to 1.3 kb/sec, or it fluctuates. I fear Agava is too slow. I can consider paying extra to increase the bandwidth, although in the beginning they told me it was unlimited. Or I will have to switch to another webhost, because it seems to slow for me. Also, I have not paid them anything for a long time, so I'd like to get an idea about accounting.

I am trying to upload a new User table to import into your scripts. I have copied the user table to another location, updated the _config.inc.php file for the new location, and then switched to Manual synchronisation, but it does not seem to work. Is it supposed to manually synchronise when I press Save? In the meantime, I will set it to autosynchronisation and try it again tomorrow. I think I already asked you this, but do you think you could have a script which would automatically copy the user table from one location to another, once every hour or whatever, to time it always before the autosynchronisation? I think the autosynchronise was not working before because it would try to import the user table while someone within it was changing their information, or someone was registering as a new user.

would it be possible to make the subject of your mass email script also draw from a field in the Excel file? I am realising that I have too much emailing to deal with and need to farm out this work to others. So I am discussing this issue with the other programmer about developing a script where project managers can respond to emails online. It would be set up on a ticker system where there would be a ticker number in the subject which would act as a reference for the online system, I guess the ticker number representing the email address of the person being communicated with, plus the topic of the email. I guess a communication thread would have to be stored as well. I assume you've seen such a system for online help, where you would receive an email with a bunch of text, a ticker number in the subject, and within the email a specially marked section where the recipient is supposed to write their response. So first of all, I'd need your mass email script to have a new field so that the subject can also be unique for each person, and second of all, I guess another script which would generate the ticker number based on the recipient's email address (perhaps some conversion code from the email address to some number), and then based on the topic/thread. Do not start on this yet, because it will take a while to write the online script, but I just wanted to know if something like this was possible and what are your thoughts on this. I guess I would be sending out mass emails from my server, where the return email would be directed to Hypermart and processed online there by project managers based on the ticker number. I'm afraid I cant use Agava because it is too slow, and because you said it was on some spam lists. Can you find out if Hypermart is on some spam lists? This project would be longer term and the shuffle script would have the highest priority at the moment, as I need it to help me find work. Once I find a lot of work, I'll need to set up the ticker system, because already I am swamped with too many emails.

responding offline to your last email which I read on my mobile. I'd like to discuss this new communications project with you more. I am realising that, if I want to expand, I need to farm out this email processing work to others. For example, I get a potential or real project and approach a bunch of translators asking who is available. With larger projects I'll post ads on different websites, addressing translators through other databases. So with only a few projects I can easily be flooded with a million emails in my inbox, and I simply do not have the time to process them all. Also, I like to be conscientious and answer to them all, even if using some previously prepared response (copy/pasting etc.). And inform the translators if a project is cancelled, or if they were not chosen, etc. etc. So full time work for lots of people if I start to get a large turnover. I need to free myself of this task. First of all, I fear I cannot use the Agava Russian webhost site because it is too slow and is apparently on some spam/black list, meaning that a lot of translators do not receive emails sent out from it, or it ends up in their spam/junk box. Not good for efficient business. So I guess I will try to set this script up on my Hypermart.net account, which is fast and has a good reputation. I just wrote hypermart asking them whether it was possible to forward incoming emails sent to a certain email address and somehow direct it to your script. Maybe you have some ideas concerning this. Also, my other programmer already made me a mass email script which sends out from my own server, based on an Excel and html file. I can customise each email so that it draws from fields within the Excel file, such that it might write something like "Dear [First Name] [Last Name],". Meanwhile, I guess a second script would generate the ticker number, perhaps based on some conversion code, converting the email address to some number, where the rest of the ticker number would refer to the topic of the email. The return email address would be directed to Hypermart and presumably forwarded to your script for further processing. Now, sometimes I post ads on certain online databases for big projects, so I would need your system to also process incoming emails that do not have a ticker number. Perhaps I could set up temporary email addresses and then erase them over time, before they get snapped up by the evil spammers and start to waste my project managers´ time. Otherwise, incoming emails with an established ticker number might have an associated time limit. If the recipient of the email does not respond within a set time (which can be set/adjusted for each case), they would be sent an automatic reply telling them their time is up and that they should direct their email to so and so and such and such. Once the incoming email gets accepted into your system, I´d like it to store the communication thread. For one so that I can download it and check up on the communication (or forward it to someone else to check up on it), and for two so that the project manager can quickly look at the previous thread of communication so that they know the context and understand how to respond properly. Furthermore, I expect that eventually I will have several project managers responding to these emails, so I would need a little code next to our response on the thread, showing which project manager made which response. I´ll have project managers (PMs) on different time zones, so within a 24 hour period, several different PMs might be responding to the same person. Or even several PMs on the same time zone, just to make sure that emails are always answered quickly, no matter what time of day. In this case, I´d like to be able to grant access permissions for certain topics (like projects). Perhaps I will decide that I would rather have only one or two PMs handle responses for particular topics, instead of letting everyone get involved and cause mayhem. Afterall, it takes time to train project managers per topic/project, and it might be better to just break things up this way. I´d like this ticker system to draw on the same USER table your other communication script is drawing from. Do you think that your ticker script on Hypermart will be able to draw directly from Agava? Like another hourly synchronisation? I´d like it this way so that project managers can become familiar with certain translators, based on their Code number, or nickname. Some translators are very reliable and high quality, and when they respond to a mass email indicating they are available to take a project, I´d like my PMs to recognise them so that they can give them the immediate goahead to take a translation. So your script would have to convert the ticker number in such a way to recognise who it is in the User table based on the email address (converted and deduced from the ticker number in the email subject) in the User table, and display the Code and Nickname when the project manager is communicating with them. Or if it is a fresh incoming email with no ticker, or a ticker number referring to a previous thread of a person not already in the database, it would display that this is a new person. On this note, I guess I´d like this ticker system, and might as well your previous Agava based communication script, to draw on information from a new table: my Comments table for each translator. I write these comments offline based on my experience with each translator. For example, I might say "This guy is really good, high quality and reliable!!". So a new project manager not familiar with his code and nickname would already know that this guy should be assigned the project. I would upload this table from time to time as I update it. If project managers want to add a comment regarding that translator, they could send me an email and I will consider adding it to the Comment table. Otherwise, I guess it would be a good idea to have a Comments section for each particular thread. For example, one PM might decide that a particular person is a total doorknob, whoever they are, and warn other PMs (or remind himself) not to waste their time studying the thread and just ignore the person. Speaking of such a project based Comments box, I guess it would be good to eventually have that for your previous communication script as well, on a project basis and as sort of a forum between several PMs working on the same project, but this is a long term plan and not necessary at the moment. Just thought I´d mention it. Well, this little project is ballooning as usual, but I see that it needs to be eventually done, because my inbox is so swollen with emails and I really need to farm out this work to others. Without them seeing the email addresses, of course. I thought that I can even try to sell this particular script, so we can work out some profit sharing thing. I assume that future purchasers would want to make some modifications, so I can pay you more for that. But I guess it is not possible to sell without revealing the source code? I´m not sure I´d want to sell it if it reveals the source code. On the other hand, not many translating agencies are trying to operate in a virtual office environment like I am, so I guess I won´t be helping my competition so much by making such a script available. What do you think? Or if I do start selling it, could not the people I sell it to in turn start selling it but at a cheaper rate? I guess being the king hacker and user of cracked programs that I am, I can now start dealing with the problem of others freely distributing software that I paid to develop.