Posting a freelance software project

[DavidMcK]

I was hoping the more software savvy individuals on here could suggest a website where I could post a software project (involving manipulating data from the Daily Racing Form for thoroughbred racing). So far I've found a few websites that seem what I'm looking for, and since I'm willing to pay up to 1K for my project I thought I would check with the people here first before I commit myself...any advise?

P.S. The problem is that the chart comes as a .pdf file which seems hard to copy to another (open office) program and add info or manipulate data (such as putting the data in a 'box and whiskers' plot). I'm not sure if .pdf files can do anything except be read since they seem to be encrypted.

Edited January 12, 2010 by DavidMcK

[klnielsen]

Hi David,

What type of software are you posting--free, shareware or proprietary, and for what platform? Do you need a storefront, or just publicity, and do you need or already have a repository?

I have a project up at Freshmeat. It is just for publicity. You need to have your package stored elsewhere, and they will provide a record page with a description and links for free. They exist to serve the *nix and PalmOS communities, so they may not be useful to you. Sourceforge may be useful if you are looking to attract developers, but it is only for open source projects so again it may or may not work out for you.

Here is my project, btw </shameless plug>

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

David,

Moving away from open source, the main ones if know of are:

elance

guru

odesk

getacoder

scriptlance

getafreelancer

The other outsourcing companies I know of are not strong in coding.

You might find some other leads at ASP--Association of Shareware Professionals.

I'm not sure how Facebook apps goes with gambling since I don't do Facebook all that much yet, but I think I have seen poker and things like that. Google "create Facebook apps" or "Facebook application developers" or things like that. There are oodles of companies and information out there and this field is exploding right now.

You also might Google "gaming apps" and "online gaming developers" and things like that.

btw - There are all kinds of things you can do with a pdf file. It depends on how it comes.

If worst comes to worst, amplify the view, do a Print Screen, save as jpg or whatever and run an OCR program on it.

But in the hands of a good coder, that should not be necessary.

Michael

[DavidMcK]

This project is for nothing but my own use. What I'm doing now is very time consuming: I download the Daily Racing Form for say tomorrow's races at Aqueduct, then using Open Office spreadsheet I put all the 'Beyer' numbers from a certain horse's record into the spreadsheet (Beyer numbers reduce how well the horse ran down to one number), and then using the formulas that I have embedded in the spreadsheet I can make box plots, have a better idea how 1 horse compares to another, etc. It takes me an hour and a half to do this for one racecard, and I was thinking that if there was a software program that could do this instantly after I download it, as well as save it to a file on my computer it would be time-saving. I'm not selling the software, or offering it on a website, just my own use. The problem is that dfr.com encrypts their .pdf file that you download, so that you can neither copy their raceform to another program or add something into it (the properties page said it is encrypted with 128 bit encryption), but they also offer a comma-delimited file that might be able to be used. Any way, that describes the problem and I just wanted to make sure I was asking for something that could be done before I made a fool of myself. Thanks for the suggestions Mike and Kelley. I use Windows Vista right now, but re: the next suggestion I might re-partion my hard drive and put Suse on it (I've used Linux before). That would work well with OpenOffice.

P.S. What does this have to do with Objectivism? Remember in Galt's speech he talked about the moron's who like to watch horses go around a track? That's me!

Edited January 14, 2010 by DavidMcK

[tjohnson]

The problem is that dfr.com encrypts their .pdf file that you download, so that you can neither copy their raceform to another program or add something into it (the properties page said it is encrypted with 128 bit encryption), but they also offer a comma-delimited file that might be able to be used. Any way, that describes the problem and I just wanted to make sure I was asking for something that could be done before I made a fool of myself. Thanks for the suggestions Mike and Kelley.

I often copy from pdf's using kpdf in linux because you can tell it to ignore security settings of the document, but you would have to run a linux box to do that. Usually Excel or OO calc can open csv files so maybe try that.