jnicol / Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 6
When I take on a new client they often come to view me as their “tech support guy”. I have had clients bring their laptop into my office so that I can configure an email account for them, ask for help formatting a Powerpoint presentation, or seek advise about fixing a broken hard drive.
I try to discourage these enquiries, since I have no particular expertise in computer networking or maintenence, or any desire to provide those services. In most cases it is easy to explain my position to clients, but one area where it gets murky is where email accounts are concerned.
As a web developer I regularly set up mailboxes for my clients, but I draw the line at configuring an email account on a client’s workstation. Instead I give the client the credentials required to login to their mailbox, and instructions for configuring their email application (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, etc). If they still can’t figure it out I refer them to an IT firm who specialise in small business networking.
Sometimes clients have difficulty understanding why I won’t travel to their office to configure their email account in person, but that simply isn’t how I want to spend my time. I also worry that once a client comes to view me as on-call tech support they will phone me any time their email stops working for five minutes, or they have any other minor problem with their computer (or even worse, a major problem).
If I ran a multi-person web firm I would delegate these sort of tasks to a junior, but as a solo operator I don’t see the value in taking time away from my core business activity.
I am wondering where other web designers and developers draw the line. Do you provide technical support services to your clients? If so, which services do you consider fall within your area of expertise? Is it the responsibility of a web developer to provide full technical support services, or is it reasonable to set clear limits?
Edit: I removed the paragraph about creating email signatures, on reflection it isn’t really relevant to the topic :)
jnicol wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 52
@nilsgeylen Wow, that sounds like a horrible situation to find yourself in! I’ve had a few situations over the years where I have wound up in a conflict with a client (threats of lawyers, even), and I found it very distressing.
You raise a good point about hosting. I do consider hosting, and hosting migration, part of my job. I resell hosting to clients, not at a huge markup, but enough to make it worth my while to have clients hosted with me. Plus, it’s benefitial to have my client’s sites all hosted in the same spot.
thedude wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 52
We also work with small clients and although we haven’t had the same problem as @nilsgeylen, it is something we’re cautious about. We’re starting to call our hosting service Managed Hosting and being upfront about the fact that we don’t host the sites ourselves, but manage everything on behalf of the client.
We’re looking at charging the actual cost of the hosting package from the hosting provider, then giving the option of 1) paying a small quarterly fee for telephone and email support plus anything which needs doing on the server, and making it clear what that is, or, 2) charging the actual cost plus a nominal amount to cover invoicing and then an hourly rate for ANY support given.
Not sure if this is the way to go, but I like the transparency. Also, as I don’t mind doing general IT support, I’m happy to do it and bill by the hour. Fair play to anyone who doesn’t fancy that, but I do think if you deal with smaller clients you should be recommending someone to them instead.
Attia wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 52
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Aspera wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 52
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Unkle wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 52
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Maricela wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 52
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Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 120
A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
Filename: posts/single.php
Line Number: 52
Ideally, since I prefer to work for very small clients, I do want to be that go-to guy: I’ll fix your hosting, migration, emails, whatever.
But I’ve come to realize you a) need to define this very accurately b) take full control c) charge for it to the dime.
Why? Because as soon as a client (no matter how much you like each other) senses that you’re offering an easy, all-inclusive service, the floodgates are open.
I recently had an awful experience with this.
I should have said “no, not my job” (but I don’t like that attitude) or I should have followed my own advice: a) define what I would do, what not, b) tell them I would take full control from the start and have them bring their machine in before they messed up themselves, c) made it very clear this was payable by the hour, not some friendly help.
So, I guess the decision to provide support like this is and remains your own; but I am convinced setting clear limits is not at all wrong and even a must.