1. Freelance computer software support & hardware repair services, web programming technology.
Practicing in the Washington D.C. area ( Maryland, Northern Virginia, & the District of Columbia ).
Numerous clients, private and corporate. Proud to boast of a 100% approval rating from all clients to date.
Practice currently covers many technical solutions specialties, among which are:
MS Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 & XP admin / support; MS networking, TCP/IP;
Computer virus detection, system cleaning. Java 2 programming.
SQL programming. MS Office software support. Device & PC repair.
Cable installs. Hard disk & file system maintenance. Web technology.
Pentium PCs, laptops, network rewiring. Tech support: in person,
by email, & by telephone. Email systems. Linux. Consultation on
PC equipment procurement & open source sw. JavaScript apps & certificates.
Standard rate for computer services: $ 39 per hour - plus, if a hardware repair is contracted for, the sales & shipping cost of parts needed and authorized - as of 11/23/04.
(Supersedes 12/01/03 rate of $37/hr & 7/31/01 rate of $35/hr & 9/01/00 rate of $30/hr.)
[ Subject to limitations. Exact fee charged subject to negotiation, as appropriate for equipment serviced and other circumstances.
All advanced programming (e.g. Java, Perl, SQL) starts at $ 45 per hour, as of November 23 2004.
Some services at lower rates: appliances & electronic devices repaired at $ 28 per hour + price of parts needed; cf. email support rate below.
For all services but email support, travel time to site is added to total charged, at $10/hr, for Washington DC area travel. -I will work at e.g. Baltimore MD sites, if, also, round-trip rail travel cost is prepaid. ]
- Inquiries on rates/terms welcome! (-Tech support questions require advance fee.) by email to hess1@bigfoot.com
[ Email support is charged at $ 36 per hour for time spent preparing/sending reply or replies, usually about 10-20 minutes. ]
[ Please note that all price quotes are good for only up to 3 months after the estimate of
rate is communicated to the customer. Hourly charges as stated here are subject to change without advance notice. ]
Transcript of currently held certifications (Brainbench).
Gross business income per quarter
for the freelance consultancy of Russell Hess
in the previous 2 1/2 years, as of April 2003.
Graph shows overall tendency to growth; 2nd quarter of 2003 is on the order of the last three quarters shown.
( - Please note: I operate on (& have) low or zero debt - unlike many firms through the '90s. The earnings shown are before profits but are 100% real income. The figures I graph here are literally significant, in the simplest of real terms and in the manner of their appearance. )
2. SF & Fantastic Fiction:
- An online freely available sample portion ( - the As, out of A-to-Z - ) of the Short Guide to Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. Original. Found only here. To look things up in or just browse through.
- My 'HitchHiker's Guide' page.
- The SF Surrealism page; Out-of-these-worlds comedy, satire, whimsy, spoofs: ( "What, no awesome pictures?" - No, no pictures yet. )
- Episode #2 of 'Start Truck'.
- 'Discovery, No Longer Terrible' (-the sequel and ending to 'Battleship Discovery The Terrible'.)
- 'Really Brilliant Reviews of the movie 2001'.
- Great Endings from Science Fiction.
- The Foundation Trilogy as satire - Isaac Asimov's still-distinguished original Foundation novels (the ones written after 1980 do NOT count!) contain a wealth of character portrayals of politically satiric intent...
- Dan Simmons' Hyperion quadrilogy of novels - an appreciative summary of its appeal; comprises 'Hyperion',
'The Fall of Hyperion', 'Endymion', & 'The Rise Of Endymion'.
- Lovecraftiana? The Ancestry of Cthulhu Mythos gibberish, a rummage sale from primeval pre-Lovecraft eras, of possible precedents for
H.P. Lovecraft's bizarre & uncanny use of nonsense syllables.
- - Reviews, of Science Fiction books and videos:
- B movies, laughably bad stuff:
- - Other reviews - movie reviews - are below
3. Poetry & verse drama:
- My own poems (see also UpSky below) :
- And other poetry:
4. Tennis, May-June 2000:
"[ - This section is defunct" - true enough as of May 8 2000. But subsequent developments suggest its revival. "I haven't added to it many months, and seldom finished anything in it anyway, except for the research data on 'Tennis goddesses' page. R.I.P. ]" - I've changed my mind.
May 15, 2000 editorial. About Magnus Norman, the responsibilities of the rankings #1 spot, and a review of French Opens previous to 2000 A.D. Plus my prognostications for Roland Garros 2000.
June 9, 2000 editorial. On the finals of the French Open 2000.
August 2001 brief note: - Of triumph - & disappointment, about both sides of the French Open, in 2000 and 2001.
( Future Editorials to be placed here. If any. )
9. Money and brains: (A multi-Currency Converter, a super info resource: http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic )
New: (A calulator of the values of old money or old monetary figures, taking inflation into account: http://www.westegg.com/inflation )
10. Java, HTML, JavaScript, Web pages & browsers & the Web:
- Java...
- 'Materia': generates manual info on a given Java Class, by the mechanism of 'self-reflection' using java.reflect; useful if your manual is unavailable or outdated. Download as a ZIP archive, or as all the other individual files (which are all necessary), and place the files in the same directory, with java.exe and javac.exe in the PATH. [Note: This utility is for Windows/DOS, not UNIX or LINUX.]
When run with correct parameters, will generate and open a text file with complete information on the Constructors, Fields, and Methods of the Java Class specified.
- HTML, Web Design...
- Past versions & revisions of websites I've built:
11. Science & History:
Astronomer Royal data list (biographical sketches & info summary), in honor of the Royal Greenwich Observatory's closing on Oct. 31 1998 ...R.I.P.
New, July 2003: What was the earliest bird well known in the fossil record? Why is a bird a bird? 'Hesperornis Vs. Archaeopteryx' tells in detail what the answers to these questions are, and why.
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Gosling Hypotheses: speculations suggested by closely observing young Anser canadensis. Archaeopteryx's wings, goose dietary (and more, when there is time to add it.)
New, July 2003: 'UFOs, Cold Fusion, and Probability' - what the nature of science is, at its best.
Tsiolkovsky's epitaph.
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'A critic of the Constitution of the United States' - an essay on Constitutionalism, privacy, rights, and maybe more).
- UpSky's Astronomer Royals page got listed at OpenHere in the category Professional - Astronomy - History. (March 23 2000.)
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12. Mathematics:
13. Superstition: ...the only appropriate subject for this number.
14. Recipes, Food:
15. Music, Sounds, Birds:
16. Movie Reviews:
New, March 2002: 'The Graduate' (1967)
17. Writing (original):
X. All the rest; Miscellanea:
Tell the Webmaster! ...not your life history, but all suggestions and comments are welcome. Email link to <hess1@bigfoot.com>.
( . . . you are guaranteed not to be put on a mailing list nor subjected to email ads - except my signature block of course. )
This website's twin....is discovered to be defunct/removed, as of May 19 2003... horrid news, but it (and links to it in UpSky2) will be restored....so this link will not work: . . . . 9 of the above categories with different content, at 'UpSky'.
(In case you wonder, "What happened to 5 (or 6, 7, 8) ?" - - see F.A.Q.)
( "Initial italics: ~~ Why?" )
UpSky2 being updated... November 23, 2004 and October 24 in 2004; & March 3, May 20, July 12-13 & 14, and December 20 in 2003; & September 22 and August 12 and June 14 and January 2 2002 ... also November 2 & 25, October 14 & 18 & 23, September 19 & 27, August 4 & ~ 15 & 21, July 24 & 30 2001. ( - Frequently updated also, in 2000, and in 1999.)
Since August 1998, UpSky2 has had
visitors.
FastCounter by LinkExchange
(local counter, in development, May 1 2000.)
Awards:
The Knowledge Is Power Award, for 'UpSky', May 1999.
'Icarus', down to earth - Less exalted and more negative :
Life patience and fools! Beating dead horses! Ineptitude verse! A cure for hair problems...! ...and more!
Block Sender List Club at UpSky2.
- You too can
FIGHT SPAMateurs* !!
A Nightmare Scenario
The logical end result of the current Spam junk-e-mail scene, is email services resembling current systems for transmitting secure data:
To send to someone will require not only the right email address [ analogous to a 'public key' ], but also the correct Subject line code [ as a 'private key' analogue ].
...Email systems would be, in this nightmare scenario, designed to filter out all email with subject lines not equal to ( for instance ) "iD:Qs0196s24QQz3". (...more about this possible future...)
[ . . .Watch this space, more to come soon . . . Links to be activated:
Maxims against spam Spam hater's glossary
Block Sender List, category 1 - ground for inclusion
A definition of what exactly constitutes true spam of the most offensive varieties encountered. ]
* ( - a "Spamateur" is what you get when you cross a spammer with something amateurish - not pretty. )
( I.R.C.C., the International Red Cross & Crescent gets a percentage from this: )
