Wach Me Going Through The Process of Getting Online Help
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@pontus-kylberg One of the tips I have when using sites like this is don't make the job public, it takes more time as you have to send the job to others but otherwise you get so so many people applying for jobs.
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I'm not going to discard anyone based on their first answer, but some of the answers make me suspicious. To me, this works just like a dating app. If a girl post, a lot of guys just copy-paste answers and send her. I feel a bit like being in the same boat here: "Hi, I have read your project carefully and I am ready to start immediately. I'll charge you $150 and I will be done in three days." (!) What? I haven't told you what the project is about yet?
And now I need to hit the sack. Back tomorrow with more.
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This is a Sunday evening. I posted my project around 16:00 and now I have 13 answers. I expect that I will have double the amount on Monday evening. This is what I got so far.
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Putting it out there...
This is kind of a simple task. The problem is really in the next step when people ask about specifics. I have prepared a document with screenshots so I can show them exactly what I want. This is insurance in case we disagree after the job is done. I need to be able to point at something, saying: No!, This is what you promised me - doesn't look anything like the thing you delivered.
So just the ad then. The first step is naming your project and describing it.
When that is done you put in the skills you think they will need, a few more things, and then the price range. This is not that important at this stage.
Then they want to sell you there services - I'm choosing the free version. Confirm and post.
And now you wait! But it doesn't take long at all for the bids to come flying in.
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There are a few places you can get your help from if you don't have a friend of your own that is free to help you. If you google freelancer you get some suggestions. I myself have used freelancer once before so that's what I will use again.
You create an account at freelancer free of charge and if you use it to find someone to do your job you pay a small fee ( about £3) for the service.First thing first. What do I need and what will I ask for? If I'm blurry the result I will get from the freelancers will probably also be blurry, at it's best. So I used a couple of hours on one of my friends who is into databases/web. He recommended me using SQL as a database, and to put it in the cloud so I would be able to reach it from everywhere. Sounds nice to me.
In order for me to continue working with my trading whilst the programmer is working with my data, I will set this project up in three steps. It might not be the smartest way of putting it all together and it might be a little more costly, but it will give me time to think, reflect and maybe rethink along the way. So here are my three steps.
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Set up a daily import and cleaning of data to my desktop in order to free up 4-5 hours of my time.
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Create a SQL database and a satisfying way of reading the data on the screen, and then have the data imported directly into the SQL.
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Populate the SQL with historical data.
So the first step is going to be divided into three different projects in freelancer. I want data from Betfair, that will be through their API, Patternform, which will be pretty easy for a programmer and finally GeeGeez, which will be a little more tricky I guess. Actually, I don't know, this is just me guessing.
Next step will be to put the ad up on Freelancer. I will do that now and then report back.
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This is me now, the "before" picture.
The first page I'm going to is Patternform. For those of you only into football, this is a page where you can find information about a horse previous runs and if it has DOBed or not (DoubbleOrBust). A simple way of getting hold of the information on this page is just to copy-paste the tables. The thing is though if you copy into Excel the fraction format is being translated into DATE-format. Like so:
I was lazy when I started using this page. I could have made an effort to get this right. Instead, I just copied into Word. Crappy idea. Now I have a lot of data that I can't easily read or analyze.
Then I proceed to colour-code, highlight and put in markers in the table using other sources such as GeeGeez, where I have a paid subscription.
After three two-four hours (depending on the day and amount of races) this is what I get:
The picture doesn't explain anything, I just wanted to show how I like data presented in order to quickly get an overview. From here I look further into details in order to find my selections.
When the races are done I move certain numbers (manually) into my Excel database... manually. I know, stupid!
Oh no!!! Being a Swede communicating in English - with a couple of beers on a Friday night... Wach should be Watch, of course. Don't be hard on me guys.