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I don't think it's realistic to always get down payment up front.

I guess my initial question would be how many hours did you work for him? If it wasn't a lot of time, just accept that you aren't getting paid.

If you did put a lot time into it, then I would push more but make sure you understand why you are trying to get the $$. You won't convince him you were valuable or get a recommendation or reference (I have seen others think they can convert a bad client into a good one).

Finally, understand that bad collections are a fact of life. Everyone has it, and regardless of whether you have a contract or not, you are going to have to expect some amount of losers.

Blankwoodon Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has sued 397 companies

Part of the reason they don't join forces more often is that the IP lawyers often are kept busy by looking at other large company portfolios. Their business is both offensive and defensive.

Blankwoodon Ask HN: What would you like to search and can't?

Or google groups!

Blankwoodon Ask HN: What would you like to search and can't?

Wha about search for sites like posterous or Tumblr?

Blankwoodon Ask HN: Review my startup, Reservv.com (Appointment Scheduler & Reminder)

Can u tell us a bit more about the use case you are trying to build for? thanks!

Blankwoodon Ask HN: feedback on my app - search your Twitter timeline

How long did it take you to build it? Can't you use Twitter search to do this though?

Blankwoodon Ask HN: feedback on my app - search your Twitter timeline

What do you get if you win? :)

Blankwoodon Ask HN: Would You Ever Pay For Search?

Right. You could use other non google alternatives and create your own specialty search, charging for better, faster results like realtime updates for court cases. Indextank is one such engine, and beats google on being realtime and fully configurable (take into account things like user votes etc). You could set up indextank to índex court filings.

Blankwoodon How-to: create a real-time search app with IndexTank and Heroku

Just saw that you also built trendistic. How big is that index? Am trying to get a feel for the size of index to make a compelling contest entry.

Blankwoodon How-to: create a real-time search app with IndexTank and Heroku

I see I can get a free 1million size account for the contest at heroku. How big is that for this type of application, like you show in the tutorial?

Blankwoodon Holiday Hacks Contest – Enter to Win a MacBook Air

Wait a minute, can I use heroku/indextank to build a better search for hacker news with this? I like the real time part of what i see Reddit has with indextank. Can we include votes to help sway search results? Or is this a project that HNs won't like me working on? Am very new to this.