# How can I hire a consultant?



## adriftinitland (Nov 12, 2009)

I have a FreeBSD/Apache web server that I broke by applying the wrong patch. I want to hire a consultant who is located in the Mpls, St Paul area as the machine cannot be accessed remotely. How would I go about finding someone qualified who is in this area to hire? Do you know someone you would recommend? Perhaps you are the person that can help me. Please let me know.


----------



## aragon (Nov 12, 2009)

This might help:

http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/commercial.html


----------



## anomie (Nov 12, 2009)

If you're unable to locate a Twin Cities-based consultant at that URL, how about craigslist...? Lots of FOSS geeks in that area.


----------



## adriftinitland (Nov 12, 2009)

aragon said:
			
		

> This might help:
> 
> http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/commercial.html


Thanks. I tried that before posting to the forum.


----------



## adriftinitland (Nov 12, 2009)

anomie said:
			
		

> If you're unable to locate a Twin Cities-based consultant at that URL, how about craigslist...? Lots of FOSS geeks in that area.



I'll give it a try and thank you.


----------



## adriftinitland (Nov 15, 2009)

Absolutely no luck with craigslist.
Anyone have a suggestion?


----------



## DutchDaemon (Nov 15, 2009)

One small anecdote on 'consultants'. A colleague of mine ('Jim') once put in a call to <big_corp> to get help with an issue he couldn't solve himself, even with the aid of documentation and forums. Within a day, the exact same question turned up on the forums 'Jim' was reading himself. It got even funnier when one of the replies on the forums was "to PM 'Jim' who knew a lot about that subject". And so 'Jim' ended up telling the guy from <big_corp> who he was actually speaking with ... Don't overestimate 'consultants', they use the same sources and tools as you do


----------



## anomie (Nov 15, 2009)

Are you sure you posted that craigslist job correctly? I don't see it. And, in all fairness, you only gave it two days (assuming the job was posted...). 

The fact that you require a local candidate makes this much trickier. You might want to next try to tap a Twin Cities-based BSD / Linux user group for leads.


----------



## DutchDaemon (Nov 15, 2009)

Yeah, I was about to suggest looking for a local UUG/LUG. They usually go by those names. First hit for 'Minneapolis LUG':
http://www.mn-linux.org/

It gets better 
Twin Cities BSD User Group -> http://www.tcbug.org/


----------



## adriftinitland (Nov 26, 2009)

This doesn't work: http://www.mn-linux.org/ The last activity on that site was in 2003. Seven years ago. No response to my registration request for a password.

I live in an area with a population base of 3.5 million. You would think there would be 2 or 3 knowledgeable people who would want work specially in this economy.

Something doesn't smell right.


----------



## anomie (Nov 26, 2009)

If I may ask: would you be able to temporarily attach the host to a network? 

There are probably two dozen folks hanging around these forums who could complete the work for you. 

If that's just not possible, I would recommend aggressively posting local job ads (and giving it a few days for a response).


----------



## adriftinitland (Nov 27, 2009)

anomie: Thanks for the suggestion.
I got it working. Still bothers me that I don't know what went wrong.


----------

