[khalidmbajwa]

I am a long time contractor on oDesk and owe a great deal to this site.I wanted to talk a little about the hate the hourly model with screenshots is getting. Here's the primary reason the video thing won't work. Most of the providers are from third world countries where internet while decent is rarely good enough to support uploads in such massive volume. I have a 4 Mbps DSL connection and while i get great downstream, the upstream maxes out at 20 KB/s. So yeah, that's out of the window. However, screenshots work extremely effectively. I have close to 5000 hours logged on oDesk and barring a one off incident where i forgot to shut the logging software down and ended up logging extra hours( I refunded the client) i have never had a buyer dispute my hours. Here's the thing, as an employer you have to be smart about it. When you post a job, only interview candidates with a good oDesk history,look at their past jobs, the buyer's feedback, their portfolio etc. Then talk to them over Skype, ask for code samples etc. If you reach out for the bottom of the pool ofcourse you will get burned, but a contractor with a good history (who might be charging higher)will never ever endanger his feedback history in such a cut throat marketplace where even a single 4.99 out of 5 can knock you off the first page of search results and costing you big time, all for a few extra bucks. This alone will weed out 99% of the dishonest providers. But you can still go and initially, for a week or so, monitor the contractor's work logs closely, you will know instantly if they are padding their hours since oDesk uploads around 5 to 6 screenshots per hour, along with mouse and keyboard activity reports. Just monitor them closely initially and then semi regularly afterwards and you will know what type of contractor you are dealing with. Once you have built trust and seen the contractor's work you can ease up. Finally,set tight milestones and demand regular daily updates and you will know what's going on. So yeah, don' be lazy, be a little more vigilant and you can find some really good contractors at great prices .All the top contractors i know only work hourly and IMHO Its a great model for the employer and for the contractor, a simple win win.

[pests]

I became really embarrassed about the screenshots sometimes. If I looked up something online or accidentally left something visible with personal information on it I would sometimes delete those 10 minutes of work just to avoid it being seen.