It doesn't give me the impression, on first load, that it is a bank website. Looks more like a business informational website.

Then work within the budget and go for hardware. I am thinking if the hardware is resolved, it can handle whatever heavy code is on there.

I would probably suffer withdrawal symptoms for a day, after which I will thank my lucky stars that the 2 hours or so I spend on the site a day can then be used for something that actually adds value to my life

^^ That shouldn't be the case. It is a matter of business ethics.

Based on the use of the word, "individual", I am going to assume that this is one of those guys with a briefcase as their headquarters, who charges 10K per website, or thereabout. If my assumption is correct, then therein lies the problem. You need to deal with reputable people and not people who offer the least.

1) White font in black thumbmails is too small
2) Logo looks oily
3) Why the 50% opacity for the content area? I don't think it will work well with the font color

bite the bullet and do both. It'll last a lifetime.

IT campuses? Do we even have the electricity to power such a place? No be gen e go use o.

Nice-looking babe too, to boot

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/tech/teenager-hacker-school-africa-google/index.html

Question: What are we doing in Nigeria?

(CNN) -- Martha Chumo, a 19-year-old self-taught programmer, was supposed to be in New York right now, honing her coding skills and mastering cutting-edge technologies in the company of fellow software enthusiasts.

Instead, she's thousands of miles away, in her hometown of Nairobi, Kenya.

A few months ago, Chumo was accepted into the summer intake of Hacker School, a U.S.-based "retreat for hackers," where budding programmers come together for three months to write code, learn new languages and share industry insights.

Whereas the programming boot camp was free to attend, Chumo still needed to find a way to cover her trip costs and buy a new laptop. Excited and determined, the young developer turned to online crowdsourcing platform Indiegogo for funds. She set a target of $4,200 and managed to raise nearly $5,800. All she needed then was a visa to travel to the United States.

Read this: 10 African startups you need to know

Alas, this was not to be. As an unmarried adult who was not enrolled at university, Chumo was not eligible for a U.S. tourist visa because she couldn't show sufficient "social ties" to Kenya to prove that she was planning to return home after attending Hacker School.

But the U.S. consulate's refusal only served to slightly alter the plans of this passionate coder.
I thought if I can't go to the hacker school, let me try to bring the school to me.
Martha Chumo

"I thought if I can't go to the hacker school, let me try to bring the school to me," says Chumo. "(Let me see) what can I do to start a school here."

Read this: Tech hub working on 'next big idea'

Within minutes of her second visa request denial, on June 4, Chumo was calling her friends to announce that, "I'm starting a hacker school in Kenya!'

A few days later, she launched another Indiegogo campaign asking people to help her set up her own school for developers in Nairobi.

"I was so frustrated because I had applied to go to Hacker School; I got into it, I raised funds to go there, I had all these plans to read and learn for three months and then I'm not allowed to go -- that's how the idea for the school was born."

Autodidact

It's all a big change for this bright youngster who didn't even own a computer until a year ago, let alone know how to write Python web frameworks and Ruby gems.

A top pupil at her school, Chumo was planning to study medicine at the University of Nairobi. But she "bumped" into the tech world last summer during an internship that enabled her to access a computer on a daily basis.
Ghanaian start up heads to Silicon Valley
Technology and innovation in West Africa
Microsoft: Africa needs affordable tech

This triggered a deep desire in her to learn everything about this exciting new world; Chumo quit her internship, took her savings and bought a laptop. Soon after she was rubbing shoulders several hours a day with fellow techies at the iHub -- a co-working space that's become the meeting point for Kenya's coders and aspiring tech entrepreneurs -- using online tools such as Github and Treehouse to become versed in web design and development.

Read this: African startup takes on Silicon Valley

Not interested in becoming a doctor anymore, Chumo started working with other programmers on open source software and got a job as a developer. Her passion to become better then led her to apply to Hacker School.

"In programming you're constantly reading and learning and doing something new," says Chumo. "There's always room for improvement in what you're doing," she adds. "You get to do something new and not use the same old technology forever -- that's the fun part, and also being able to build anything that you can think of."

For more:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/tech/teenager-hacker-school-africa-google/index.html

^^^ Personally, I don't think joomla is "strong" enough to handle the "pressure". Given the poor quality of the design and the content on the site (Have you visited the "national forum" page? Check out spam now. Also, given that most Nigerian access the web via a phone, it makes sense to have a mobile version. Joomla 3 supports mobile. I guess they didn't know that), it might make sense to just start from scratch, rather than try to plug the one problem.

Now, if they have the budget (of course we do, given our oil resources, but u sabi as we dey. They will make it seem like they don't), I would perhaps be in agreement for a total security audit of the current site and use that to determine if it is necessary to continue with what's there. Depending on the results, I then may or may not keep the current site.

IMHO, he is doing you a favor. For any CMS, I charge more than double what you are paying for...even with a free template. Customization no be beans. I don't even charge $350 for a regular website.

^^^ Did you ever grow up in the time of fascimile? Also, every company has a deal with the US govt to have a "back door" into their products. Yes, even the paper you print on (if you are on the US) has a back door that will allow them to know which store the paper was bought from. Scary stuff.

Maybe we need to go back to the old ways

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10173645/Kremlin-returns-to-typewriters-to-avoid-computer-leaks.html

The Kremlin is returning to typewriters in an attempt to avoid damaging leaks from computer hardware, it has been claimed.

A source at Russia's Federal Guard Service (FSO), which is in charge of safeguarding Kremlin communications and protecting President Vladimir Putin, claimed that the return to typewriters has been prompted by the publication of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website, as well as Edward Snowden, the fugitive US intelligence contractor.

The FSO is looking to spend 486,000 roubles – around £10,000 – on a number of electric typewriters, according to the site of state procurement agency, zakupki.gov.ru. The notice included ribbons for German-made Triumph Adlew TWEN 180 typewriters, although it was not clear if the typewriters themselves were this kind.

The service declined to comment on the notice, which was posted last week.

However an FSO source told Izvestiya newspaper: “After scandals with the distribution of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the exposes by Edward Snowden, reports about Dmitry Medvedev being listened in on during his visit to the G20 summit in London, it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents.”

Unlike printers, every typewriter has its own individual pattern of type so it is possible to link every document to a machine used to type it.

“Typewriters are still used to type on paper with an adhesive layer so that the glue doesn’t get too hot,” the source said. “What’s more, a whole series of documents are not created on electronic devices. That practice exists in the defence ministry, the emergencies ministry and the special services.”

Directives to the defence minister and the supreme commander-in-chief, Mr Putin, are still printed on paper, a defency ministry source said.

Documents leaked by Mr Snowden appeared to show that Britain spied on foreign delegates including Dmitry Medvedev, then the president, at the 2009 London G20 meetings.

Russia was outraged by the revelations but said it had the means to protect itself.

Mr Snowden has been stuck in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow for three weeks since arriving from Hong Kong in a bid to seek asylum.

Nikolai Kovalev, the former director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, told Izvestiya: “From the point of view of security, any

means of electronic communication is vulnerable. You can remove any information from a computer. There are means of defence, of course, but there’s no 100 per cent guarantee they will work. So from the point of view of preserving secrets the most primitive methods are preferable: a person’s hand and a pen, or a typewriter.”

However, another expert said that paper documents were still unreliable because they could be stolen or photographed, or could go up in smoke in case of a fire.

^^^ Then maybe we should start there. Start from the very basics...The genesis. We also need to stop the culture of recycling the civil service where someone keeps redeclaring their age so that they can remain employed. Only when the new generation are firmly in control can stuff like this be truly appreciated.

It's an insertion hack, more than likely. It happened to me once, on an opencart implementation I did for someone a few years ago. Delete it, secure your code and you should be good to go.

If you are the one hosting the site, the client has no access to the files and the client is still paying to renew hosting, why would you be amazed? It should stay the way you left it after you were done abi?

On a serious note, once in a while, I do return to my portfolio to see if sites I have done still abound (for those that I don't host). As we speak, 1 such site that I host is still being renewed since 2006 while another that I don't host, but help maintain is still running since 2008.

Aaaah! The memories

99.9% of my jobs have been via referrals. The one that wasn't was someone who found me via google. I have done the cold calling, hung fliers on office doors and written the proposals. They didn't work for me and so I have stuck with referrals, only writing proposals if I someone asks me to.

Note though that the above is specific to me. Results may vary with you. Good luck!

Someone referred his friend to me. At the time, I didn't do freelance and actually kicked against the idea because I didn't want to deal with people's pallava. After a few calls and pleads, I reluctantly accepted. 8 years later, I look back on that day and tell peoople, "Everything happens for a reason. Never complain. Accept what's happening to you as God's will. You may not understand or appreciate it at the time but eventually, you will."

^^^ Unfortunately, I think the domain has expired. You might be able to catch a glimpse by searching on NL and/or the facebook page https://www./172013582877604/

While we are here arguing and charging 15K for "standard website", someone who is probably not even a member of this board is about to become a billionaire in USD:

Nigerian entrepreneur is positioning himself to be acquired by Google, after the company recently bought a traffic based app, Waze, for a whopping $1 billion dollars

Today, Traffix.ng launches a social traffic report for Lagos .Users can receive traffic alerts by “following specific Lagos streets, in the same way you follow people on twitter.”

Users can also update fellow commuters on the traffic in their areas.

http://lindaikeji..com/2013/07/25-year-nigerian-wants-1-billion-dollar.html

GraphicsPlus:
+like

Some time last year or so, I rallied volunteers from this board to design a site that could have been handed over to the FG, even for free. I remember being laughed at by those who reviewed the site's design, never mind that I asked for volunteers and had to roll with the resources at hand (naija! Na wa for una o!). Looking back at it, given the rigor put into it, from design to security testing, I dare say it was better than what we had, prior to the hack.

A site is definitely more than the design and getting a cheap host. Hopefully, these guys learn their lesson.

Go pay a designer man...

So you presented and got a job without presenting any figures first? Hmm. You should have figured out the money part before pitching your proposal.

Unless you want to run this as a United Nations Charity, you basically want to charge enough money such that you cover expenses, you have something decent left to encourage you to do more and you don't drain your customers, remembering that it doesn't stop with the one class and that you will want to do more for the foreseeable future.


Good luck!

First 5? How about your very first?

What I did was do my very first one on the cheap. When that person was impressed, he told his friends. Those friends told their friends and the rest is history. Of course, as I gained more experience and popularity, my prices increased accordingly. And of course, depending on who it is or the features, my prices may also fluctuate accordingly too.

Good luck!

GraphicsPlus:
+like

All:
Every mother thinks their newborn baby is the prettiest thing on earth, even though others may think the baby is the ugliest. Even the very people we are trying to copy, the west, don't ask this question. Sure, they may have experts (based no necessarily on knowledge but because they have had the opportunity to address folks on a public stage, which gives them the exposure), but none ever say they are the best.

Focus on how to use the talent you have to better mankind. Case closed, IMHO

Joomla isn't the issue, IMHO. I mean, the white house uses Drupal. The issue is that most likely, they didn't implement a key process for a project like this: web security. If they done this during the development phase, then that audit would have more than likely uncovered the hole the hacker exploited.

If I know my people well (and I think I do ), an oga at the top got the job for n10m, then paid someone no more than 200K to do it. That person in turn just downloaded the default joomla, got the cheapest shared hosting solution, installed, did his/her job and called it a day. Oga at the top then turned it over to GEJ and went to Dubai (or wherever) with his mistress to enjoy the loot.

If the above scenario is true, then we need to do a top-down audit of all our systems (hosting, ISPs, servers, etc) and processes to ensure it doesn't happen again. I personally consider it an insult that the hacker is (supposedly) not Nigerian.

Wow! the guys who did the site charged N10m? Nna! I need to start looking at stalking the halls of power in Abuja, he he

http://www.punchng.com/i-punch/i-wont-stop-attacking-nigerian-websites-irish-hacker/

An Irish hacker, Paddyhack, who attacked Nigeria’s official website, www.nigeria.gov.ng, says he/she is suspending the crackdown.

Paddyhack had attacked the website last Thursday in protest against the Nigerian government’s anti-gay stance.

The hacker, says the decision is to commiserate with the Nigerian government over the killing of about 40 pupils of Government Secondary School, Mamudo, Yobe State on Saturday.

The hacker who defaced the portal before it came up shortly around mid-night last Thursday, had said in a Twitter post that “a torrent of fury will be unleashed on Nigeria’s government due to the unfair and unjust treatment of homosexuals in their country.”

The hacker had vowed that the defacement of the official web portal was a “first step in a long line of attacks aimed against Nigeria until they back down on their stance on arresting gays in their country for up to 14 years.”

In the campaign themed #OpNigeria, the hacker who claims to be a member of the ‘Anonymous Group’ – the globally renowned hacker-activism group which has successfully hacked into official websites of United States Federal Government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations and US Department of Defence, had given President Goodluck Jonathan 72 hours to “renounce and veto this Bill.” The ultimatum was expected to lapse mid-night Sunday.

However, the news of the school attack broke at about 2.pm on Saturday, while the hacker, who uses the Twitter handle, @paddyhack, was having an online interview with our correspondent.

“Just reading about the school shooting by extremists. Truly awful.’’ Two hours after the news broke, the hacker states in a tweet, “#OpNigeria postponed until next week due to the death of 40+ kids by extremists in Nigeria.’’

Responding to subsequent enquiries, the hacker says “deadline called off, I’ll decide when to resume’’ next week. The dissenter added that adequate ‘’warning’’ will be given to the Nigerian government to retrace its steps before resuming the campaign next week.

Paddyhack, who refused to disclose the number of Nigerian websites he had compromised into, claims to have ‘’uncovered corruption’’ in the process.

“I was not expecting to uncover corruption. I’m discussing this with other Anonymous members and I’m trying to fully identify who these people are. I will expose the guilty when the time is right,” Paddyhack explains to our correspondent. In a tweet, the rebel adds, “A lot of emails to sift through.”

While fielding questions from our correspondent, the hacker says though the campaign has been postponed, it will not end ‘’anytime soon’’ if the government refuses to softpedal on its tough stance on gays in the country.

“I operate alone, but as part of Anonymous. I am on anti-hate campaign. Nigeria’s proposal to jail gays is disgusting. I’m not gay, but people shouldn’t be jailed for love. I am protesting the lack of humanity imposed by the Nigerian government. I will disappear if it (anti-gay bill) gets dropped,’’ the hacker adds.

Asked what position he or she occupies in the Anonymous group, and what links he/ she has with the local Nigerian hacking group, NaijaCyberHactivists or any Nigerian gay group, the hacker replies, “There are no leaders or ranks in Anonymous. I am not affiliated with any Nigerian, or any gay group. I don’t know anything about NaijaCyberActivists.’’

However, in a move seen as drawing inspiration from PaddyHack, NaijaCyberActivists has become an august follower of the hacker on Twitter.

Paddyhack has also disagreed with the Federal Government which says it “fought back the attack.’’

The information on the web portal had said, “The Federal Ministry of Information has fought off the attack on Nigeria’s National Portal by a group of gay rights activists.

“The Federal Ministry of Information is taking additional measures to stem future attacks by hackers whose criminal activities are on the increase globally in recent times.

“The attackers were traced to the same group that recently attacked several countries’ government websites across the world claiming to be fighting for gay rights.”

However, Paddyhack in a message in one of his tweets says, “I’ve allowed http://Nigeria.gov.ng to come back to full service for now. Don’t think that I can’t come and go as I please.”

While battling with the website admins, Paddyhack had said, “Having a funny ‘war’ with their admins. They delete the file, I replace it. Hehe!. Do not remove the index.php page again, or I will kill your entire site.”

The hacker also mocked the Federal Government which, according to him, used Joomla, a free and open source content management system, for publishing content on the World Wide for the web portal.

The hacker adds, “How does a crappy Joomla website cost N10 million ($70,000)? What sort of country uses Joomla as their web platform anyway? It’s not even a dedicated server. #corruption.’’

But a handful of Nigerians have come down heavily on Paddyhack, with many of them asking the hacker to provide a safe haven for lesbians, gays, homosexuals and transgenders in his home country.

A Nigerian, Terkura Unongo, tweeting via @iamtkunongo says, “I sympathise with you (Paddyhack) to some extent because you feel the jailing of homosexuals is wrong, but in Africa homosexuality is wrong.

“If you disagree with the anti-gay Law in Nigeria, fine. Offer the homosexuals of Nigeria refuge in your country.”

^^^ IMHO, maybe progressive enhancement is better here - rather than start "high" and remove features that don't work (usually a frustrating process, at least to me), maybe you start with the bare bones basics (for IE) and then gradually build up for the others.

When you say database-driven, is there anything out of the ordinary that we should know of? In other words, why the database?

Generally speaking (and I say this without knowing specifics), I would say go for a CMS so that once you are done, you train them on how to update stuff themselves, assuming they don't want to pay you to do it. If it is just an informational website and moreover, the site won't be updated that often, just give them a database-less website. There is no use using a sledge hammer to knock in an office pin.

Then get an app that allows you to test in older browsers. Many abound. I think IETester is one of them and there are others, whose names I have forgotten.

I guess my overall point is that, upfront, you establish for the client what your baseline is, make sure it works there by doing robust testing.

^^^ I think this is the problem with your premise:

Imagine you have a client who isn't computer savvy and he needs a website. You design with lots of fancy stuff and test in Mozilla Chrome Opera Safari and everything looks good.

vs.

Then your client views it on his old IE browser!

1) Why didn't YOU include IE in your testing?
2) Why didn't you tell the client that you have a baseline, based on latest statistics, supported by evidence?

Again, incremental coding:
Build header, test. Build body, test, etc etc. It hasn't failed me yet...and I doubt it will fail me ever