₦airaland Forum

Please rephrase! Not sure what you are asking.

I'd say asking for a recharge card or for you to topup their credit is just an easy way to ask for money. This applies to everyone not just ladies. When I was there last year, I noticed that most people do not talk on their mobiles, and when it's time to call someone, they tell you they do not have any credit and ask you to make the call. Not a big deal for me, because I loaded up my phone with credit since I expected to use my phone quite a little bit (was there for a wedding with few friends and family). Now, I did have a female friend ask me to purchase MTN topup for her too, but only when I mentioned to her that I was sending for some topup.

We all know how difficult things are in Nigeria. And, I think the cost of making a call also plays a role in most people finding it prohibitive to make calls or to topup their credit. It's easy to get a sim. But, Call costs in Nigeria are still very high and that will change over time.

I have quite a few friends from Ghana and Cameroon. Actually, one of my neighbors is from Cameroon. Personally, I have not experienced any kind of hatred from the ones I have met. You will not believe how much these guys look up to Nigeria. They believe any kind of development/advancement in W. Africa starts in Nigeria. One of them even went as far as saying that if it was not for 419, Nigeria would have been a great country, don't know about that though. I guess he said that because 49 has really tarnished Nigeria's image in the western world.  My neighbors wife just got back from Cameroon, and she brought back about 12 Nigerian movies. I go to their functions and they always invite me to their functions an treat me like one of them.  

This is just my experience and I know everyone's will vary. But, we cannot just generalize about a group of people.

Just do your research, check feedbacks, etc. Generally, you can find a lot of things electronics, phones, and in some cases new laptops. cheaper on ebay. But, a lot of the US based sellers will not ship to Nigera. Some wll not even let you bid if you are based in Nigeria. It's a shame, but it's the sad truth! I am sure we all know reasons for that.

Check your PM.

elolove:
please bossman can i have your email, sub will not reply my mail to his box.

elolove, google is your friend my brother. Just search the net. depending on what interests you. If you want to learn Java Development for example, the JDK, Java API, books, and discussion forums are all at your finger tips. If you weant to learn DB development, there are several free version sof relational databases out there, mySQL, Oracle, etc. Just get your hands on these tools and spend a lot of time learning them.

The key thing is that you have to have easy acesibility to the internet. And you will need to have your own PC to develop with.

It's not going to be an easy road, but it can be done.

I would advice you not to spend money on web design training. You should be able to get all the tools you need to learn web design online and go from there. If anything, spend money upgrading or getting a hold of a good PC/laptop. And, if possible, get broadband connection because you will need to be able to access the internet anytime. Now, for DB certifications or programming certifications spending money for the training may be worth it. But, generally you should be able to find everything you need in the online forums pertaining to your choice of specialization.

There is nothing like learning a programming language fast. If you really want to master it and be very good at it, and be able to make money doing it, it will not be fast. It's going to take a lot of time and dedication. So, as others have said, take your time, get it installed on your PC first, get free books online, learn as much as you can, and take it from there.

You have received soem good advice. I saw your other post abnout going to manchester and asking about what to do there because you did nto want to stay at home. My response was like, why can't the person you are going to visit point you in the right direction. It's now beginning to make sense to me.

Girl! You were about to be taken for the ride of your life. Good thing you posted here. Think about it, someone that has not spent one night with you, or seen you live is talking about marriage. Geez! Even my 6 year old would not have fallen for that crap!

From your postings, you've come to recognize and associate with the African community. While that is a very good thing, you really have to be careful about your associations and how quickly you make them. Because these people are holding their bibles 24/7 does not mean jack! A lot of these so called pastors, married or not, will bang you at the blink of an eye, if you give them a chance.

Just be careful ma sista!

You may want to see if the person you will be staying with can inform you about things to do and/or places to visit there. I believe manchester is pretty far from London too. But, it's still a big city.

Sounds like a memory problem to me.

Others have given you good advice. That lappy is just too slow to do anything. Now, if a laptop is having problems running ordinary MS Word, it's time to move on. It's probably "fairly Used" because it cannot be used. If you really paid 60,000 naira for that thing, which is a little over $400, you should run to the seller and get your money back. That's straight up "daylight robbery". New Entry level Dell laptops (512 megs ram. 40 gig HD, 15.4 screen, etc. ) can be got for about $450. I just bought one to bring home for my sister in a few weeks. With a couple of upgrades, it only cost me $489. 

I see the prices paid for laptops/electronics/phones  out there, and I just wished some of the companies on this end will sell/ship to Nigeria. Unfortunately, a lot of them just will not. A lot of US based ebay sellers will not even allow you to bid if your address is in Nigeria. Obviously there are several reasons for this such as,  lack of credit system, fraud, inability to validate transaction, etc.

As for data/browing, that will depend on the carrier. But for voice, it should function just like any other GSM phone. As long as the country/carrier has the appropriate bands. I think most of the ones sold here in the states these days are quad-band anyway, so it should work anywhere.

There is no free unlocking calculator for this phone yet. At this point I believe only the provider/carrier of the phone can unlock it. Ask whoever sent you the phone to ask for the unlock code from their carrier. If that's not possible, you just have a peper weight then.

Did you try the settings posted somewhere in this forum and that did not work?

I got the one I put on my phone from the link below. I have not tried it if it works yet though. I'll find out when I get there in a few weeks. I am still trying to decide between MTN and Vmobile. Kind of leaning towards MTN, because I used them when I was there last year and it was okay. Has anyone used both, or is anyone using GPRS on both, and which one is more reliable?

http://www.vmobile-nigeria.com/wap%20settings.htm

Exactly what are you trying to achieve? Just describe what you want to do, and we will try to advice as to which way to go to achieve it.

Yes. I would just like to add that blackberry (BB) is a phone/device that can be configured to work on any network. Also, a lot of smart phones/PDA's can now do pretty much the same things that a BB can do.

We have come a long way and it's time your GF's dad realize that. he needs to be able to put whatever reservations he has behind, move on and let his daughter do what she sees is best for her. I can't believe that in this day and age, some people still hold this beliefs. We know the differences are there, but I have also seen a lot of Ibo/Yoruba marriages. What should matter is the love and respect the parties have for each other. It should be pointed out that that you will see more of the Yoruba guy/Ibo girl relationships rather than the reverse though.

Should probably be broken into 2 diffrent questions.

1. Can you date/get together with a guy 20 years older? I really do not see any big deal here. This happens on a regular basis.

2. Can you marry a guy 20 years older? Depending on the actual age, this can be an issue. Since we are talking about long term here. 40/20 is different from 50/30 etc. In the olden days there use to be a lot of disparity between the ages, but things have changed now. If I were female in my 20's I sure would not want to marry someone in his 40's

I am a contractor at a major insurance company in Chicago. Almost all the employees (at least on the IT side) carry a blackberry. The primary purpose is to be able to read/respond to email from pretty much anywhere in the US. It's my understanding that the top level managers even take their's internationally and roam with it. The key thing is instant accessibility. A lot of a key services and applications are setup via UNIX scripts to send out a status email to let us know if something goes wrong. So, if a particular application crashes, the managers will now right away and appropriate action can be taken.

On a side note, all US mobile phone numbers have an associated email. So, depending on the carrier, it will be phonenumber@tmomail.net for tmobile users, etc. So, some of these apps can be setup to send an email(actually a 160 character limit text) to any regular mobile phone. But with the blackberry, there is no limit on what can pushed to the device.

Wow! Did not know that stealing phones is such a major issue in Niger. So, it seems like people even get robbed for their mobiles. When I was there last year, the only time people saw my phone was when I was using it anyway. I know not to walk around in Lagos like we do here with the phone in a case on my waist. They give phones away here, so people do not really go out tosteal those things. A lot of times when people lose their phone it's even returned to them by the person that found it. Until they start to blacklist phones in Nigeria, stealing of phones will be a major problem.

As for using IDE's VS not using it, it's highly recommended, that beginners NOT use an IDE. It will shield you from a lot of the basics that are supposed to help solidify your knowledge. I started with notepad myself, until I came across textpad about 6 years ago or so. Textpad is one of the best basic text editors out there. It's also a big plus that it also works will with the Java compiler and interpreter. You can compile and run your Java applications and applets right there within textpad. Even if you need to pass arguments to main(). All the shops I have worked at use IBM's websphere studio. But, most of us also have  textpad on our machines. It's just one of the best editors out there. Best of all, it's a very small "free" download that installs in about a minute. Once you've mastered the basics, and you are ready for rapid development, than you can move to an IODE A very good free IODElike eclipse will serve you well in that area.


BTW, Not sure if mimoh mentioned this already, to compile/execute your apps via textpad, make sure you install the JDK before installing textpad. Because, during installation, textpad automatically searches (it does so ONLY during installation) for the java compiler and interpreter. If it does not find it, it will not perform the necessary setup to allow you to compile/run via textpad.

One of the best sites out there that will really help is, as mentioned by mimoh, javaranch.com. There are several forum there just visit the one appropriate for you. As a long time java professional, whenever I have any questions, javaranch is the first place I post to, before even trying google. So, please bookmark it and just go there to read the questions/responses in the forum of your choice(probably the beginner forum in this case).

Jebrills,

Assuming you did cut/paste from your classpath settings. I noticed you donot have a semi-colon affter your first entry. There should also be a ; after the period. The period is an indication to the Java interpreter to include the current directory.

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0\bin,.


It should be
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0\bin;.;

Hope this helps.


BTW, excellent work mimoh!

jebrills:
Please i tried to add the path it is not working.kindly look at what i did and see if there is an error

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0\bin,.%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;C:\Microsoft SQL Server\80\Tools\Binn\

plz send the reply to this post or my email jebrills_jevic@yahoo.co.uk. i have install the jdk 1.5.0 even the sun application server

If she really gives you the green light, just bang her if you so desire. But, just make sure you have updated your resume and started to look. Because, when things go wrong, you will be out the door!

OTOH, she may just be looking for a male friend. I am sure that as a prudent adult, as time goes on you should be able to tell what she may be after.

I think we all have to take a step back and do not base very important decisions just on the physical characteristics. As long as there is love, I don't see anything wrong with being involved (love, romance, whatever) with someone with physical limitations, what ever the limitations may be. OTOH, what if for some unfortunate reason, your fully capable significant other becomes physically incapacitated (blindness, paralyzed, etc.), are you going to move on just because of that? Common my people, there is more to this life than physical characteristics. And, we need to be able to look beyond that. There are no guarantees in this life. Anyone can get stricken with anything at anytime. Yes, we all pray that we do not experience it. But, the possibility is there. and we have to understand and be able to live with it.

Life is good men. Yep! Lots of homeys here. I am on the train right now heading back home (suburbs) after a long day. I work in downtown Chicago.  Where most of the homeys are in and around there.  I do run into quite a few Nigerian/African professionals, It's definitely a good thing to see. Hope life is good where you are.

Your accounting background will also help in IT. Especially in the area of IT auditing. Going the certification route may not be a bad idea since your degrees are from here(US). Programming is somewhat "geeky" like someone posted.  Management of information, specifically database management is also more appropriate for your MIS background.

Here is the manual.

http://direct.motorola.com/manuals/30316_988_ENG.PDF?country=GBR


As for bluetooth (BT), it's pretty much the same for all phones. Make sure BT is active on both devices, pair them(use the same ID), and then select what you want to send/transfer, then accept on the receiving device. You can search the forum for more info.

symbianDON, I agree. But, what I meant was that, since all the providers have a wap site, anyone with a GPRS connection can easily log into their email account account such as wap.yahoo.com or so, by going directly to the site. I have an email client on my phone but I do not use it for any of my emails. I just log onto their respective wap sites (gmail, yahoo, msn, etc.) to check email. And, that's probably what most people here do anyway.

I will assume anyone with GPRS service is already doing that. What are you offering differently? Once GPRS is configured correctly, one can log into any of the portals (Yahoo, MSN, gmail, etc.) to check their mail.