₦airaland Forum

We are no strangers to the repressive regime of the North Korean President, Kim Jong Un. There is no free press, media is censored and the internet is restricted to a certain few.
So locked out of mainstream media is the country and its citizens, it was reported in 2014 by the state controlled media, their National Team had won the world cup, despite not actually qualifying for the tournament.

Proof of the country’s censorship on web access was revealed in its DNS (Domain Name Server) records. A configuration error allowed researchers to map the entire North Korean externally-facing Internet (North Korea has a separate version of the Internet that can only be accessed within the country).

The result was astonishing. North Korea has ONLY 28 domain names! Most of these links apparently were dead. There was one though, http://cooks.org.kp/ which had information on North Korea’s cuisine.

North Korea is unforgiving to anyone or country that speaks ill about them. Last year, Kim Jong Un had a turtle farmer executed for ‘incompetence’. He also had his uncle executed with an anti-aircraft cannon after he fell asleep during a military parade.

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/less-than-30-websites-exist-in-north.html

We are no strangers to the repressive regime of the North Korean President, Kim Jong Un. There is no free press, media is censored and the internet is restricted to a certain few.

So locked out of mainstream media is the country and its citizens, it was reported in 2014 by the state controlled media, their National Team had won the world cup, despite not actually qualifying for the tournament.

Proof of the country’s censorship on web access was revealed in its DNS (Domain Name Server) records. A configuration error allowed researchers to map the entire North Korean externally-facing Internet (North Korea has a separate version of the Internet that can only be accessed within the country).

The result was astonishing. North Korea has ONLY 28 domain names! Most of these links apparently were dead. There was one though, http://cooks.org.kp/ which had information on North Korea’s cuisine.

North Korea is unforgiving to anyone or country that speaks ill about them. Last year, Kim Jong Un had a turtle farmer executed for ‘incompetence’. He also had his uncle executed with an anti-aircraft cannon after he fell asleep during a military parade.

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/less-than-30-websites-exist-in-north.html

Emmaoga:
apologise to her say wetin happen..... she should be the one apologising to the whole people for her waywardness and stupidity....

they use to say that " YOU CAN'T BE NAKED AND BE PURSUING A PENIS CUTTER ".

IN IGBO " anaghi agba otu achu Onye ne ebe amu"..

My great mentor asked me one day, a few years ago, why after the appointment of a Receiver/Manager by GTB over the assets of HiTV I gave up fighting and just rolled into a semi coma.

He said this because, he knew how hard we fought to save it. I responded with the story of King David crying to GOD over his sick child but then quickly wiped his face off, ate and started drinking, when the child was pronounced dead. You really just must know when to move on so that you can see and take the future opportunities that will come your way. Thereafter, Solomon, the wisest and richest ruler of Israel was born to David because he looked and lived forward.

People who care, ask me what happened to HiTV and others in their supreme wisdom profess their own reasons. I have kept my peace and quietly moved on in life, until I wrote an article recently about 1 million Digital Jobs from the Creative sector. I realise, however, that if I am throwing a challenge to other entrepreneurs to be bold and creative, I, who used to be a poster boy for a generation and who failed after 5 years of a great business endeavour, owed it to them to share my HiTV experience.

Choose your shareholders carefully and know the implication of every clause in your Shareholders agreement, if you are going to sign one.
HiTV collapsed essentially because of a clause in our original Shareholders Agreement, which allowed a group of founding shareholders to block the company raising money or selling off a subsidiary. This right was exercised to block our capital raise because it was believed to be a possible ploy by another group to take control of the company. We the management were caught in the middle and it took us another 8 months to pursue the alternative that was acceptable to the shareholders but by that time the equity market had gone bust, leaving us grovelling all over for debt.

Every power you give up has future ramifications so don’t sign away your life for what may be a quick fix or a “morsel of bread” as it might come back to bite you. The same right you give to Mr A and is used wisely, will in the hands of Mr B be used to destroy your dreams.

I failed to know and manage my investors properly, which made it hard for me to mediate when they didn’t see eye-to-eye.

Perception is EVERYTHING in Nigeria.
Your neighbour, banker, staff, bloggers, enemies are watching you and it is not what you are that matters but what others see and are saying about you.

Once you are funded by other people’s money, either investors or bankers, it matters what they think. So your lifestyle must be measured. Even if you have access to other sources of income, you must be prudent in spending and seen to be prudent else it will be assumed that you are “extravagant” and/or diverting other people’s money for your own personal use.

Soley because it is common place in Nigeria for executives to mismanage corporate funds , people are quick to judge and assume every situation is the same . I never touched company money or take a single bribe or kick back. HiTV had full corporate governance rules in place and a budget that was jealously guarded by a Board that sat 6 times in a year. Even when I went out or travelled with a supplier, I always insisted on paying, but only my shareholders and management team knew that. This forthrightness of mine made me throw caution to the wind since I knew I was clean BUT unfortunately I didn’t realise the negative impact it could have on my reputation. The first thing your adversaries or haters target in order to bring you down, is your reputation. Protect it.

Whatever you do, train people and invest in them
One thing we did right was to invest in the lives of our people. I inspired all my staff, which grew to about 380 plus, in 6 locations in Nigeria and a London office, including over a thousand dealers, by making sure I led by example, sent them on trainings, exposed them to the international market and bought them books to read about Media, and very importantly made them know we were all in the same boat. If I was comfortable they also had to be, and if they were going through pains, we had to do it together.

I have always marvelled at the Receiver/Manager and people who thought HiTV could be locked up with chains? HiTV is today a force in different companies making or waiting to make a difference.

However, make sure the people you train and inspire do the same to their sub-ordinates. Usually Nigerians are scared to pass knowledge for fear of being replaced and so you have to teach them to let others fly. Reading the 1 Minute Manager meets Mr Monkey taught me not to micro-manage and get people to earn their pay so that I can be free to do the bigger things. The balance to delegation is to make sure there is a system to ensure that those who are working are justly rewarded.

In the absence of a technical foreign partner, we learnt our trade on the job and intensive trainings and we were just implementing our robust researched systems and processes when the company was closed down. How I would have loved to see its results.

Equity Vs Debt
We gambled on building a company with debt with the hope of converting it to equity once we proved the model. As I said earlier, we were impeded from doing this at the right time. At 25-27% interest on debt, most businesses cannot survive and you will be a slave to the banks for life. That is why they take collateral from you. They lend against your collateral not your business case. Regardless of our strong cashflows, the funding requirements continued to increase. Similar businesses in Europe like Sky, Virgin, Polsat etc had worse debt profiles whilst building up their Brands and subscription models but their markets have sophisticated equity and debt.

Unfortunately, we have no sophisticated equity market and I mean Angel investors and/or Venture Capitalist in Nigeria and without that, who can survive? It pains me to admit that someone told the then Minister of Information that Nigerians can’t fund our type of business and I was really hoping to prove him wrong but Alas!

We paid 40 million dollars for the first year of the second term of the EPL from mostly equity. But still had to come up with a guarantee of about 70 million dollars for the latter 2 years and in Nigeria, guarantee requires cash in bank. The alternative bank we were forced to use despite all their assurances and being offered half of the amount by another Bank failed to issue same on that fateful Tuesday and only offered it to us on Thursday. Meanwhile the EPL sold it to our competition on Wednesday morning.

Watch your debt profile. HiTV was paying an average of 1.1billion Naira approximately in interests and guarantee charges annually, for over 5 years! For a new company, we did a damn good job but really got blown out once our house was divided. I never live by debt and so was really ignorant about how interest works up till HiTV and of course since then you wont catch me near it. But what do you do when you have to? They say internationally that “equity is more expensive than debt”, but that is NOT true in Nigeria. Debt is way too expensive and destructive.

At the end of it all I was sued in my personal capacity for the debts of the company by the bank, but we have since sorted out our differences, agreed, signed and filed terms of settlement in all legal actions. The Managing Director simply told me, when we finally met, that since we all owned the company I had to pay out of the liability and not just dump it on them. It made total sense to me and I offered them what I had, they accepted and that was it. Fair is fair. You can’t avoid a lot of skin in the game because investors will be looking for this.

You need Government and regulation on your side
I ignored government to my peril. The competition spent a lot of time courting all arms of government and I was a simpleton. We just expected the whole world to cheer us on. The laws in Nigeria are as empty as they are full. A lot of writings but you have to make sure your business model is adequately protected.

What laws do you need, or what interpretations of the laws do you require, go and get it passed or adjudicated. Don’t assume its there and don’t be afraid of offending anyone. A few weeks before we lost the EPL rights we were approached by the competition to share it with them, in writing. We agreed and were completing the approvals on both sides when we lost the rights. Since they bought it, we asked them for it on the same terms as we had agreed to give it to them just 2 weeks prior, they refused. We ran to government to enforce the fairness clauses of the NBC Act but it fell on deaf ears.

We really should have actively pursued the enactment of anti- monopoly laws and competition rules early enough as exist everywhere else in the world. The truth is we never believed in monopoly and offered all our acquired TV rights to anyone who was ready to share the price with us. Our purchase of football rights was defensive, as that was the only way we could get it. Unfortunately, our government was happy to, as they continue to be, leave everything in the hands of foreign dominant players.

And whatever we were ready to pay for those TV rights was still far less than what Nigeria was losing from the repatriation of profits by the foreign companies operating in the country!

They say Power is not served al a carte, you have to take it forcefully. And if you are going to take it, make sure you succeed! I didn’t, but I am glad I tried. It is the most meaningful, joyful and the greatest thing I have ever embarked on. I can still see the sparkle in the eyes of every true partner of that journey I meet.

In conclusion of HiTV 101, I will say this, our thinking that we were doing the right things and following the patterns of all international Pay TV companies was not enough, we had to successfully domesticate those patterns and that proved difficult. Thankfully, our good intentions and hard work have helped most to get great jobs and new opportunities and challenged foreign companies to do more locally.

Whatever you do, live forward.

Vizkizz:
No matter how hard you form sexy it can't change the fact you are a used and dump material.

Waste of bride price

Mathieu Passenaud is a developer who needed a new CV that would stand out. Mathieu decided to get creative and used an operating system he built for fun during his days as a student, and modified it so as to look like an actual CV.

To keep things simple, Passenaud relied mostly on the basic functionalities of the actual operating system, including multithreading, pagination, text console, interruption and exceptions.

Details on how he executed this project are available on his personal blog(http://www.mathieupassenaud.fr/resume/).

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/this-operating-system-is-actually-cv.html

As unbelievable as this may seem, these shots were taken with a OnePlus 2 mobile phone.
The capabilities of the 13 MP camera with dual-LED flash is impressive.

The Photos were taken in Portharcourt, Nigeria by Larry Ubu.
Larry draws his inspiration from nature, and illumination attributed to sunrise and sunset.

He is reachable via social media on @larryubu (Instagram) and Larry Látïnø Basil-Ubu (Facebook)[i][/i].

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/these-photos-were-taken-with-oneplus-2.html

SuperStiker:
From the recent statement made by the emir of Kano that Nigeria needs Lagos more than the Niger Delta, it is becoming clearer that the north will not let go of Lagos like that if Nigeria breaks.

I can understand why Yorubas get so uneasy when the talk of breaking Nigeria comes up.

There will be fierce battles for the control of Lagos which would leave the city in ruins like Syria.

The northerners have threatened that they will take Ofa in addition to Ilorin now they also need Lagos.

I will not be surprised if one prominent northerners gets up tomorrow to warn Yorubas that the north will take Lagos with them should Nigeria break.

Following the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to restore the licenses of International Money Transfer Operators (IMTO), WorldRemit has commended the apex body for this initiative.

Sometime in August 2016, hundreds of IMTOs had their operations suspended in Nigeria, leaving the Nigerian diaspora to rely on Western Union, MoneyGram and Ria.

With this new development, WorldRemit and other IMTOs have now been officially re-issued licenses to operate their digital money transfer services.

WorldRemit launched its service to Nigeria in 2011 when it pioneered low-cost instant deposits to all bank accounts. The service provided the Nigerian diaspora with an easy, fast and secure way to send money home as well as bringing much-needed foreign exchange into the local economy. About $35billion is reported to be the annual inflow of diaspora funds into Nigeria. 50% of these remittances go through unregulated and informal channels.

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/worldremit-lauds-nigerian-government-on.html

zicoraads:
You have nothing on good authority. Imagine this nonentity on where the real politicking takes place saying he has something on good authority. From which good authority? Mushin authority?

You and aresa are just clowns. Clutching at straws now are we? You didn't think your demigod, Tinubu was fallible did you? Just come to terms with the fact that he was roundly beaten, it will do you both a world of good.

Every politicking as regards who will vote what was concluded long before that primaries. You think other aspirants are foolish and decided to sleep while your god was away? Every action now is geared towards 2019, and yes, this newspaper got it spot on! Those your Northern gods in the presidency will do anything and everything to reduce Tinubus powers in that zone as we head to another election year.

Take it or leave it, Tinubu was beaten at his own game this time.

Learning About Stars
If you are enthusiastic about stars and constellations SkyMap for iOS and Android is a great tool you can utilize to study celestial bodies. By simply pointing your phone’s camera at a star with the app open, you can get more information about that star.

Give Visitors Your Wi-Fi Info
Write down your Wi-Fi name and password, take a photo and easily share with your visitors when they visit.

Business Card Scanner
Get all your business cards out of your wallet and have them scanned with your phone camera. One cool app I use is the CamCard scanner. It has a powerful OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature which extracts all the data from the card into the application.

Solve Math
Do you need to help your kids solve their math homework? Unfortunately, you have forgotten basic arithmetic, an embarrassment you don’t want revealed to your child! Download Photomath and take a photo of the equation. The app will take you through the process of solving the equation step by step and give you the answer.

Get Your Exact Measurements
If you need to quickly stop by at a store to buy some clothes, the MTailor app uses your phone camera to get your accurate dimensions, so you don’t have to. For now, the app is available only for men.

Keep a Visual List of Your Favourite Items
Open a new page in OneNote or Evernotes to keep a visual list of your favourite items. Attempting to take mental notes might get you confused the next time you want to get your favourite soda at a store.

Barcode Scanner
Two apps come to mind – MyFitnessPal and Quick Scan. These two apps enable you scan products for nutritional facts, coupons etc.

Remember Your Makeup!
Simply take pictures of your foundation, blush and lipstick without having to memorize names or numbers. Voila!

Save Your Neck
The TextNeck Indicator Lite app uses your phone’s camera to watch your head and alerts you when you are in a poor phone posture.

Be Safe In an Emergency
Write down what you are allergic to, what medications you take and your emergency contact information. Take a photo of the information. Then, make the photo your phone's lockscreen photo in case someone needs your information and you're unable to speak or incapacitated in some way.

Get Help After a Robbery
Take photos of all of your credit/debit cards, your car’s plate number and your car's VIN number. If your wallet or car is stolen, you'll have all the information you need to report it to the card issuing company or police.

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/11-things-you-can-do-with-your-phones.html

The other day, we reported how 2 owners of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 had their devices explode while charging. If you missed it, click http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/the-newscomes-from-korea-herald.html.

Following the report of another 35 people experiencing the same thing, Samsung has ordered a global recall of the device.

This is really bad timing for Samsung as Apple will be releasing the iPhone 7 any moment from now. Industry pundits have predicted Apple exploiting this situation to their advantage.

Meanwhile, back home in Nigeria, we have a communications Minister/Ministry and Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) that have not deemed it fit to create some awareness about this. For all we know, some of these units might have found their way to Nigeria already.

Please share this message as wide as you can.

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/samsung-orders-full-recall-of-galaxy.html

As part of its effort towards reducing unemployment and increase the share of contribution from ICT into Nigeria’s GDP, Zinox Technologies has secured a $25m counterpart funding to roll out three digital hubs in Nigeria.

The fund which was made available by the European Technology Fund (http://etfpartners.capital/) is expected to help the digital hubs flag off operations by 2017 and employ over 500 unemployed youths.

Construction works for the digital hubs are already underway in Port Harcourt and Abuja and is expected to be completed in early 2017.

According to the CEO, Leo Stan Ekeh, the Nigerian economy is in dire need of an alternative to crude oil, a role which the ICT sector can play effortlessly to boost the nation’s dwindling earnings. In his words, “Nigeria has millions of young people of digital mindset with the potential to become billionaires. The reason we are confident that this is going to do Nigeria good is that this is the same way we started Yudala, a composite e-commerce outfit which received little funding from investors and within one year, has turned leading e-commerce brand in Nigeria.”

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/09/zinox-secures-25m-counterpart-funding.html

I am very certain more than 90% of us have always wondered if a phone’s signal can really take down a plane. Well, not exactly…

The radiation from a phone signal cannot interfere with the plane’s operating system to the extent that it will cause the whole thing to spontaneously combust. So even if lots of terrorists kept their phones on and watched data zapping YouTube videos, it will not take down a plane.

The reason flight attendants insist you have your phone off or in flight mode is to prevent the pilot getting distracted by interference noises being emitted from your phones.

You may have heard the ‘bzzt bzzt bzzt’ crackling noises from a radio when a phone is nearby. You must agree it is one of the most annoying sounds ever. Now imagine the headache the pilot gets from hearing that continuously.

To conclude, DO always adhere to instructions from flight attendants as they are there to ensure your safety and mine.

Seun:
It's entirely my fault. More hands would have made the solution easier though.

The other day, I was enroute Benin via one of the popular airlines. Flipping through the in-flight magazine, I came across this awesome Nigerian company doing wonderful things in the field of agriculture.

[url]Hellotractor.com[/url] is an agricultural technology company that is improving global food and income security by building a network of “Smart Tractor” owners that farmers obtain service from via SMS.

Simply put, this is the Tractor-version of Uber.

THE CHALLENGE
A larger portion of Nigeria’s agricultural sector is still not mechanized. This is mostly due to unavailability of finance or affordable loan schemes to farmers, most of whom are in rural areas.

THE SOLUTION
Hellotractor.com took it upon itself to address this issue, results of which have been astounding.

First, they designed innovative, low-cost “Smart Tractors” specifically for unique needs of the farmers. Also made available were attachments (harrowers, planters, tillers etc.) which could be tailored for a variety of crops and stages of the production cycle, allowing them serve their customers throughout the year. The GPS antenna allows Hello Tractor to track its usage and gather data on location, market trends, and uptake.

Farmers are able to schedule and prepay for tractor services, from nearby smart tractor owners, through SMS messaging and mobile money. Once service is completed, the pre-payment is automatically released to the Smart Tractor owner.

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/08/meet-hellotractorcom-nigerias-uber-for.html

As we anxiously await the release of the new iPhone 7, rumours are flying around about the design changes that will also inform the launch of a new line of accessories/peripherals.

Apple is expected to announce new products (including the iPhone 7) on September 7, and have them in stores a week or so later. If you’re planning to upgrade, sit tight on accessorizing – especially as it concerns wired earbuds and phone cases.


WHY? USB-C
With the MacBook, Apple started its slow changeover to USB-C. There’s even a USB-C to Lightning cable, which indicated that things were bound to change.

The new MacBook Pros, which are long overdue, are also rumored to go the USB-C route. If that’s accurate, and we’d have to believe it is, it changes quite a bit for the average consumer.
At that point, Apple is basically turning its entire ecosystem over to USB-C and Lightning. It is a GOOD thing but potential buyers should exercise caution on buying anything Apple-related yet.


APPLE SWITCHING TO USB-C PROBABLY CHANGES EVERYTHING
Accessory makers have also been slowly migrating to USB-C connectivity. Once Apple goes all in on USB-C, expect everything to change too – earbuds, phone cases, battery packs, chargers etc.

Even if you don’t plan upgrading your iPhone for another year, buying accessories at this point might be a short-term bet except it is highly necessary.

Just save your money and wait till September 7 for the official update.
Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/08/dont-buy-anything-apple-related-yet.html

There has been so much online buzz about the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. The success of its predecessor, the Note 3, has kept industry watchers yearning to see if the achievement will be sustained or dismissed as a fluke.
Although Xiaomi has only announced the device for China, it's very likely it'll make its way to other nearby markets — particularly India, where the Redmi Note 3 was a big success.
The Note 4 went on sale on the 26th of August, with prices starting at RMB 899 (around $135) for 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage, or RMB 1,199 ($180) for the version with 3GB of RAM and 64GB storage. Other specs include:


• 5.5-inch 1080 x 1920 display
• MediaTek 10-Core Helio X20 processor
• Fingerprint sensor on the rear
• Android 6.0 Marshmallow (with Xiaomi's MIUI 8.0 skin)
• 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with dual-tone flash
• microUSB
• 4,100 mAh battery

Source: http://allaboutbytes..com.ng/2016/08/xiaomis-redmi-note-4-has-big-4100-mah.html

uyi26:
Bros why you dey talk like this? Do you know what it means to lose your job this period?

Today, Governor Ajimobi plans to sell the schools. Iranu! Corruption is truly a cancer that eats up every fabric of society.Sad!

Guyman02:
All those children of the elite who were recruited recently did they provide all these requirements like signature of local government chairman and mental status from hospitals, because if that is done many of them who are drug addicts will never be employed?

FIRS should not make applicants to incur debt applying for jobs they may not get.
What happens to just online application and if invited for interview request for all the documents mentioned to be made available for sighting?