₦airaland Forum

I have both VS2003 & VS2005 installed on my machine and I don't have any problems with either of them. I also don't see any performance degradation with VS2005 but that may be because I have a fast processor and 2GB RAM installed.

Are you using original genuine distribution copies?

You can download it form Microsoft's website at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=cebbacd8-c094-4255-b702-de3bb768148f&DisplayLang=en

I seem to be in the minority here but I have always used Nortons Antivirus and I'm very happy with it. I have also tried several others (McAfee, AVG etc.) but I always end up coming back to Nortons. Why do i like it? Well, in my view it does a great job of detecting and neutralising viruses, I like the interface and online updates are always smooth.

What I have often found is that a lot of people don't read the documentation carefully enough and as a result tend not to follow and/or implement the recommended guidelines in respect to configuration settings etc. so the software is not optimised and they then complain about the performance.

I paid =N=10k for my passport from the Lagos passport office about 2 years ago.

Whilst I don't necessarily support corruption, the fact of the matter is it is very difficult for a passport office employee who is probably paid around =N=20-30k per month (if that) to resist the temptation to accept a bribe. I certainly agree with the view expressed above that paying bribes ensures that the corruption will continue however given the economic situation the majority of civil servants find themselves in, I don't see that things are likely to change.

Most Nigerians are already complaning about what they see as "unreasonably high" call charges for the existing infrasturcture so in view of the fact that implementation of 3G would require considerable investment by the operators which would ultimately have to be passed on to subscribers, I very much doubt it would be commercially viable at this point in time. If you take GPRS as an example, all the reports indicate that usage of the service dropped significantly when charging commenced irrespective of the operator.

@LoverBwoy, your comment about 3G phones is also valid in that how many people would be willing (or indeed able) to upgrade their handsets in order to take advantage of 3G? Not many I would imagine,

In conclusion, I don't believe there is a need or general desire for 3G and it certainly doesn't make financial sense in the Nigerian market at this point in time.

Alien II
Man to Woman: "Hey, Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
Woman to Man: "No, have you?"

Hi, you could try the following place:

PC Outlet
The Palms Shopping Centre
Lekki Expressway
Victoria Island
Lagos

Tel: 01 271 41 00
Fax: 01 271 39 38

They sell absolutely 100% genuine software and hardware. I know for sure that they have Visual Studio but I'm not sure about Crystal Reports for Business Objects & SQL Server however it's definitely worth a visit.

As has been indicated, I think it all depends on the target operating system you are developng for. If it's Windows, then .NET (VB , C# or C++) would be a good choice however if it's Symbian for example then I believe java will do the job nicely.

If you are developing for Windows, then I think it's worth noting that the latest release of Visual Studio (Visual Studio 2005) actually makes development of mobile applications very easy and comes with a built in emulator for debugging and testing along with a host of other tools.

Putting asside the question of whether or not I'm a fan of spraying, surely the main point is that what I do with my money is entirely my own business and I don't think it's up to the state to legislate on such matters.

I'm sure the majority of Nigerians will agree with me that there are a large number of far more pressing issues that require urgent government attention!

This can be achieved in one of the following 2 ways:

- If you have a direct connection to an operator's SMSC (i.e. Short Message Service Centre) then you can use the SMPP protocol and Logica have a very good java library which you can download for free at http://opensmpp.logica.com. Some operators also support HTTP requests however you would have to know the format of the request and response headers or whether for example the response is contained in the BODY of the HTTP response.

- If however you don't have a direct connection which is generally the case, then you can use a GSM modem connected to your PC via the serial port. In this case you would communicate with the modem via the RS232 protocoal and use the AT command set to execute tasks such as send and receive SMS. For the benefit of those who don't know a GSM modem is a box in which you insert a SIM card and using a standard AT command set, you can execute all the tasks that you would normally do with a standard handset thus enabling you to develop "telephony" type applications.

You can read a little more about the various options at [url]http://www.ihub.com/GSM%20Modems.htm[/url]

If you took the trouble to follow the link you would see that it leads a thread on our very own Nairaland. The thread started with someone saying that they had noticed the GPRS service indicator (i.e. Upper case "G" on their handsets in the VI area and other people confirmed this in VI and other areas too.

I made absolutely no reference to the MTN website so I don't quite understand your last post?

Quote from: spikedcylinder on 21 April 2006, 16:09:34

GPRS for almost a year?how many weeks do YOU have in a month?

Here is a link to a topic on MTN GPRS dated May 2005 https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-321.0.html. If that doesn't qualify as nearly a year from the current date, then I don't know what does.

In response to your question, speaking as a member of the human race residing here on planet earth, I'm happy to inform you that we have on average 4 weeks in every month give or take a few days. Perhaps you are the one using an "alternative" calendar?

So MTN are "Gold Diggers" and the fact that they have provided GPRS free of charge for almost a year still obviously still doesn't count for anything?

I guess some people are just determined to always take the negative view of all things

Sadekunle, maybe I have misunderstood your question but were you asking about decompilers? In other words given an application executable file (a .exe file for example), how can one tell what language it was developed with?

I believe there may be a GSM modem that can send an SMS without displaying the sender's number but i'm not 100% sure of that. The only sure way I know of is by connecting to the operator's SMSC (Short Message Service Center) and sending messages via the SMPP protocol however this is of course not an available option to the general public.

sbucareer, thanks for expanding on my post and I take your point that VB is a construct of OOP however I feel it has some limitations compared to a fully fledged OOP language such as java, C++ etc. Having said that, I haven't studied VB.NET in detail however I suspect some of the previous limitations have probably now been addressed.

Nigeria returns ex-Liberia leader
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4857628.stm

I hope that all those critics will be more objective next time and will now also apologise to all Nigerians (including President Obasanjo) who they have slighted by their ill considered sweeping statements.

@Blue2, The reason for as you put it "harboring a criminal" was to end the conflict and save lives and in that respect President Obasanjo was 100% successfull. You should also remember that at the time nobody else (including the western world) had a viable alternative solution.

The point of comparing Alam's case to Taylor's is that nobody accused the British authorities of corruption when Alam escaped from the UK despite all the advanced security measures they have in place however a lot of Nigerians were quick to unequivocally accuse the Nigerian authorities of corruption when Taylor disappeared.  Do you really think that President Obasanjo would be so blatant if he really just wanted Charles Taylor to walk especially as he was scheduled to meet President Bush today?  If I were President Obasanjo, I would consider that a considerable insult to my intelligence!

I don't think that anybody is saying that Charles Taylor should not face a trail for his alleged crimes but due process must be followed.

So what do all you critics of President Obasanjo, the Nigerian authorities and in fact Nigerians in general have to say now?

It's sad that more Africans and Nigerians in particular do not have the clarity of vision and insight that GL displays in her excellent posts on this topic. We are often too quick to criticize and assume the worst without objectively assessing the situation and trying to ascertain the true motivations behind demands from the so called "developed" countries in particular.

Don't get me wrong, I am not for one minute condoning anything that Charles Taylor has done but I do believe that Liberia has more pressing issues to address at this point in time rather than the prosecution of a single individual.

Yes, I can confirm that all the operators offer a postpaid (i.e. contract) service where you pay your bill at the end of the month. I believe you have to pay a deposit up front and they will all impose a limit on your monthly spend which I imagine will increase as time goes by and you prove your financial integrity. The other advantage is that you will be able to roam but I think you have to notify the operator in advance.

I think that often too much focus is given to the programming language rather than the technology and/or concepts involved. For example, I believe that the main difficulty a programmer will face when moving from VB to java is not the java syntax but rather fully understanding the concept of OOP (Object Oriented Programming), structured exception handling etc. Once the fundamentals of OOP are understood, then moving to any other OOP based programming language is not such a quantum leap.

I find that the main reason for moving to a different language and/or platform is to be able to exploit the new technology provided and whilst it's no doubt a daunting task, I think that all good developers should try and have an open mind about this.

I'm not sure it's possible to say which programming language is better because generally all language have their advantages and disadvantages. I tend to take to take the view that a particular programming language is better suited to particular tasks but that doesn't necessarily make it better than another language in all circumstances.

To summarise, I believe the choice between C++ and Delphi in this case depends on the nature of the solution that you are intending to develop.

It could be the case that the reaosn why your machine is slow to boot up is due to a cluttered registry consisting of a significant number of orphan keys which no longer relate to live applications, broken links etc and perhaps you also have a number of applications and/or services being unnecessarily automatically launched at startup.

It might be worth trying to optimize your machine first before considering XP Media Center Edition as frankly I don't believe you will see much improvement if you merely upgrade the existing operting system. I would even go as far as re-formatting your hard disk (after backing up all your data first) and re-installing windows following which I'm sure you will see an improvement in performance.

@africanboy, your list has sent me to dreamland,

Now I just have to win the lottery so I can afford to buy all the gadgets, not forgetting the ones that are not incliuded in your list!

I'm a freelance software developer and my current contract stipulates that I only get paid for the days I'm working at the customer's office so I won't get paid for the days I have to stay at home for the census and that will hurt :-(

Having said that, bearing in mind our particular enviroment, I appreciate the reasons why it's probably better to do the census this way as we are more likely to get closer to an accurate figure (And please note that I used the word "closer" than trying to count people at work etc.

I haven't had any problems adapting to the UI changes in successive releases of Microsoft Office and I suspect this is the same for most people.  I'm also sure that Microsoft will not knowingly sacrifice their cash cow (i.e. Office) by rendering the new UI too intimidating so whilst it is of course natural to be concerned we should perhaps wait and see what the final implementation delivers before passing final judgment

I've never understood why if a French person for example speaks poor English with a heavy accent nobody thinks he/she is any less intelligent and in fact some would go as far as saying it's a "cute" and "attractive" quality however if an African does exactly the same,  the person is heavily criticized and derided.  The saddest aspect to all this is in my view is that it is fellow Africans that are invariably the most critical.

As Seun correctly said, if you can't accept the person the way they are then perhaps you should look elsewhere.

Ok, I see what you mean about selective syncing not being so straightforward.  I guess Microsoft just assumed that people want to sync everything at all times. Personally, I always want my iPAQ to be a mirror image of my laptop and vice versa and I'm yet to find a compelling reason why I wouldn't want to sync everything however as I said, point taken.

Re saving a number to contacts, I agree with you that perhaps it's not as intuitive as it could be but having said that I'm a firm believer in the old maxim of R.T.F.M. as more often than not, this solves a lot of common problems.

Automatic syncing is normal behavior and I don't see this as a shortcoming however if click "Tools, Options" on the menu then highlight "Contacts" and click on "Settings, " you can define what items and/or groups you want synced (i.e. You can deselect everything in which case it won't be automatic).

On my iPAQ, I can select multiple contacts in the list view and delete and/or beam them as I wish. Multiple selection is a standard Windows feature so it's strange that you can't do it on your device.

I take your point about saving a contact however I have to say that in my opinion having to tap+hold and wait a few milliseconds for a pop-up menu is not too much trouble,

What device are you using?

I have an HP iPAQ which I'm very happy with so as Seun has asked, I would be interested to know what in particular you like about the Symbian OS following which I will respond with my views on Windows Mobile.