₦airaland Forum

@DualCore1: I've sent you a mail. Thanks for helping out.

@Juel3: Yeah, I've learnt it can be quite difficult to keep scammers and spam out. I've thought about implementing an identity and item verification system but every plan has fallen flat since it is undeniable that whether or not a person actually has something to sell in their possession, they can still choose to defraud others especially if the person makes the mistake of sending them money beforehand. The only sure way is public face to face exchanges which is recommended all over the internet. I even put up a warning on every ad regarding paying before service. I don't know what the person was thinking.

Your idea is solid. It requires a bit of work/capital (brick and mortar inspection/collection centres, security for example) though but it will surely scale if one can settle down to focus on it.

Does anyone have any idea on how much getting a lawyer will cost? The person remains adamant that we have to share the burden with him despite the fact that he disregarded our instructions on the site. We're also trying to get as much proof from him to ascertain that he is not in fact trying to scam us.

I'm considering several factors;

1. The amount he is asking us to pay is about N16,000. If getting a lawyer is more expensive, it might be better to pay.

2. If the court can ask him to pay our litigation costs when we win, we can proceed regardless of the cost of hiring a lawyer.

The major problem here is that there is no sort of process or body to resolve issues like this in the sector and thus, he is using the fact that Utiware won't re-activate the site till they get confirmation from him that the issue is resolved to hold us to ransom.

They've posted a reply and we are in the process of reaching a resolution with the complainant. Hopefully, I won't have to bear any unnecessary burden. Thanks.

@abhosts: I can understand the webhost acting too fast in this situation but the fact that they are not even responding to my ticket is what hurts. The ticket has been on hold since yesterday's evening.

The only response I got was that I should resolve the issue. How? With whom? The user has being informed (with utiware and upperlink cc'd) of the reasons why we cannot help with a refund, we are neither the police nor the bank he paid to. We are not even party to the contract he entered with the seller since we have no record of their phone calls and do not take a percentage of the sale value.

The worst thing is that it isn't even clear who our registrars are. NIRA and our whois lookup says its upperlink, upperlink says its utiware, utiware isn't responding and thus hasn't claimed to own the responsibility.

@DualCore1 Thanks, I was hoping an institution or known process exists for issues like this. If I have to lawyer up however, I'm hoping the costs will be something I'll be able to handle. I'll look through the t & c as a start.

The issue is also strange given that the complainant claims to be the ceo of an ecommerce solutions company. How can such a person not be aware of how p2p listings work and how can such a person ignore warnings against paying before they receive the goods they are buying from strangers?

On the issue of spam, I'll look through the server for anything suspicious and change all passwords. But couldn't utiware have given me an heads up as to the spam report they claimed to have received earlier? That would have been good hosting practice, I think.

Your help is much appreciated, thank you.

Hello,

Someone reported my ad listing website to registrars claiming that he had being defrauded by another user. The website had several prominent warnings warning against paying before receiving and inspecting goods as this is the current best way to prevent scams on online listing services. The user decided to go against the warning and is now trying to blame us for not verifying the user.

Instead of contacting me to clarify the issue and to get facts from both parties, the webhost and the registrar (Utiware) have decided to suspend the service which is a strange and outrageous. No warning, no attempt to get verification, nothing.

In fact, the registrar listed by NIRA (upperlink) is telling me to contact my utiware who on the other hand have stopped responding to my messages and have put my support ticket on hold.

Is this how business is done in Nigeria? I paid for the service and my side of the story was not requested or considered. Utiware even claimed without proof that they got reports that my site has been sending out spam mails. I can state with 100% certainty that we have not done so. We only send out mails after registration and those mails carry warnings and advice on dealing with strangers during transactions.

The fact of the matter is that we are not party to the transaction after a user contacts a seller on the site. We also do not take a share of the proceeds of any sale. We do not even have ads on the site which means we are currently in beta and are not generating any revenue at the moment.

Please who can I contact to get this issue resolved? I tried to mail NIRA but I kept getting an error message that their mailbox quota has been exceeded! HELP O!

@ sabams08: I am time-constrained by a competition I'm participating in and I have to focus on my final exams after that.

Advice: Since its a school project, you don't have to focus on having the most beautiful textured models, make use of free models on the web. For the items that will be sold, Make use of small planes facing the 3d camera directly. Texture each plane with a picture of the item it is representing.

Try looking for a 3d artist in your school/department. Maybe you can help each other out. 3D models for code/code for 3d model swap.

Find a 3d modeler to create re-usable modular 3d models of necessary brick and motar store components like shelves and large rooms. The modules can then be rearranged and reused for various store categories via 3d composition or via code or both(since it seems store owners can design their own stores) depending on how you want it. Also decide if the store navigation will be first person or 3rd person. Coder should be proficient in js or c# if you're using unity3d. If you prefer webgl, only js will be required.

You might also need an in-house modeler to create models of all your products if you want to go full 3d. or one that can just texture really well if you're going box-package style.

Finally, I hope you've considered the fact that your customers will require faster internet connections to be able to load your app? There are many things (esp. technical and usability issues) to consider in 3d apps and the fact that standalone 3d stores (in-game ones are okay) like this aren't that popular should tell you something. You're not the first to think about the idea or execute it but you might be the first to make it 'work'.

Good luck.

@IT colony inc. Congratulations.

@Fulaman198: Believe it or not, your views are as much a product of societal elements as they are of certain inherent characteristics. Its the mix that makes you who you are. And these elements and characteristics are meant to evolve and consequently, can be shaped.

@Fulaman198: Most times, yes, but there are exceptions where the woman is physically stronger than the man. In that case, what would you do? Add the assumption that the woman is the trouble maker and that she was the first to consistently hit at the person.

I am only trying to ascertain the concrete societal sentiments (and their evolution) that led some societies, especially the west, to follow certain conventions such as this.

@onye_ngbu: Awesome. I implemented something similar with minor differences (and caveats) for Ask Africa: https://gcdc2013-askafrica.appspot.com

In the implementation, I simply used a saved (following in your case) table and added a LAST_KNOWN_ANSWER field (simply the id of the last seen activity eg. answer/comment [most likely yours if your comment is what led the system to add you to the list of topic followers] etc) to it. This way, I know that the user should be notified about each activity with an id greater than LAST_KNOWN_ANSWER. The rest is simple: get and display each activity with id greater than last_known.

The caveat pertaining to this system is that, each time the user chooses to delete an individual 'notification', we have to set the ID of the activity that caused this notification as LAST_KNOWN_ANSWER, thus, unread notifications for the same topic that occurred earlier will be lost. To avoid the possible confusion, notify the user that earlier notifications for same topic will be removed or alternatively notifications should be grouped by topic (eg. add a 'see other items you've missed button') and deletion should be by topic ('are you sure you want to delete all notifications for this topic?') rather than per notification item.

Great news! Ask Africa has proceeded to the semi-final stage of the competition!

Join Ask Africa today and share some knowledge! https://gcdc2013-askafrica.appspot.com

I know this is old but I feel I should come back and relay some info.

Bakenda's suggestions were right on! and JOINs are awesome and are simply a case of intersections and unions. They're intuitive and allow for both well designed databases and well defined/structured code.
And... if you're like me and you're worried about using up the database space, don't. If you design the database well enough, everything will work out fine. If the database gets used up, it'll be because a lot of people are using your site by which time you'll probably have made enough to triple database size.

Cheers.

@Fulaman198: Flawed logic. Would you ever hit your dear father? If not, never strike a man.

Hello guys!

Super Akpos by funday Africa is an addictive and exciting game in 3 Nigerian Languages + English (No. 1 in accessibility). It pits ever popular Akpos against hordes of missile riding monkeys in an endless, action packed and beautiful environment.

Please download and give us your feedback. http://nextapps.mtnonline.com/app/detail/id/31287

Hello guys! VC4Africa have also added an answer: https://gcdc2013-askafrica.appspot.com/r/startups/answers/20

@BetaQuick: Thanks. I'll send u a dm for advice on an idea for the twitter integration.

@Urine: Thanks.

@Everyone: Great news! Eghosa Omoigui (EchoVC) just provided an answer to the VC question via twitter (and as per twitter limitations, is in short form/not detailed). Check the second answer on https://gcdc2013-askafrica.appspot.com/r/startups/answers/20 for more info.

Hopefully, very soon, more detailed and interactive answers will be posted directly to Ask Africa!

Keep the questions coming, lets share some knowledge!

Someone just added an awesome question anonymously to the startups section: Where are the VCs in Africa? Anyone have solid names of VCs looking to invest?

Read my answer: https://gcdc2013-askafrica.appspot.com/r/startups/answers/20

PS: If you're here, you rock! Brilliant question.

@dwittyc0der: nope, my webcam is faulty. Contact me via mail or twitter: x | x

@BetaQuick: Thanks for the advice, this your name itself is excellent (get the product out quickly). I hope to push the idea as far as I can and I hope I can win so that I'll be able to invite new co-founders to handle crucial areas of the idea. Big plans require effort.

Here's my mail and twitter handle if you want to discuss ideas: x | x

@DharkPoet: Thanks a lot and Amen!

Edit: Please guys, help me by signing in and asking questions. Lets get more activities on the app.

sorry men, I solved most of the problems I got via help from the #gcdc & #gcdc2013 hashtag pages on google+ and some via stackexchange. Did you follow the hashtag?

Wow! You should have created a thread and asked for help earlier.

Post it and tell me the problem, I'll see if I can help. This is my first time on Appengine and I had some problems too, especially with some minor differences between yaml interpretation on the live site and on localhost. You can also check the code used for wordpress on app engine and I can post mine if you want.

Hope you've submitted yours sha. Submission is closed o.

Lovely.

First off, having a question means you require an answer to a problem. Creating a platform to enable people find answers to problems especially in Africa is irrelevant in your opinion? Unless you're willing to state that Africans have no questions especially in relation to problems arising from the socio-economic paradigm that exists here, I think we can safely move on to the next paragraph.

Where do you go to learn/gain knowledge about startups, African politics, real People, etc right now? twitter, news sites and forums right? You can't ask your own questions socially on news site. On most social media sites, you'll get short form answers and comment systems are limited. On forums, you might be lucky but what forum serves all of Africa right now? We're lucky that Nairaland has the userbase that it has but what about the rest of Africa?

Now with a dedicated site, the situation is different. There's a reason sites like Quora exist. Its always amazing to read well structured answers to well structured questions on an app dedicated to that. And Quora is awesome right now because you get to read answers from real entrepreneurs and business leaders. Imagine asking a question about a company and getting an answer from an insider. Does anything like that exist in Africa? Its not rhetorical. Answer.

More Questions. Is there a knowledge divide in Africa? Can Q and A platforms dedicated to Africa help to bridge this divide. YES.

And finally, Ask Africa is not only awesome for its focus on African questions. its even more awesome given that it creates opportunities for Africans from different countries to ask about and solve problems via awesome tools.

For example, a question is currently up on the site:

What industries will create the most opportunities around Africa in the nearest future?

Questions like this, when answered by nationals with different perspectives can help entrepreneurs chose relevant paths to success:

Add your view to the question and tell me how you feel: https://gcdc2013-askafrica.appspot.com/r/business/answers/12

Really? Explain how you arrived at your conclusion. I'd welcome a constructive criticism of the app/platform.

@dwittyC0der: lolz. We'll let the judges decide on that. What problems are you having with your yaml?

Are you planning on working on the automarket site in future? We're still researching a better business model for secondhand.com.ng and we'll be taking down the site and changing the design (ending alpha test phase). Haven't figured out what it'll be yet. I'll let the business model and focus dictate the changes we make when we get to it.

cool ui, but I was talking about the player gadget somewhat maintaining its current look and feel which is akin to what you present on mobile, although on further consideration, it might require some serious changes which might even include use of some image sprites to create a seamless experience with the music icons if u choose to have them surround the gadget.

Las Gidi Tunes looks awesome! Some thoughts - Maybe u should somehow center the player interface to create a player-centered ui or provide a banner that indicates that the mobile app is of a similar design with the player. The current app advertisement banner (to download on google play) is not inviting is it is and relies too much on users wanting a mobile app beforehand. Basically, showcase more of the experience they can expect from the mobile app. A pix can make some difference instead of just the google play icon.

But everything is probably the way they are due to certain considerations I may have missed. Would love to know more about the current UI thought process.

@shaf2k: The workload is definitely too much for one programmer (my back hurts so much right now not to talk of the mental fatigue due to lack of sleep). I'm looking to add programmers and ui designers to the founding team (funday Africa - some of our apps: http://funday.imgur.com) but it all depends on our apps winning in their respective competitions as it would provide both validity/relevance to the apps as well as funding for scaling and future projects.

Hello guys, Haven't rested since I submitted my mobile apps for the MTN app developer competition. I've been working on Ask Africa, a social platform for questions and answers about Africa.

Details:

Link: https://gcdc2013-askafrica.appspot.com

Ask Africa is a social platform for discussing, asking and answering questions about Africa on your PC or mobile device.

It uses the google+ API to make access easy to anyone, anywhere. Simply click the sign in with google button and grant access to the app.

Once you sign in, you can ask, edit, share and answer questions in various categories relevant to the continent.

Additionally, you can add geo-tags to your questions as well as ask and answer questions anonymously.

Want some more? You can answer questions using images, google maps and youtube videos. Just type in the relevant link when answering the question, submit and see the magic happen.

Join Ask Africa today and share some knowledge!

Video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVBxAwlFwM

Technologies Used:

Appengine for PHP

Google+ sign in API

Youtube embed API

Google maps Embed API