It looks awful. As unexciting as the current homepage is, it looks better, more co-ordinated and more mature than that lame attempt at web design.

sholasys:

@ Epiphany. Your calculus of  moral faculty of thinking is low. Indeed You lack cultural acumen. Your type cannot make a home. Are you Oyibo. Idiot. U fit count how many divource and collapes marriage in that Oyibo land. Ode

Considering how many unnecessary insults and unproven points you used in your post, I will have to say that it is YOU who has a low thinking faculty.

Epiphany:

As far as i am concerned, under no circumstance in this world, should a man lay a finger on his wife. That is not acceptable. I dont care whether he is or was going through a tough patch or whether he lost his job - he should never, NEVER slap you, his wife, regardless of what you do. Once a man slaps or lays a finger on his wife and there are no repercussions, HE WILL CONTINUE TO DO IT. Prepare yourself for more beatings - if you dont stand your ground now.

I would advice you to STOP apologizing to him (since you have already done so) and do what you can to maintain and take care of yourself an honest way. Start praying about it (if you are a prayerful person) and ignore him. If there is a little food in the house, feed him. Clean the house, make the beds etc etc - continue doing your wifely duties for as long as you can. If money finish for house and there is no food, THEN THERE IS NO FOOD UNTIL HE GIVES YOU MONEY!

Haba! To be a woman does not mean that you should be a slave or that you should be foolish. If na oyibo land here, that man for dey cell by now - and will still be forced by law, to take care of you and the baby!

I am a man and can never even verbally insult my wife, talkless of beating her. If i have a sister that any man touches, God help me, i fit kill that guy o. I dont care if they are married or not.

Thank you!! I was appalled that people were telling her to apologise. No wonder domestic abuse in this country is so high.

Why should a man slap his pregnant wife? For asking a question? What is wrong with you people? Are you all barbarians?

There is no justification, whatsoever. A man should never hit his wife. I don't care what she says. She's an adult just like him, and if he doesn't agree with something she said there are better ways to to express his anger. What everyone here is saying is that this woman should spend the rest of her life living in fear that the next thing she says might provoke him to turn her into a punching bag, and none of you are ashamed of yourselves.

The man too, is extremmely immature, if his next best reaction is to ignore her for days on end.

to the OP,

I honestly don't know what advice to give you. But please dont terminate your pregnancy because your husband is an ass. In terms of leaving him, that's really up to you, but I should tell you, if a man can hit you once. He WILL do it again. And each time he does, it will get worse. Ive seen it too many times, the man will apologize like he's changed and then he will do it again. You should ask yourself now if you want to raise your child in an abusive home.

Domestic violence is a form of control. And he's doing it already. Already, he's gotten you worrying and scared, even though he's at fault. Please stop apologizing to this man. And keep your baby.

If a man can lay his hand on you and beat you like you're an animal, he doesn't love you. Actions speak louder than words. If he's beating you now, he'll turn you into a punching bag when you get married. Such people never change. Run far away from this person. Such men are controlling and possessive and use the woman's low esteem to keep her in such a destructive relationship.

IT IS NEVER ACCEPTABLE.

When I first got wind of this post, I wanted to comment, but words failed me. The guy just appeared to have gotten a few of his developer friends and added them to the list. Even on other lists I see on many web blogs where they are compiling some of the best professionals around, noone puts 'Best'. It's presumptuous and reeks of favoritism.

The list then lost all credibility when I realized there are no links to any of these people's works. The guy should get rid of that misleading title and call it

'Ten Dudes I Know That Have Done Stuff Online You Don't Need to See'.

Is it a lame way of doing so? sure. but that is how I was raised and that is how I raise others. Besides, I didn't turn out too badly myself

sucks to be you, dude.

i gotta say, abhosts is the only one that replied the poster intelligently. I don't know why you people choose to respond like this.

I can honestly say i do not get the point of this post.

Riiiiight. That's why I told you to rephrase because unless, this is some kind of weird trick question, I don't see why or how anyone can layout an entire web page with UL/OL. . . because they're for list items?? But I'm going to answer anyway.

Obviously, if you want to use pure css, you're going to have to layout out your page with divs because divs load faster, are easier to style and maintain and are easier to read.

For a 3-column layout, for instance, you create a container div, to keep everything together and to set the main width. Three sub divs are created in the container div for each of the sections. The left and center divs will be floated to the left, while the last div on the right will be floated to the right. There are many ways to do it though, and many styles, but that's the one I use, and it works for me.

Your question isn't very clear. Best css layout for what? An entire web page or a list?

Yawa, you invited us to 'define it in wikipedia'. And I was still defining the design. Last I checked, design was part of the topic. But what do I know.

iotolorin

You pulled a crowd. Wow. You're a total genius. /end sarcasm

Please stop embarrassing yourself. Just because you uploaded a new, already existing design overnight doesn't make you worth a dime if you 'didn't notice' every other thing I mentioned.

Since I'm in the mood to continue outing you as a result of you wasting me and everyone's time here,
I don't see how you can claim the same person didn't make all the sites you listed. The codes a ARE EXACTLY the same. Even the page names. ALL THE SITES. Yes, even your "boss's" company website, have that same annoying, Page1, Page2, Page3 disaster. Either that or you're both using the same code generator. In which case, gobbleabba should fire itself.

I don't know why I'm even bothering myself here. I'm out.

@yawa

I'm not getting into the tired template discussion again. You know what I mean when I say templates, or boiler, or whatever.

And you're right. The graphics and text aren't part of the code. They're PART OF THE DESIGN. The design of a WEB PAGE. The person that designs a WEB page is a WEB DESIGNER. To be honest, I'm not even totally sure what you're driving at. The point of this discussion was to find out WHY MANY WEB DESIGNS were crappy. All this webmaster vs web developer vs web whatever, to me, is sort of irrelevant.

I've already said my own bit. The web designer should have some knowledge of basic design and layouts and colours. Most of them don't. As they're either programmers or very uninformed, so they don't see the importance or the relevance.

Ooooh, so you want the collective brainpower of 5 or 10 people for free so so the site only you are being paid for can look awesome. Right.

That's what you should have said now. *eye roll*

Let's quote Wikipedia shall we?

For typical commercial web sites, the basic aspects of design are:

    * The content: the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.
    * The usability: the site should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation simple and reliable.
    * The appearance: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.
    * The visibility: the site must also be easy to find via most, if not all, major search engines and advertisement media.

So yes, creating a site, involves, design. Shock horror.

I agree with kehers. Perhaps Omnipotens did not phrase it well.Or perhaps I misunderstood his original question. But basically he asked why most web DESIGNS he sees have poor graphics. Maybe he should have said poor DESIGNS. Whatever your point may be. I don't know where this whole graphic designer term came in from. Web designers, DESIGN websites. They should KNOW how to design sites. They should know certain DESIGN elements like colours and basic typography. If you don't know how to design, then why call yourself web DESIGNER!?!?

@smartsoft.

are you trying to say that no creativity should be put into web design? if so, why? How does it end up becoming an aesthetically pleasing design if you think no creativity should be involved?

Is it that they just jumped into the industry, learnt HTML and of course some layouting, then into the industry? Could it be that graphics it not meant for them?

You just answered your own question.

I can't say if it's a Nigerian thing, but it probably is. I'm not saying there aren't bad designs out there, but some programmer decides to venture into web-design, feels (hopes) that his skill at programming will overshadow the fact that he doesn't know you shouldn't mix light green with a shouting shade of pink and refuses to get someone that is actually GOOD at design, because he's probably greedy or lazy or both.

Or more annoyingly, some random person ventures into it for business purposes and doesn't care which way it turns out one way or the other.

Online I see outstanding portfolios EVERY DAY from people that call themselves web designers. And none of that template foolishness. Obviously original and creative work. And yes, they are functional (for all you functionality enthusiasts). From people that were not necessarily graphic designers and otherwise. They take the pains to learn everything they need to know about turning a good design idea into a compliant site. Many of them are 2 or 3 man shows where one person designs & one develops/programs. These are people that are always looking for ways to make code look as good as possible with as few images as possible, and they do GOOD. They see it as a thing of pride that their works are simple but gorgeous.

It's different here though. And then the ones that are good with design, are totally rubbish with web development and create pages that are 80% images and 20% useful code. It's a bit frustrating really. I've seen too many emotional justifications of ugly sites on this board ("But it's functional!". I don't believe it's that hard. There are too many inspirational sites online for a web designer to say he's bad at design. It's all a matter of looking around, and gathering the knowledge necessary. You don't need to know how to paint like Picasso. Just the basics.  I think most of them are just lazy. They'd rather go for something ready made to tinker with. Or worse, their own opinion of what looks good.

IMHO.

iotolorin

LOL. You're quite rude for someone who asked for an opinion. I'm (not) sorry it's not the praise you wanted.

If i had known you would change the layout overnight, I would have saved a screenshot of the site I saw under Oasis Records. I saw it with two people here, and what we're seeing there now is not what we saw yesterday oooo. Why did you change it? what happened to the white and teal layout that was there? And why did you change the layout of the portfolio page on Gobbable? Yawatide saw it too. Did you think I won't notice?! Are you serious?

And claiming that this new template that you created, (that I have seen elsewhere, just so you know) is suddenly the BEST IN NIGERIA is what I call severely unnecessary arrogance.

Don't insult anyone's intelligence here. And don't insult me. You didn't come up with those 'designs' and your codes are a DEAD GIVEAWAY.
Calling your pages 'page1.html'? Seriously? How can someone boast of SEO services when they don't even know basic common knowledge about naming a web page?

I design sites for a living, my dear, so no, I don't need a 'job' and I know amateur work when I see it. (I wasn't going to put that initially, but your reply was mean-spirited and ridiculous). And, no, your sites(I'm pretty sure they're yours), are not the best. Anywhere. Get over it.

Oasis Records is filled up with dummy text, and unrelated navigation buttons (I'm assuming it's for a record company right?) and pretty much all the sites you linked to was filled with poorly implemented, generated code. So, no, I'm not that impressed. For some reason, all the works in the portfolio (which I couldn't access, by the way) or at least 80% of it, looked like templates. Which is all well and good for some I guess, but you can't really boast about a 'long serving' web company, if after all their years of implementing they don't know how to use style sheets or perhaps class names that didn't look like they came from MS Frontpage. Sorry.

Just my 2 cents.

Honestly, it's never even occurred to me to do a usable demo, not for the reasons stated above, but because it's too stressful to actually do something, and then be told to change it. I always throw up a low resolution mock up in Photoshop, and show you the image. if we're good, it becomes code. Wanna steal the design? Good luck there.

From Checkout FAQ. http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42871

[b] [size=14pt]General Information: Which countries does Google Checkout support?[/size]

Google Checkout is available to U.S. and U.K. merchants.

U.S. Google Checkout merchants must have a U.S. bank account and U.S. address, plus either of the following:

    * A Social Security number (optional) and a valid credit card.
    * A Federal Tax ID/Employer Identification Number (EIN).

U.S. and U.K. buyers and buyers from many other countries outside the United States and United Kingdom can also sign up for the service and make purchases through Google Checkout. While their purchases will always be processed in the currency matched to your address (U.S. dollars for U.S. merchants or Pounds Sterling for U.K. merchants), buyers' credit cards will usually provide seamless currency conversion. Check the Location: drop-down menu on the sign-up page to see if Google Checkout is available in your buyer's location.

We're working towards making Google Checkout more widely available in the near future. At this time, however, we cannot provide any details regarding when Google Checkout will be available in specific countries.[/b]




I'm not saying you can't pay using Checkout, I've used it before with a Nigerian address. I'm saying only UK and US merchants can register their companies for the service. I think you misunderstood what they said.

Adsense doesn't require a bank account, but Checkout does, which is why anyone can sign up for Adsense. There's no argument here, the instant you try to sign up, you have to choose your country, and only US and UK are there.

@kehers and uspry

It's not. It's only locations are the US and Uk. FYI.

@ poster

So basically, you want to cheat, and you want to be sure you don't get caught. A little FYI, and maybe I'm just preaching to myself here, but that isn't the way to learn.

That said, yawa was right about the MM_ whatever. But I believe you should only get that if you slices (I think), which seems unlikely.

Also, you'd want to avoid inline styling, that is, styling a font from the design view, because Dreamweaver attaches random styles to your code, like style1, style2 etc. Also as yawa said. Do your styling from a stylesheet.

@saddik
You also appear to not really know all that much about Dreamweaver (or coding HTML, apparently), so what basis do you have for hating it?
Like I've read on so many design blogs, it's not the tools, it's what you do with it. I use Dreamweaver, and I'm yet to have much complaints with it. If it does everything you want, use it. DW is extremely robust. IMHO.

@yawa
I'm going to hope that THAT is not your one of your reasons for hating DW. Most applications join their Find and Replace together. It's nt exactly a DW-specific issue. Just sayin'.

TONDO:

HR.hotness,
you are so sweet tonight, I like to kiss you this night. if is possible let me have your lips.
are you virgin? if yes or no, let me know.
i love you, but to disvirgin you Fantastically.

Thanks,

HR.hotness:

WHAT?!! 

HR, my thoughts exactly.

plappville:

You surprised me, are u really a woman? do u really know what it takes to carry a baby for good 9 months and bring him to a new world let me tell u something, a woman can kill her baby during delivering how? ok, imagin u close ur legs very tight just when he baby is head comes out don't u think the baby could die?? again haven't u heard how some women died during giving birth to a baby and the baby will survive?? Have u ever held that a man died only because his wife couldn't deliver their baby, i am not saying it's right for a woman to claim a child to herself because i believe that a child need his both parents, except in a different case. i advice u add respect when talking to mothers, it's not as easy as u mentioned here.


Do u know how breast feeding affected many women?? Most women with flat breat is as a result of breast feeding. b/for you have a baby u see ur beautiful round oranged shape or apple breast, ur sweet flat tommy, Just once a baby got feed by the breast it loses shape even if it's not complete but it can't remain Dsame and the tommy looks biger with stresh marks and all that. does having a baby affect a man's look?? NON, again a man can deny to be responssible for a pregnancy, but a woman NON, why because she is the one carrying the baby, u can qoute me if u think i am wrong because i like learning new things i don't know thank u.

sexyLeamon:

and without that delivery van the baby wouldn't be born. am actually shock this is coming from a woman

Na wa OOOOO, I intentionally put '/end sarcasm' there, so I wouldn't have this exact problem,

Abeg, no vex. I was being SARCASTIC. IRONIC. NOT SERIOUS. Geez. Wit is wasted on you lot.

Wow. This is a tough one. . . Let me see.

But you're probably right. The man owns the kid. After all, his contribution isn't just easiest part of having a baby. The woman is just a delivery van. I mean, she JUST carries it for 9 months, and then pushes it out, and then feeds it. All that crap is IRRELEVANT. Do you know how much EFFORT the man put into spawning that kid? She shouldn't feel the need to claim an equal custody on her child. What is she thinking? The audacity!!!

/end sarcasm

Seun:

Some people have been away from the country for years. 
They are not foolish, and they are not your "girlfriends".
(Lots of good news has been coming out of Lagos recently)

Thanks for clearing that up Seun, even though I called no one here a fool, neither did I refer to more than one person as 'girlfriend'. So you're saying someone that has lived outside of the country for many years will not know they're looking at a semi-3d image? Really?

My mistake.

Please, WATERMARK to your hearts' contents. Or whatever.

Honestly, I firsted dabbled in html with frontpage years ago. That's where I learnt from. I can now use both. So, I don't think it's written in stone that you must learn in a text editor first. As Seun said, the code view of dreamweaver is helpful because of the highlighting, it showed when I made an error, which is great.

It doesn't really matter though, at the end of the day. Whatever rocks your boat, just do it.

Are you people for real? I found myself going through the site in confusion before coming back here again to see what you people were talking about. What's your point exactly? That the guy didn't stamp 'THIS IS NOT A REAL IMAGE OOO" watermark across an obviously NOT REAL IMAGE?!

Honestly, when a friend showed the site to me, the first question on my mind was, "wow! I didn't know Lagos has this" and I bet others are/were of the same impression,

Girlfriend, don't say that in public. It's embarassing. And um, at first glance. I saw and KNEW that the image was conceptual image. I didn't have to read anything. No-one I know did. I was making a complaint about the way Nigerians dumb things down for us in Nigerian sites, but apparently I was wrong.

Seriously.

The site's actually not bad. I'm with Olushola.

Also, you guys need to quit this, 'Yawa will display a link for all and sundry to bury' thing. It's not really effective or useful.

It's okay, I guess. But it could be better, as in, it could look more, organied. Everything looks too much like a collage, like you cut everything form somehwere else and pasted them together. Colours are nice.

The three screens you lined up aren't really lining up well. The first one is tilting at a funny angle to the other two, over emphasising the fact that images were cut out and pasted together.

Innovation is life, also suffering from a perspective problem. The text is doing a strange increase in size whereas the the right side of the tv is getting smaller. Do you understand what I mean??


In terms of the other text, it's like you were trying to accomplish too many styles into one poster. You have one type of font in a circle at the top left. Then you have a wavy text in a different font at the right, then you have the company's logo in yet another font, this time with a reflection that cuts off sharply instead of fading away. AND THEN, there's the slanty text on the left side of the tvs. different font again. It's inconsistent, and as such looks disjointed. If you're going to use more than one font I dont encourage using more than two, and they should compliment each other. The different parts of the poster dont really flow into one another. The billboard/screen thing at the bottom looks too flat and pasted. Try adding some shadows or bevel or something.
o
That's just my opinion anyway.

@Dual Core,

Please don't tell me you think Lorem Ipsum is only synonymous with a template?!


@smartsoft

good work, however, there's something plain about it, can't put my finger on the thing. will get back to you on that.

Nice, really well done, good to see some professional work for a change.

I concur with yawa about the Why Hire Us box. I was expecting to click,and i'm sure other people would too. It jumps too fast. I think you should let people click to change, and maybe reduce the speed of the animation.

Also, i noticed a bit of space between the navigation and the rest of the page, what's that about? It seems to only be happening on the homepage.

The resources page doesn't seem to have the same font as the rest of the site, and the headings have this blue underline that I get the impression isn't supposed to be there. You might want to check that out.

One final thing, I feel the What They Say boxes could do with some padding, the text looks too close to the edges,

That's it. Good work.

link,