₦airaland Forum

I agree with some contributors here that the main problem is electricity. Many years ago, when I was back home, I used to own this small computer centre. I really suffered because I was constantly using generator to do my works. Even to get fuel for the generator was a problem at times. Coupled to all this was the local governement chaps who would come at anytime to make this demand or the other for this levy or that. The business crumbled within 6 months.

Only a fool will continue to risk their lives to armed robbers, constant power failure and the horrible road conditions when you have an alternative. Insensitive politicians are only concerned with looting and looting. Infact our system of governement should be renamed Lootocracy.

Personally I know one or two people who have relocated permanently to Ghana. They have invested there and do not have plans of coming back to naija.

Some of us that still keep the "green-white-green" flying sometimes wonder if we are doing the right thing. Does the government really know we are taking so much by keeping the flag flying? Are they really and genuinely concerned about solving some of the major problems like power supply?

As at the time I started, I went for SMF because I could not afford vBulletin. vBulletin is the best.

I have used SMF extensively. Its FREE very easy to use and there is a strong and active support community to help you solve most problems. They have great MODS especially Tinyportal. If you are running an SMF forum, you need to check out tinyportal.net. Am surprised this forum has not intergrated it yet. See it in action on my forum - see my signature. The MOD brings along a lot of Social networking features and great themes.

The one big problem I had with SMF was not being able to integrate it with Joomla (I used to own a joomla site). The guy who wrote the best bridge for SMF+Joomla suddenly stopped due to some politics between Joomla and SMF.

I've also had a few security issues with SMF. Up to twice, I've had to restore my website from an old copy when it got hacked. The SMF team are very active and always patch security issues fast anyway.

All that said, VBulletin is still the tops when it comes to forums. It has loads of features and very well developed MODS. The only downside to it is that its not free. Because you are paying for the product, you get ready and steady support unlike on SMF where you have to wait often for days for support - free things have a down side too . Most huge organisations use vBulletin. I'll choose it over SMF.

President Obama has had to retake the oath following the "word mix up" on the main ceremony day.

http://whatsmellsnow.com/2009/01/22/president-obama-retakes-oath-of-office/

Nigeria has vast lands that can be used for agriculture but the oily get rich quick lure of crude oil is too much for our politicians. We have a big population with loads of buying power yet our manufacturing industry dithers and stutters. This, as some people have said, is a false alarm worth paying attention to.

This might be a threat in 100 yrs from now. For the foreseeable future, the world will continue to depend on crude oil to power its industries. I agree research will further in areas of more efficient use or reduction of toxic emissions - yes.

What alternative are there anyway? Solar energy? It is workable but very expensive and may not see wide spread use until around 100 yrs from now. The solar powered cars still require fuel albeit at a reduced rate.

Did I even get the feeling Mr Obama hinted at a more responsible commercial approach/ remuneration for oil exporting countries? Was this a condemnation of the Bush method of "sell your oil or get invaded"?

What is your blog's address

All Zimbabweans are billionaires and Trillionaires. The government rolled out yet another trillion dollar note for Z$100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. Its worth only $30 US dollars or £20 UK pounds. The money is not even worth the paper its printed on. I hear shops shun the currency for foreign ones now. Worker's salary have no buying power as they suffer an 80% unemployment rate. When will African survive?

Before now, they had introduced other trillion dollar notes of 10, 20, and 50 denomination.

http://whatsmellsnow.com/2009/01/16/zimbabwe-introduces-100-trillion-dollar-note/

Its appalling someone would actually pay over $3 million for 3 minutes of pleasure
Tha heck is wrong with us men

Much is being ascribed to the plane pilot for expertly guiding the aircraft to land safely. Many eye witnesses agree that the plane "landed smoothly" in the river just like on a runway. Says quite a lot about the pilot who was once an airforce fighter pilot for 29 years. Experience does matter. I found his picture and a little about him:

Name: Chesley B 'Sully' Sullenberger III
Age: 57, from Danville, California
Former Air Force fighter pilot
29 years with US Airways
Has own consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc

His photo is below.

Americans will never cease to baffle us all. This girl, Natalie Dylan,  has decided to auction her virginity online and people have already bid $3.7 million for it. She insists she is not demeaning herself and claims to be surprised men could price her virginity so highly. Is this not prostitution on a grand scale?

http://whatsmellsnow.com/2009/01/16/woman-auction-virginity-for-millions-of-dollars/

I got a photo on the crash survivors.

Is nairaland turning into a fantasy news site? Anyway we dont need Scientology in Nollywood.

Is the situation better in Nigeria?

felifeli:
God, 600,000 jobs to go this year alone in UK, my knees are really knocking together quite badly mate. 

I dont mean to offend you felifeli but are you always this pessimistic? I have seen your posts on this thread and in other places. Its all about prophesying doom and gloom. Even before the credit crunch, there was always job losses, companies folding up etc. There is no easy place in the world - either in naija or in UK. People equally fail to reach their optimum back home just like in UK. No matter what, the tough keep moving. Crunch or no crunch.

Oh No  Not another "Ugly Britain" thread!

Living in naija offers as much challenge (in fact more) as living abroad. A common misconception is that abroad is filled with money and folks automatically make it big. FALSE. But then too, the same applies to living in Nigeria. I have had several foriegners telling me Nigeria is damn so rich and filled with oil money. You and I know how much of the oil money we enjoy. Life in naija is tough - I lived many years there.

Not all Nigerians are doing badly abraod. You have to struggle and educate yourself once you get here. I know a lot of working professionals (personally) who used to clean gutters in London. Another issue is our bloated mentality of looking down on certain jobs. Over here, you got to study what will give you a job. Nigerians want to do Nuclear physics and Geometrical Astronomy. They love loud sounding courses that don't fetch jobs. The reasonable ones have retrained in those "menial" proffesions and are using BMWs and Mercedez.

I know nurses, builders, carers, teachers who were graduates from Nigeria. They got here, surveyed the scene. Cleaned gutter or did other "dirty" jobs and retrained as what they are now. Today they live big. Tell a naija man to do nursing, he will say its a dirty job. Stupid, it pays like hell. Tell a naija man to retrain as a carpenter here, he will tell you "am a graduate". The building industry pays like hell in the UK. There is dignity in labour. A lot of folks capitalised on goverment free training for nurses pre 2002 and are doing well today. Others allowed their ego to blind them. They did'nt want folks at home to know they turned into an "eliza nurse" abroad after being a lawyer.

Tell the truth, cleaning gutter in naija and doing the same in UK, which one pays better? Which place has better quality of life. Even with all the big taxes abroad, proper planning will see you through.

Wait before you hit the reply button to crucify me. I love naija and my heart will always be there.

and so the war went on for pages and pages,

Sometimes nasty and even bloody but there were times of laughter and idiocy too.

Peace came after there were no more ammunitions left to shoot.

I came today to find the relics of war - tonnes of tear jerking photos and curse words but, 

above all ,

Peace and quiet had descended where before weapons of mass destruction and character assassination reigned.

Let us love our country O yes but

Let us also respect those representing us abroad

Unless this exercise is meant to encourage participation, doesn't alexa.com already give this infor?

Good design but what in the heck is that music on the youtube video? Sounds like 20 songs playing at the same time. Could'nt make head on tail out of it.

Look at this website for inspiration. They are doing what you want to do. www.feedebook.com

Do not duplicate them o. Do your own thing. I believe they used wordpress for it. Wordpress is easy to learn and master.

Most naija websites are like that - dead features all over the place.

Would you rather spend 30 minutes searching the web for a book if you could get it straight from a well cataloged/ categorised website? I know its not an original idea (quite a few sites are there already) but its definitely not a bad one.

I used to have Norton but had to remove it because it constantly slowed down my system. I ended up using Kaspersky. Its slow too but I think better than Norton. So I'll say Kaspersky.

Its a good idea provided you have the skill to talk about the books you are offering. You must be able to put up a good description of the books you are offering. This brings the question: Are you into web design yourself? Its no use blogging about stuff you are not passionate or familiar with.

Blogging is good provided you are dedicated and maintain a steady flow of the information you promised your audience.

You could expand your scope to include:

- tutorials on web design
- locate and host videos on your topic area
- publish other internet related news (startups, acquisitions, etc)
- Simple tips on web design for newbies
- Invite guest bloggers who are web design gurus
- review publications/books on web design/CSS, software etc

Lastly I have to tell you that the secret of blogging is good, original content. Once the search engines notice you have original content. You will be amazed how many people will keep coming back to your site.

Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect are the latest social networking services launched simultaneously 2 days ago. They essentially let you register/log into any site using your facebook login or Gmail log in respectively. This means in future, you can have just one super profile page usable in all websites. Its also a great marketing tool for website owners because of the invite feature. Linked, friends can also notice what sites you've been to - great advertisement!

I tried out Google Friend Connect on my blog but did not like the interface. It was, however, very easy to install (just like adsense). You only need to transfer 2 HTML files to your website root. Then cut and paste some more codes to wherever you wish within your home page.

The Facebook Connect is a bit more difficult to install. I gave up on that one after a while although I would have preferred using it.

I will continue to defend my notion that N97 is an Apple iphone mimic. I am not alone on this. All the notable tech blogs are saying it. Apple Inc has always been the flagship when it comes to great innovations. Check it:

- Point and click operating system on the Mac PC (Ask bill gates where he got the idea for Windows operating system)
- Ipods - music on the go (almost everyone is doing ipods today)
- Iphones - integrated music, video, phone, games, internet etc plus the touch screen all in one phone (Nokia recently joined the band wagon )
- etc

Apple Inc and Steve Jobs = a leader others must follow.

There goes another Apple iphone mimic

sojioguns:
Showing stuff on your laptop is highly unprofessional if you ask me, especially if you want to do business with corporate bodies.

What are you talking about bruv. Please don't get me wrong. Stuff on my laptop can be projected on a screen. How else do you carry your work around? Do you carry it on paper instead? When clients invite you for a demo or lecture, how do you take your work along? What about a local copy of the website right there on the laptop?

I never fall for that trick. I have my laptop so whatever demos you need to see will be right there. All transfers will take place when you fulfil the terms of the contract. Why do double work and get nothing for it.

I will now unsubscribe from this thread. I see it has gone out of control. Enough said.

The following sites pay you for adverts shown on your uploaded contents. They are all social networking sites:

www.flixya.com - this one pays you for adverts shown on content you submitted up to 100%
www.squidoo.com - pays 50% ad revenue
www.soulcast.com
www.shareapic.com - pays you each time people view your uploadted photos 1000 times

don't expect to get rich quick as the income is in trickles. Its just another source of cash in your search for diversification
Please, ensure you read and understand the terms and conditions of any site before registering o. This entry is not intended to encourage you to register on the above listed sites.