₦airaland Forum

And u can check ur emails via http://urdomain/webmail
U may also want to check the post: http://blog.ngbot.com/articles/27/

Oh, now I get. Its easy. U can either pay an email marketing company to do it for u or do it yourself.
For the first option (getting a mail marketting to do it for u), check out mailchimp.com. There are actually a lot of them. Just google around fro email marketing companies or something similar.
For the latter, u just need to a script that loops through the emails (which uv got) and mail them one by one. As in something like below (in PHP)

<?php
$r = mysql_query('select email from list');
while(list($email) = mysql_fetch_array($r)){
     mail($parameters);
}
?>

The above snippet is just to give u an idea. In real world, using mail() in loops is not advisable as it opens and closes the mail socket in each call. So u may want to use a mail class instead. But then that is just as simplest as it can get. U may want to do other things like schedule when it should send, get reports (bounces, clicks, opens, delieveires, etc), create support for html and plain txt (for email clients that doesnt support html) and many more. And that is where the email marketing companies comes in.
If u really want to do things yourself, get in touch wt me. I will charge u though - and real big 

@bug24
There are a lot of reasons mails enter spam folders. If u set things well, it wont. To start with, how do u run ur own list?

or do u mean that you want users to have their own customized directory under the site? Say for example, I, goldincome and yawa registered, we should hav e ursite.com/kehers, ursite.com/goldincome, ursite.com/yawatide - with each containing our personal profiles? Just like myspace and twitter?
The trick to that is something called url rewriting. Here is a search result from Google as regards that. And Im hoping it will help.

legally create a mailing list? U may need to explain more. do u mean u need a software or web app to help you send bulk emails or how to put together one without breaking any rules. Whatever, here are some few rules
1. Be sure the receiver has truly subscribed to be included in you mailing program
2. Always attach an unsubscription link to the email so that the receiver can easily remove him/her self if he no longer wishes to receive any further mail from u.
3. Send at most one mail in a day
There are a whole lot of others but that will probably be when u explain in details what u really want.

Hope you are not thinking that u have to create a different page for every user? (ofcourse 've seen people wondering how Yahoo manages to create different web pages for all its email users). The simple trick here as explianed by webguru is storing all info as regards a user in a db and retrieve them toa dynaically customize the successive repective pages after logon.

You need to read more on your CSS and AJAX.

Nah! wat u need is a server side language and database - of which I recommend PHP and mySQL repectively.

If I were u, if I were ooo, me I will forget orderbay, graphcard and watever them. Go GTB Mastercard. Cost nothing to open.

Ok, a quick review.
1. The contrast colors are, what is the word now? What Im really driving at is that the 2 blue shades dont jell
2. The space at the top, wat is it for? Planning to put a banner or image there? Or av it there and it is not showing up?
3. Writing ur content in bold makes d site looks somehow. U dont av to av all ur content in bold. Besides, you didnt properly punctuate the content. The about page for example av words seperated in commas like this: item1,item2,item3. You should seperate ur commas wit spaces like this item1, item2, item3
4. What about padding the inner content - i.e giving a space between the walls of the content box and the text in it? The way the texts are touching the box wall arent just right
That s d quick ones I notice in a fast glimpse, Will look more into it and let u on others

Was about to say dat too about GTB mastercard. Been using it for a while now with no hitch, I opened d dom account wit $0 and there have been no special charges since expect d 30$ card setup fee.

@bug24
Really? Guess u mean to say an external url where the content gets posted and helps u handle the emailing and confirmation? I know of a couple of sites that does this - wufoo as one, bravenet as another

I personally indulge my users in opening links in new tabs for them occassionally, like link to help files from forms. I wont like a user mistakingly leave a long form he has almost completed due to a click on a help link.

Personally, Im a breaker of the standard, but that's me. Another developer may see it the other way, as Seun does. I really think wat matters is weighing the sensitivity of the current page - if the information is that important to stick users around.
By the way, my own approach to the JS solution is

<a href="link.ext" target="_blank">Yo!</a> or <a href="link.ext" onclick="this.target='_blank'">Yo!</a>

. In the real internet world, how many of this standards really work sef?

There has been a lot of talks around about whether to allow links open in new window or not. Generally, webmasters are advised against it. The core reasons for this are that
1. Opening links in new window depends (not in all cases though) on Javascript and if it is has been disabled will lead to accessibility problems
2. It resets the Back button of browsers
3. It is not standard complaint
4. It affects accessibility for the impaired. The argument here is that if a link has opened in a new window, they may not be aware.
and a lot of others like that.
I really think an average surfer should be able to open links in a new window/tab themselves w/o the site implementing it. Personally, I simple Ctrl-Click on any link (open in new tab) when I dont want to leave the current page.
On the other hand though, there are situations when I think it is necessary to allow opening links in page; links to heavy documents as an example.
Which ways, I personally indulge my users in opening links in new tabs for them occassionally, like link to help files from forms. I wont like a user mistakenly leave a long form he has almost completed due to a click on a help link.

I should av simply say wrong board! But then again, whateva sha, the list is out. So grab ur scratch card, or better still come down to check it out.

Its been long I checked out blogger. I used to av a blog there. Whatever, I think there should still be 2 column templates available, else, (if they still allow), u may need to write your own custom template.

though you can fwrite() it to the sendmail path directly,

Using mail() is a whole lot easier. Other 3rd party mail classes are as well available (I personnaly recommend phpMailer). But then everything still boils down to support for PHP n the server.
If your server doesnt support PHP, other available options is letting a 3rd party site handle the form data posting for you. There are a lot of sites that does this. You can check out wufoo for a start

Besides been white, the content is too long. Not everyone will have the time to scroll and scroll and scroll. Consider spliting the page to 2 columns with the post on one and the other things (poll, blogarchive, followers, etc) on the other. By the way, y not use any of the many templates available on ?

What development language do u run on? You will need more than HTML to do this. You will need any of the available server side languages like php, jsp, asp and co.

I forgot to mention, dos Learn more buttons are kinda out of place too, For one, they are far away from the context, making it look like they are not related. They should also be within the context background (the light blue). You may also want to consider making it smaller (especially in height)

Must confess Im in love with the looks (layout and beauty) but the site loads too slow. Kinda like u used too much of slices or u just didnt bother to take care of their sizes. I checked out the requests with firebug and attached here is d screenshot I got. if possible try optimize d size of d flash animation and d image (2). I have actually starred them so u can see them.
Hope dat helps

For guys looking for the solibay Xtra browser (and ofcourse other downloads), Check out the naija mobile community http://mobile.ngbot.com

I dont get? Design a site w/o HTML or java (was this ever a web design language?) and not with flash or coldfusion? By the way I checked the links and was surprised to view the source and find HTML. Though u said without HTML? or do you mean without raw HTML coding?

@kokorunna
How many people have ur spirit and doesnt care if it looks like facebook or not? 1 out of 10? 2 out of 100? Mind u, facebook didnt start dat way, not even with looks. It actually started as an intra sku network site (within Havard) and later moved to other neighbouring schools before it later went public.

@slaiyer
Sorry if we've been too sharp with our critics but hey its for ur own good. You probably wont even remember any of us wen u r making ur millions We dont mean u should tear dwn what you have up already. Just a redesign to change the facebk look. By the way, I ran into this Naija social network site omo9ja.com some days ago and that simple look and sharp expression of wat the site offers was tempting enough to make me wanna join - and thats what u need.
Once again, best of luck

I will go for 3 as well,

hanen's post reminds me Studivz (Studivz.net) - the German social networking site that was sued by facebook in July 2008. This big companies can take small things as layout copying serious at times so be careful.

@chessmaster
Got ds error from ur site justicenigeria.com

Database Error: MySQL server has gone away
File: /home/justicem/public_html/Sources/Security.php
Line: 279

For users of the YUI framework, the version 2.6.0 is out. 2.6.0 introduces a new Carousel Control, offers the Paginator Control for general use (it was previously bundled with DataTable), includes more than 450 total fixes, enhancements and optimizations, graduates eight components out of “beta,” and now ships with more than 290 functional examples. More details available at the YUI bloghere: http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/10/01/yui-260/

Funny I was just reading a post about piracy and drm (digital rights management) http://hehe2.net/drm/why-its-time-to-kick-drm-to-the-curb/. For one, I think a reputable site (developer or company) will not want to "pirate" a picture dat is for sale. And dats wat makes it different from Otigba, u can use a pirated CD on ur system and wu knows about it?
Sure there will be "pirating" but ofcourse there will be buys. For another thing, if the cost is very small, people will consider buying. Thnk of say N100 (and 1000 buys) than say N1000 (and say 10 buys and a lotta pirating) for a picture.
Wateva sha, the pirating issue is something dat will b well tot of before development. Im actually not thnking of going into it (at least for now dat I av so many things to work on) but I think wt proper planning and strategizing, it will wok.

Is anybody thinking as Im thinking? This is a great idea for a startup (which is far better than d numerous forums and social sites we see around). I mean wat if someone comes up wit a site strictly for black photos - where photografers can upload their shots and give out at a fee. Personally I have close to 5000 shots on my PC I'd luv to share - I mean sell

As I type this, I must confess im bursting out with laughter at the whole posts. Funny Iv been missing out of the action.
@slaiyer
Forget the whole gists about pepsi, coke, keyboards and mouse. Please redo the frontpage. First impression they say goes a long way and it is d same with sites. Your site may have better features than facebook but no one will know till he registers and signs in. And hey that facbook look does not encourage registering. U really need a front page that is inviting and compelling. One that gives a sharp impression about wat ur site is about (the Share, Speak and plan is not really enough). If u are thinking facebook has it dat way and now has over 100 million users, well remember that is not in Africa where internet is a luxury.
Much said about the look, landers dat mentioned unique features are as well right. I used to be in hi5 before I entered facebk. But for mnths now, I have not been to hi5 despite the numerous invites and notifications I get in my email. Why? coz facebook offers far better every tool for social networking. No, Im not critisizing ur idea. Truly, this days its hard coming up with ideas that someone else have not done. But think of adding more unique features that will want to make users come around other than to facebook. Personally the forum and messenger thing is not enough.
Best of luck

It's all urs pal , enjoy

Hmm, captcha, captcha, captcha
WAs once in ur shoes to and had to find a way to deal with this bot thing. However, I had to write the captcha script myself (just out of fun actually and to c if I can). Attached is the captcha script that generates the random image (rename the captcha.png to captcha.php as NL no allow me upload php files). The generated text is stored in d session $_SESSION["captchaTxt"] so u can validate dat wt wat d user or bot typed.
All u need do is just put d script location in ur source: <img src="captch.php" alt="" />
But then that was then. This days I hadly do captchas. Of late Iv been trying to design from a user perspective dan dat of a developer. D developers perspectve is 'put d captcha to prevent bot' but to (most) users, captcha sucks! Personally I dont like seeing dem wen Im filling a form. So wats d work around?
What I simply do now is create a blank field in d form, tell d user to leave it blank and hide it with CSS. i.e

<div style="display:none"><label>Leave field blank</label> <input type="text" name="blank" /></div>

The 'leave field blank' is just in case (probably d user turned of CSS) he sees the field. So he will know he shouldnt fill it. But normally he wont even be aware of anything and just pass through the other fields. U can then check if d field is filled or not @ processing. If it is - it is a bot - or probably a disobedient user.
Hope that helps.