₦airaland Forum

hmm, i'd have to say software development in the end is more lucrative, and yes you are startign to have a "return to the desktop" paradigm these days, everyone wants the web to work like an application, no more fancy looks just outright efficient productivity & speed,

I know of two firms in lagos who developed software from HR to Asset Mgt/Stockbroking apps, they charge between 6-10 million and other extras in upgrades and support, WADOF has lots of clients so i expect they are in about 20m (on bad weather years) minimum per annum, now that is big money,

I love the web, but looking at the future a web that don't have the umph! of an app won't cut it anymore, so i do both, but i figure will land a very good commercial app in the next 12 months

I 'll stick with Appz,

arrgg. my princess on CNN, i am rich, yippee,

I luff the girl very much, my babe must not hear this,

that babe is a tight muphu$#% (shut your mouth)

to get a contract, yes
example, a client wants to know if you can handle database integration with php (i can't code a string of php besides changing .htm to .php) I say yes. confidently because I know i have several friends who can write php+mySQL (from their grave if need be.)

I have lost a beautiful opportunity by being outright truthful about my skills, unfortunately white people are not as sentimental as africans, he had this excel-driven program and i think was hired by (the-then) UBA to outsource portal infrastructure to contractors,
he simply asked each person to rate his skills in several areas as he typed the answers on a excel sheet,

white due: ASP.Net?
me: 4 (trying to be modest)
white due: Macromedia Flash?
me: 1
white due: Java?
me: 0
white due: DHTML?
me: 3
white due: SQL Server?
me: 5

etc, in the end
he hit the enter key and the results came up, he said. we cannot take you on because you do not meet the requird skill level?

my friends and some other guys at the interview simply said 10 10 10 and maybe some 9s and they got hired, (i know i am better on some areas than the guys who got hired, )

I also know of a competitor, can't mention cos they are nairalanders too, but they embelish a lot, a whole lot. and my they have a tight British accent, and do have an office in the UK , but man, when we came up to the client on Interview day, they simply blew me out da window with snazzy mobile phones and great-lookign suits and all the techno-jargon on wikipedia, we had no chance. 8 months later the same client calls, apparently they gave the client extremely high expectations on what they could deliver, our proposal was only considered when we did similar work for another client that they noticed.

howdy, i used this last year for doing up gallery images for starquest

http://fredrik.rambris.com/gfxindex/ did i mention, it is GNU.

Simply edit teh config file for the right sizes and quality of thumbnails and it creates thumbs of the real pix with hyper links to the real images,

Nifty right-click context-sensitive menu, let me know if it helped you

@ Pastev_1, like Morpheus from the movie "MATRIX", show me

what aspects of proper design is wetinbe missing and what can you do about making it properly designed?

@ Pastev 1 yes! it's a great manipulation, but is not proper designed

oh my!!, you are not suggesting I design a proper website for Wetinbe are you?,
I am only pointing out areas were things could be bettered, i'll say, there's little i can do beyond that, unless you are paying me so cool monies. i do not think i want to engage a free webdesign package for a project this big?

not even in my semi-drunk state will i do proper design for free. say, . you do seem to be bustling with energy, okay out with it, where is your stash of Roger Ramjet Proton Energy pills (that give you the strength of 20 Atom bombs for a period of 20 seconds -- gulp! tick tick tick tick, )

cool down @ Pastev 1, i knwo the design is not 100% proper design, but how would Wetinbe take it if you came out so bluntly without massaging the fine points first?

Hello,
I do not know why the preference for yellow & green (it gives me a limy feeling when i look at it.) but if it is part of your branding, then its okay.


1: The homepage needs to be re-thought again, it is not strong in terms of communicating what your business is about. I think http://www.wetinbe.com/index_nigeria.php should be the homepage excluding the center portion that has the add listing tool (I also think this is illogical to display immediately since you require users to create an account and login to update their listing as it changes)

2: Some of your strong business values like Sales Opportunities and Advertise with us are at the bottom of the page as text likns (text links is oka) but you can emphasize that these values are available by adding a visual cue like the "create Free website" banner on the hom epage

3: I also think you should place the search function on the home page because that is what people are there for first before any other thing, sebi?

4: The line FREE Business Directory Listings in Gambia, Ghana, , is good but overall i think you should collapse the text inforation on your homepage (the main purpose of your website business) into a strong, marketese (with restraint)+informative 1 paragraph message, the purpose of your business is all over the pages in short and incomplete messages. I think you should collapse them and make them the first block of text on the middle portion of the homepage.

I think the left and right blocks are good for banner adverts and site navigation, (Site Navigation on the right and banners on the left, The middle fo important content)

5: The bottom section is traditionally for links like terms, privacy policy, contact us etc, the devil in the details most people do not bother to go there. anyway so move your important links away from the bottom section,

6: I think you should slow down for a week and get a pen and paper to write down your thoughts and ideas for the website, I am not saying that you did not do that. I am just pointing out that the issues i found out are the type you should have taken into consideration early into the project, from what i see you have already done a lot of work (that makes it pretty dificult to re-work (like trying to change a gift that has been wrapped wthout tearing the wrapper)

I have attached a screen capture of your site, (forgive me for editing it, just trying to illustrate what i mean)

Get webbing

is this still on, let's get serious, how do we form a group to start working on this earliest,
1: Business Plan
2: Blueprint - How the idea works technically and all the nooks and crannies
3: experts : design, graphics, application dev, databases etc

Nations Cup, SA 2010 Wooozaa!

here is the cover and some pages, but you'll get the drift

hmmmn. will post a post i made months ago, maybe it'll help,

I am about to approach a big hotel in lagos for their website also, (after reading your post).

However, I have had some time to look at the issue of why the MD was not so hot on the idea immediately.

I have a strategy (took me two weeks to taper) if it works, i'll swing you the proposal i did and how i got the ball rolling but here are a few steps i have taken

1: Know the hotel business (home and abroad) - what value do the best hotels offer online?
2: what other related businesses can piggy-back on the hotel's website (revenue for the hotel) Bureau de change, Airport taxis, shops, etc
3: Is the hotel takin home the cheddar (like Ludacris), so you can gauge what their budget is like.
4: good thing you got on with the graphics guy, now time to score points, share good ideas that can make him look good without "shenkin" you off the job, (Sacrifice that weekend to do a demo site) there are tools to wrap it into an exe so people don't steal your idea.
5: Get insider info on how people (especially in Accounts and PR) take the idea of a website - let the graphics guy do this for you.
6: Get this tool MindMap from MindJet.com, simple the best "jobbin" tool available. it lets you organize your cool thoughts into a logical-easytoread-mind map, simply bowls me over when i look at it, see sample attached
7: Always keep an eye out on the 'criminal' competition, they have all the right words but all the bad intentions - ripoff the client and dump a dirty ink-blotted newpaper as a website, learn to present like 419 guyz do, with passion and belief.
8: do notsubmit your proposal on white A4 paper, in a brown envelope, 12 Point Arial(double-spaced), No, no, no, add some pizzaz, look at my second attachement (it is still a new approach though, )so MDs might not be ready for unconventional proposals
Buy a slick black -non-gloss plastic document holder, add a gold back cover and transparent front cover. print in rich color with some clever graphics and layout.

Use some flash (just to get them hooked. MDs always like something new and fun to watch)

Let me know what you think

Will feed you the whole package when i am done, hopefully if time permits in two weeks.

unless you are in the habit of giving stupendous gifts like cars and flat-screen Teevees I would not mind leaving behind borrowed monies, old pyjamas, T-shirts, memories etc (see the type of gifts you can afford to leave behind?)

From my experience, gifts you give because you expected or are expectign somethign back, you tend not to want to leave behind when things don't work out, but if you gave when love suckered you, then it is okay and easier to forget it and move on, (that was an expensive camera, darrn!!)

hey, no one ever died from freeloading, its its okay to get gifts, money, (sex) from a girl without actually paying or asking for it.

I think it i sooo today. i mean that would really give me the courage to sit down in front of the TV and prepare for an interesting football season.
seriously, i've been giving gifts, buying suya and giving out money since secondary school, form 1. good lord!
it is time for some Git back. (The Big Payback)

i totally hate pressure, especially when 3 months after we are supposed to go live, my oga is still playing golf and has forgotten all the sleepless nights, coffee and anginas he caused,

funny, deadlines seem to pass and planned projects eventuially become successful.

I still remember the deadline that almost got my colleague sacked, two promotions after and salary increase, no one talks abot the deadline even when the project is not complete.

I hate work pressure cos it spills into every part of your life that is not work

Extract link from http://www.spadixbd.com did the job nicely.

MDaemon email files are saves in a text format .msg

Thanks dudes

oga, IT education, greed got me to where i am today, i got a job to do a website from a guy in the US and thought i could sub-contract it to a real expert, in the end i could not get a real expert, so i learned the hardway,
18 websites / 7 database projects and 5 custom-software from the smallest to the largest of companies, never went to an IT programme for1 day. graduated Business Administration.

So what say you?

why not go the Stock Exchange's website and check up on the top 5 stockbroking firms by the biggest and most successful mandates they have pulled off. that way you know for sure that you are dealing with serious brokers (institutions and not individuals who might just make off with your dollars)

http://www.nigerianstockexchange.com/

Guyz work hard to put the food on the table, girls make babies

That was in the old dayz, now country hard (and this is global), so girlz now get to work hard and make babies at the same time, leaving us guyz to figure out why just being a guyz aint enough these dayz.

I do not blame any girl for leaving her guy because he has not got a job, that is reality for you, this world is not a field with honey and pancakes, you've got to work to live in a world of honey and pancakes, so girls need to know you want to live in that world, if you are not down with it (due to country hard or u just being plain lazy) then stay single and figure out how to make babies and eat at the same time.

It is time we accept this plain fact, Love is all good, but after that, you need the cruzeros to keep it going

Love is very necessary, why,

The human race needs to be sustained by procreation, gone were the ape-men days when a simply bleedin - deer (or a club to the head) would do, Civility has trained our sense of reasoning to the point that in-order to make love (have sex) without been looked upon as a rapist, prostitute or playboy, you have to be in love, i have never met anyone who fell in love and did not have sex within a month of the episode, it is just sensible biology, we need to be in love to fill the earth.

I know some Eckists, I don't know if they are brainwashed, but i do know that personally. these ones are morally good people, very beautiful girls too.

So far they have not tried to tell me I will go to hell unless i am part of their chosen 144,000 like Jehovah's witness.
neither have they pulled out a dagger at me for saying God does not answer the 40-day fasting & praying for cash-money (The Holy Book claims if you complete it to the letter God will rain the said cash on you, forget about the breast-loving part iif you die for the cause),. they have also not blind-sided me with the prosperity message, that we are all heir (apparent) of God and deserve the very best, (we deserve only what we work for and God knows this too)

15 years you say, that is a mighty long time, but we live in a democratic world which is why God did not slap Satan into a waiting Peugeot to be taken to an unknown destination for interrogation and subsequent dumping into the lake of fire.

Every religion is a CULT, why, because it is religion, I do not know if any of you feel me, but God is a Spirit oga and those who worship him must do so in the spirit, it has nothing to do with physical ceremonial gesticulations and various smoke-producing sticks and candles. it also has nothing to do with how you bow or how you stamp your feet and cry when you worship, it is simply a spiritual thing,

A Cult is a dangerous situation because you will inevitably be used and abused by the heads of the cult because (as usual) we are human and the high-sounding beliefs and tenets of the Cult cannot be achieved by humans (cept you are living in the spirit of God)

AMORC, Grail Message, Pastor Chris, Mountain of Fire, Celestial Church, Olumba Olumba, Sango worship Satanism, Catholicism, Islam, Christianity are all religious cults, unless you believe what they say, A Church is a state of mind, a private place where you sit down and talk to your personal God, it is not a building, if you see it as a building, they you are following a religion (which has all the rules to follow) or faith (which has no written rules but an unseen rule generator) or you are simply livin the way God says you should.

Anyway, thank God I am a rebellious fella. otherwise i would have fallen victim to the numerous cults we have in Nigeria.

Let me let you in on something, A CULT is simply negative because what they practise falls outside the socia-cultural guidelines of the society in which it operates, they day society expands her mind and starts accepting some far-less shocking beliefs of your so-called Cult, it would be fashionable to be an Eckist

I need to extract all email addresses for every email sent or recieved or archived on MDAEMON 8 Email Server. any nairalander ever used this software may give me tips, I need to build a mailing list.


Thanks

Mr Amos has come a long way, since Integra 2000, the colorful squiggy-board that could.

I love his tenacity, will put the word out.

@ Farriel

We have had similar experiences,  infact we am having one now,  a very rich financial services firm met with us 8 months ago for a website and database integration to their in-house asset mgt database. we stood at 2million,  they told us they'd never do it beyond N500k (MD, some smart alec consultant and the guy who recommended us),  we explained why Heaven is for Agels and Hell is for drunks,  they stood their ground. so,  we walked. They called in last month to accept the N2m just because we launched the site of a competitor and it was way better than their supposedly N500k website.

Having had benefit of hindsight,  we decided that when-ever we got an RFP, we would quickly study the company, get some material and logo (or download their entire site if they have one). do a smart-looking demo on CD and stack it with the proposal.

Rather than going for a round figure like N100k, we do this instead N163,191. it is way above N100k,  but there is a percieved honesty in the figure stated and to the client she thinks she has taken off N400k at least (just a trick of the mind)

no matter how they bid (after looking at your smart demo) they won't go below N155k.

On the other negotiation gambits,  try out rdawson.com http://www.rdawson.com/articles.html

Hope it get's you out of embarrassing situations as these

hmmmn. i use a web app say one that pulls up quotes and charts froma server
f'course the server does all the processing and serves me data, it is still a lot slower than when a friend in the US connects to the same server, that is my bandwidth issue, .

u're right, i was too tired to read through, just scanned a paragraph that caught my attention and made a comment.

before i fumble. what does PHP stand for, I had a similar problem when my Boss was in a meeting and called the Server room praising his boys that they know everything, he asks, what is ICT, what does it stand for, on speaker phone,, after s studied silence, i answered, i do not know,


so what is PHP

i no know book oooh

oga, na true. web applications rule as long as you have the bandwidh to ignore the "little" nuances,

but guess what, down here in naija, you can pull up a Reuters terminal and look like an NIIT lecturer in front of a real CISCO router, it simply don't cut it with users and with Mgt, had to re-work to a desktop version of a web app simply because of bandwidth issues (thanks to our ISPs lying about "bandwidth on demand, dedicated-shared bandwidth,committed information rate and all the hogwash)

so in yankee, yes. hurrah for the thin client, down here, Fat is king.

methinks the environment matters, no use giving a pilot an F16 fighter at the bottom of the atlantic ocean

Embarrasment Number 1
Never assume you know "How" the client wants it. after impressing the client with a likable draft and scorng points with the ICT department. i was called a week earlier to take off the picture of the Chairman from the home page and replace it with the MD. hmmm, i thought, "that's not fair" so I put the MD's picture under the Chairman's and all hell was let loose, while i was hyping my skills in people-management, the company was agog with a political war, people taking sides with the MD and Chairman, at the end, I was called by both MD and Chairman to decide where i was or loose the contract, it was really scary talkless of embarrasing.

Embarrasment Number 2
Same company, after building a "tight" recruitment web application that assigns tracking numbers auto-generated and stored in sessions, i forgot to add the tracking numbers into the database, after 3,000+ applications, HR could not tell the job seekers on interview date that their tracking numbers meant diddly-squat and the job-seekers went mad thinking there was some unfair juggling of numbers to get some preferred candidates in front, i messed up there big time

the brazilian coach will be sacked for fielding an unfit player for reasons other than winning a crucial match,

get this, Ghana Vs. Brazil 3-2 , ghana wins, Brazil is out and so is Ronni boy,

Laugh now, let this post stand as a record after the tuesday match

@DJNiyi .
more grease to ya elbows,

ave not been to church in a long while, (it is on TV most of the day anywayz)

Religion is like sugar to a child, you need it but too much is bad for your teeth.

Personally, ohh. I believe there is (my definition)

Religion: Ceremonial practices based on part philisophy, part tradtion, part fashion and mostly politics. serious issues with accountability and responsibility because most of the statutes or tenets guiding daily living is based 10% ancient texts and 90% human knowledge, human wisdom, human whims.

Philosophy: way of living based on an adopted sense of morality, "common-good common-sense" i call it.

Faith: Way of living based on wholly acceptance of a supreme creator or spirit-being who lets you live the way you wish but also holds you responsible and accountable for your actions

Sooo, I am no zealot but I think I like MFM simply because they pray a lot. it says a whole lot about what you believe in.


I also have a muslim friend who prays a lot besides the normal prayers, but he also fornicates every second that he is not praying, he says prayer is the responsibility of every muslim, but it does not mean that he is not a sinner, just doing his daily chores he says. hmm, now that is a perspective u do not see everyday