₦airaland Forum

nduaj,

I agree with 99% of what you have said, especially the "winning customer loyalty" part. Why not 100%?

1) Cos you are not dealing with oyibo in Nigeria but actual Nigerians (and you know how some of us are. Not to mention, your conversion ratio also says it all, assuming I could use it as a broad brush to paint the general Nigerian web dev landscape).

2) In general, I would like to know what we on this forum regard as a demo. Is it a full-fledged version of what the site will actually look like? In other words, if the client says yes, would it be safe to say you make a few tweaks and you are pretty much done? If so, this is not what I deem a demo.

A demo to me is a prototype. So assuming the site will have a page with a form. I will provide for you a page with form elements. No design/template whatsoever. I would then show you what would happen if you click on the form element. I would never go for a full-fledged version because I would hate to put in all the work only to find out that the client opts to choose another person over me. My time is way too precious biko.

The whole idea of a demo, at least to me, is to show the client what is possible and not how what is possible can be done. There are too many risks: client lifting your code, client taking what you have and giving it to someone to do at a cheaper rate, client saying no, etc. I bet you that if you the client were in a society where they were charged per hour, they wouldn't ask you to do a full-fledged demo.

I have dealt with 3 clients in Nigeria so far. Granted, it isn't enough to make me draw a conclusion, I can say that at least in my case, I did what Afam suggested above: ask them to visit your portfolio page (that is what that page is for) to see what you are capable of. If they don't see anything that tickles their fancy, then ask if there is any site they have visited which they would like for you to emulate. Between the two, the client usually can strike a balance.

So far, be it for Nigerian or US clients, I haven't had to redo a site/app due to customer dissatisfaction. Then again, it could be because I deal strictly with referrals which implies that my reputation precedes me. I treat the client the way I would want to be treated and so far, so good. It's all about trust folks. Look the client in the eye, be honest and tell them what you can and can not do. If you can't do it, be straight with them enough to tell them that hey, they might want to go elsewhere or better yet, you refer them to someone else (I have done this on various occasions). If they insist on a demo, either charge them for it or again, be frank enough with them to say hey, I don't do such and sorry we can't do business if they insist. I personally would respect such a person and trust him/her with my life.

When on the other hand, you are willing to take a string of buses/molues/bikes from oshodi to the ile epo at ore meta for a free demo, no wonder some clients over there are taking advantage of us. Maybe this is why there are so many unions out there.

Please don't take offense over what I have said here. I am only looking out for our best interests.

As always, my 2 cents.

nduaj,

I can tell u r an undercover geek LMAO!

wow,

such a tiny camera takes such powerful photos? Interesting! I just checked it out on amazon and the reviews are good as well.

Thanks, and good luck to you in your web dev endeavors.

nduaj,

if you code to web standards and do so in FF (which has a lot of cool web tool plugins), then verify your work in IE, you probably wouldn't have to do that much tweaking.

Having said that, I am not taking away from your site. It still is good. Its just that, by default, I use and develop in FF. As for the camera, you mind giving me the specs? It might be something I look at buying depending on cost

Thanks.

To a carpenter with only a hammer, everything to him/her is a nail.

Every language has its use. I have used all of the above and must confess I don't have a favorite. Y? because each was used in a different situation and to solve particular issues.

At work, I have used ASP, Cold Fusion and JSP. For my side-projects, because it is easy to understand and pick up, not to mention, a majority of ISPs support it and it seems to be the language of the average Nigerian web developer (I say this cos I intend to break into the Nigerian web dev scene and in order to do so I feel a need to speak in the language of the people, so to speak), I use PHP.

nduaj,

with respect to srevir, you have to understand one thing about life, atimes quality (of posts) is better than quantity (of posts).

Back to the car site: I love it!! I wish you have started a trend that others will follow. Even the flash doesn't make me nauseous. The photo quality (in the header) of the photos is suberb! Who took those for u? If you did, I need to hook up with you

My observations (and of course, I use FF):
1) In the header section of your sub-pages, the blue strip is sort of hanging at the bottom of the header images. Consider moving those down abuot 2 or 3 pixels. If that bottom space is actually a thick gray border, I would suggest your remove it.

2) In the "latest models" page, it appears the top of your thumbnail images aren't lining up with the Make and Model text to their right (BMW 645I for example). I would align them such that they lined up perfectly.

3) Also on "latest models", the right border of your left menu cuts off about halfway through the page. Any reason for that? Finally, why are there 2 gray borders, with a large gap, between car listings? I would take those out.

4) For consistency, I would make the header image on the home page the size dimensions as the header images on the other pages and move the menu beside it, again for consistency, to where they are on the other pages. This is a nit-pick, but I just thought I should throw it out there. If you must keep the menus that way, then make sure the blue hover covers the space completely (remember, I use FF and what I am seeing is the blue hover covers about 80% of the space). If you used CSS rollovers, I would say you need to set your anchor tags to "display:block;"

5) I would also suggest you use text, for SEO/bandwidth reasons, where you have images ("welcome to our website", "financing", "welcome to your dream car", etc). Some are as big as 7KB. If you are concerned about crispness and can't find a better font, consider using siFR fonts.

6) I know why your thumbnails look grainy (and you know too ). Let's take the BMW 645 I on this page for instance: http://www.megapointautos.com/newmodels.php . Upon right-clicking the image and left-clicking, "view image", I get this: http://www.megapointautos.com/pics/DSC00036.JPG

I take it you are automatically uploading your photos from a digital camera. Rather than "resize by force", I suggest you either:

1) Use PHP's GD extensions to resize your images when you display them, or:

2) Use Photoshop or Fireworks to manually resize (proportionately of course) uploaded images. This option may not be the best, especially if you aren't the one to do maintenance once you hand the size over, but I just thought I should throw it out there.

Don't take my observations the wrong way please. If you were to handover the site as is, thumbnails aside, and I were the client, I would probably pay you jara. Good job man!

I hope these help.

p,

I just did - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gang

I prefer #4 personally

Not to deviate from the issue, I don't think you have given any substantiative (I have also checked the meaning of this word ) answer. I am thinking more along the lines of financial data here, not just based on what's "on" my pocket. Based on your answer, even if I have N1million to invest, it still doesn't make sense.

Come on now, let's get serious.

Thanks,

so deejay,

Are you saying one couldn't use a combination of Flash and AJAX (or what some people call AFLAX) to dynamically generate and display the information?

If so, I beg to differ.

wany,

what shole is advertising is nothing new. It's what is done in the US and they aren't in, "ardent poverty".

It's a free market. As long as there are those willing to fall for what is being offered (anything for that matter), people like shole will always be in business. On the other hand, if no one is interested or a competitor comes up with something better, if shole doesn't adapt, he goes out of business. It's that simple.

Let the free market reign. It's what has kept the world economy afloat. It is what is responsible for the very site you are posting on.

nduaj sorry,

c, prodgalson is a highly respected member of this forum. He has been away for at least 6 months (of course, it says he has 2 posts, but that is a mistake, I can guarantee you that )

I sort of hesitated after Salvage's flaming (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-91767.0.html). I am still getting the shakes from it

At the risk of you flaming me (and as always, I browse with FF):

1) on contact page, your form is spilling over the boundaries of your template. same applies to http://www.srevir.com/female.php and http://www.srevir.com/male.php. Also, y is the design for those pages different from your home/other pages? I think they should be consistent.

2) search page is non-existent (blank page)

3) I like the fact that you are randomly displaying products on the home page. For consistency though, I would make all images the same size.

4) 404 on http://www.srevir.com/faq.php

5) I like the subtle animation. In other words, the brands aren't scrolling quickly, rather they scroll very slowly. Enough to make me not nauseous

6) no footer

7) For that image strip featuring all the people (below your nav bar), I would suggest you replace that with a strip of images of products you carry on the site.

I would add some hover effects on your nav bar.

I hope these help.

Haaaaaa!

Ose, ose oooooo!!! prodgalson has returned.

Prodgal, perhaps you have a story, similar to the one in the bible to tell?

myomy,

There is nothing like a male or female "friend". Rather, what such "friends" are, are people that haven't slept with each other (yet). Finding a male companion is merely a ticking time bomb for the D-day, bedmatics-wise.

If you need a companion, find it in family members (those who were part of your marriage). If you are a christian, then follow the bible and do what it says (paraphrasing) - report him to the church elders. Perhaps once it comes out publicly, he will change. Finally, again, do what the bible says (again, paraphrasing) - pray incessantly for the situation to change.

I hope this helps.

Hey gang,

Anyone know of Bagco and Afribank with respect to them being good investment opportunities? I have read the prospecta (sic) of both companies and personally, it appears the bagco one is better. Besides, as far as naija is concerned, people will always use bags shey?

Let's start a conversation. Which of the 2 is the better deal?

Thanks,

folahann,

better question: are there fake products in the average Nigerian open-air market?

I won't go as far as calling these guys fake trainers but I will question their mode of teaching (no tables, no computers, students writing on pieces of paper as opposed to on a computer, etc) their techniques. Check it out: http://www.maximuminsight.org/gallery.htm

I know, someone on here will say, "leave them alone, they are only trying to make a decent living". Sure, but that isn't reason enough to take advantage of the fact that others, in coming to them for training, are trying to make a decent living as well. Then again, those guys charge N3,000. I guess as they say, you get what you pay for.

jackback,

I assume this is the site you are referring to: http://www.zenithsecuritiesng.com

If this is the case, I traced the code to this file: http://www.zenithsecuritiesng.com/scrollbondprice.php

If you, "view source" and scroll to the bottom of the source page, you will see a "Dynamic Drive DHTML" section. This is the code that is used for the scroll. Also, if you view the source of the home page, and search for "gainers", you will notice there is a <script> section that references the above PHP page:

<script type="text/javascript">

//specify path to your external page:
var iframesrcbp="scrollbondprice.php"

//You may change most attributes of iframe tag below, such as width and height:
document.write('<iframe id="datamainbp" src="'+iframesrcbp+'" width="430px" height="150px" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>')
</script>

I personally think there is a better way to present the scrolled information though. What happens, for instance, if visitors to the site turn off javascript (yeah I know, not many people do that, but it is still reason to give me as a developer pause)? Perhaps flash would be a better alternative? I dunno, I am just thinking out loud here. Besides, there are people like me who find such scrolling nauseous.

I hope this helps.

allonym,

From experience, your approach may not always be the best: machines don't always do the best job at translation. A human is best when it comes to translation. Secondly, you may be faced with a situation where you want to translate to a language which is not provided for by such services. Again, I say this from experience.

On a project at work, we decided to go with such a program, which we ended up paying for. The goal was to translate from english to chinese and russian. It just so happened that we had a chinese and a russian employee, so we gave the text to them to see if it was okay. As it turns out, they said the translations were riddled with errors. In fact, the chinese guy said the chinese translation had some derogatory words in it.

So, in conclusion, am I saying not to use the google/altavista? Nope. All I am saying is it is not always best. Caution must be observed. If you are in a situation where you know anyone who speaks the language you are translating to, it wouldn't hurt to run it by them, just to make sure.

As always, my 2 cents

In my opinion, infrastructure is #1:

Without 24 electricity supply for starters, we can't achieve much. I know of pple who are coding with a generator on which significantly adds to the cost of production. Yet, they still charge cheap for what they do cos Iyabo down the street is charging N30,000 for a website.

Everything to me in Nigeria revolves around a constant supply of electricity and water. I can deal with bad roads and go about my business without a car, but not without electricity/water.

As always, my 2 cents.

gbenge,

u might be able to find who you need here: http://www.webmastersofafrica.com/

Good luck!

Chy,

u might be able to find who you need here: http://www.webmastersofafrica.com/

Good luck!

greatdbanj,

wasn't this post somewhere else? We could have continued with that one now.

In any case, I must confess it looks better than the first time. One thing though (sorry, but I can't seem to control my fingers ): Your contact form opens up an email client (In my case, outlook). Y rnt you processing the form server-side?

kudos!

All,

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As much as the free market dictates. If free, so be it. If N1million, so be it.

Salvage,

Childish according to who? I am actually enjoying this debate, if you want to call it that. I am learning. Hopefully you are as well.

Back to the brass tacs:
When I say semantic markup, I don't mean validation. Validation means you conform to the DTD you have defined on your page. Semantic means you use tags appropriately.

Web Standards comprise the following: Making sure your pages validate, making sure you use semantic markup and separating content from presentation via CSS.

So for example, referring to topcomm:

On your home page, under "our portfolio", you have as one of the underlined text, "Launch of inaugural SAA flight (Lagos – Johannesburg) – Media Relations". You have this surrounded by "p" tags. That content would be better served as "li" tags or unordered lists. Why? because you are providing a list of their portfolio. You should reserve "p" tags for actual paragraphs.

Also, those graphical headers you have (our portfolio, etc) would be better served as text with "h1" tags. That way, search engines would know that those were headers and index them as such. Of course, using CSS, you could style those accordingly to look exactly the way they look now. If not, take a look at sIFR fonts. They are rendered via javascript as flash objects but are still text, for accessibility/usability purposes.

I know, when visitors go to the site, they could care less right? Sure, but again, that is not an excuse for you to lay out your code the way you have it now.

Finally, again, I never said I was a design expert. And, I apologized for the misunderstanding, for which you are yet to acknowledge. No need rubbing it in. I got it the first time

If I review or comment on anyones site, I know not to make a statement like poorly designed cause then, the next requirement would be for the person making the comment to show his designs.

Not necessarily. As I always say, I don't eat amala. Having said that, if I see amala that is well-prepared, regardless of how mine is prepared, I will say so.

People can always advice and comment on site reviews but its condescending and contemptous for someone to just label it poorly designed if the person hasnt got an impressive array himself.

As judged by who? You (with bias) or an independent panel of reviewers (without bias, hopefully)?

I would have swallowed my spittle if I had looked at his designs to see really great designs.

Apparently, this whole "poorly structured code/design" issue is what lead to this. Oga, abeg, e jo, biko, swallow your spittle please. Sorry for criticizing your designs. Sorry for making your spittle flow so much that it has probably filled up your ice water tumbler. Now, do you feel better?

I will step back from the design part, but sorry, not the code part. I say this cos though I am no expert on design, I am an expert on code. Your sites do not conform to web standards, with respect to semantic mark up.

As for the part where you say only two of your sites are *as bad*, I think you really overestimate your sites.

Au contraire, mon frere. I never under/over-estimate. Every single site I have developed, I put them up for review here. All 11 of them. Read the posts, you will see them. Are all the reviews good? Nope. But do I swallow the truth pill, as bitter as it may be, in good spirits? You bet I do. With me, you get what you pay for - you pay me $300, you get nothing. You pay $1000 you get a lot. That's why I ask for a client's budget up front.

Since it seems I am talking too much here, I will let others have their say with respect to your sites. Again, I thought I was doing something good, but I guess not.

I have never claimed to be the best designer. Best developer? I know enough to be dangerous. Best designer? I try my best in that department. So far, so good. I could go as far as saying that based on the sites you have shown us here, only 1 or 2 of my sites are as bad as yours, but I don't want to get personal. That wouldn't serve us any good. A website isn't all about photos and flash. It's about well-structured code. Sure, the graphics attract, but as they say with women, it's what's inside that counts.

Growing up, I am sure you encountered situations where, say, your Dad would do something and you would ask, "Dad why do you say I shouldn't do it when you have done it?" I am sure the response was something along the lines of, "just because I have done it doesn't mean that you should". I have never asked anyone on here to do as I do. I can only advise to the best of my ability. Have I made mistakes in my life? sure. But that doesn't mean I will advise based on those same mistakes.

As far as font sizing goes, you dictate the tune. You said you looked at fonts on my pages. What you will rarely find is a case where I give my content containers a height. That is bad. Now, if you resize, of course my menu items will grow past their containers. That can't be helped. But content area? Again, I rarely set heights.

Sorry if you took my comments in bad taste. If you look closely, you will notice that I am not saying anything bad about you as a person but about your sites which I have decided to review, free of charge I might add. That notwithstanding, just remember - The truth is not a drink you serve with panadol. It is meant to hurt and it is meant to be bitter. Also, I refer you to a quote by Benjamin Franklin (paraphrased), "You should learn to like your critics and take them as friends because they help point out your mistakes and make you a better person".

I thought I was doing something good. oh well, no good deed, as they say, goes unpunished. I beg my adieu.

#4 really has nothing to do with viewing source. I was only curious to see how you implemented it - either as a frame or overflowed div
What I mean here is, if I were you, for consistency (which is something visitors will likely notice), either you should hv all your content in that portion of the pages have an overflow or they shdnt. Compare "services" page to "about us" page. If you still don't get it, let me know.

By the way, just because users don't view source, it doesn't mean you are to use it as an excuse for poorly structured code/design. That's like saying, "well, drivers don't disassemble the brake set so why should I bother adding .001mm more of brake pad?" Always, develop all your sites such that they conform to web standards. If you take this into account early on in the project (research shows that 90% of your time should be spent at the beginning and only 10% spent coding), you don't have to worry about refactoring.

For #7, I am not saying you should make your fonts bolder. Let's take a look at your CSS for this section (focus on the bolded text):

[size=8pt]#ourvisiontext p  {
   font: 11px/13px Tahoma;
   margin: 0px;
   text-align: left;
}[/size]

All I am saying is increase the 11px to, say, 13px or 14px. By the way, I just noticed that when I increased it on my end, the text went over the footer portion of your page. Why did you set a fixed height? Let the page flow naturally.

Finally, rather than assign a bunch of divs with font sizes, put all that within the CSS declaration for your body tag. Then, if you must have 1 or 2 variations, you apply it to the "p" tags. The way you have it now, it doesn't account for reusability. In other words, if I asked you to make one section 12px and 3 sections 14px, you would have to modify a bunch of CSS declarations.

I hope this helps.

1) form elements don't line up on "contact us" page

2) on "about us" page, text bleeds into client photos

3) When i hover over navigational links, they change from white to deep blue which gives the impression that they "disappear". not good.

4) Either you use overflow:auto everywhere or you don't, for consistency purposes. Don't pick and choose.

5) "contacts" link is broken in the footer on home page

6) same javascript validation issue from above

7) I would also probably make the font size a little larger.

I hope these help.

Ah, I thought it was your site (referring to #6). My bad. Regardless, recommend what I told you to them.

For #1, might I suggest you do one of the following:

1) Via flash, have the 4 header images randomly "flip over (kind of like solitaire)", say, 2 at a time, to reveal those service summaries. Of course, to avoid flashterbation, you would flip those images such that it isn't happening, say, every 2 seconds. You are already doing something like this with your 'latest events", OR

2) Have some kind of "click here to learn more" on those header images. For creativity, you could add this text/image against a translucent background. You could do this either as an image (adjust opacity to say, 50%) or via CSS. Again, though creative, it wasn't that intuitive to me (and I am in Web Dev) at first. Put yourself in the potential customers shoes - would you have known to click on those images coming to the site for the first time? I seriously doubt it.

Finally, I wouldn't worry about keeping the contact form compact. Most people surfing the web these days know how to use the scroll bar

Again, I hope these help.

Finally a site that was coded with FF in mind. Yay!!

Anyways, here are my 2 cents:

1) The 4 images at the top: I thought they were just header images until I mistakenly hovered over one of them. I noticed what appeared to be menu items and so I proceeded to click on one of them. For where? No response. I assume those are just features under each image. I would probably revisit the design of that area. It was kind of confusing to me as you can probably tell from my comments.

2) y do i have to scroll down on your "contact" page to see the "send" button? Just let the form flow freely. Again, it wasn't that intuitive to me that I had to scroll to the bottom. Also, the way you have the "services" form element is bad from an accessibility and usability stand point. Consider making it a regular drop down. If you want the user to be able to select more than one, consider using check boxes.

3) Apply javascript in addition to the php (or whatever) backend validation. I shouldn't hv to hit "send" before realizing that I didn't fill out a form.


4) The 4 images at the top: 3 of the 4 seem to be composed of 2 words which you have joined to form 1 word. What's worse is that the 2nd one has text that is so long that i it touching the edges of the black box. I would consider setting a max length for that. Same applies to the "Mission Statement" header.

5) On "portfolio" and "services" pages, the "creative excellence" header in the rightmost column is a little higher than the other 2. In other words, all 3 don't line up and in my opinion, should.

6) Under "jobs we have done (portfolio page)", it would be nice to have the URLs for the sites and/or a whitepaper explaining what you did in detail

7) Looking at the source code, your pages seem to be suffering from "divitis (too many divs)". Also, referring to your code from #6 above, rather than use "P" and "BR" tags, y not use "LI" tags (better for SEO and web standards (semantic markup) purposes)? You could then use CSS to style the list as necessary.

I hope these help.

Afam,

As they say, be careful what you ask for

Here is a 1-page site I did no more than 3 months ago: http://www.heavensentfoundation.org/ - Granted I have menu items for other pages, I can't continue until I get content for those pages. And yes, it was done for free and for my Dad

Once he provides me with the necessary content (which I ask for almost on a weekly basis ), I will surely update. Since it is free, of course the motivation to do it myself is lacking LOL.

Enjoy!

To my fellow country men/women/whom it may concern:

Things may be rough over there but, biko, don't fall for anything you see in an attempt to make quick money. Even the road to hell is broad, straight and easy to meander. Am I saying don't register for the above? Nope. But I am not saying yes either.

Take the narrow path. Work for it. Suffer for it. In the end, you will be glad you did. Why? because you earned it from your own sweat.