₦airaland Forum

Seun,

For information, I guess for the average surfer and for someone like my Dad who actually visits the site everyday. Such people (and no offense to them), look more for the news and not the structure of the site. They could care less about, say, pop-ups.

My main complaint about the site is that it has so much information on it from how it used to be in the past, that I don't know where to start. So I stopped visiting there (weeeell, I do visit there when I am reaaaaallly bored ) and go to http://www.elendureports.com/ instead as well as get news from various discussion forums such as this. I figure pple will only post news on such forums if it is reeeeeaaaally relevant (to avoid getting banned ). Such news items usually have a URL that points to the actual news anyways.

timmy (sorry, I meant Rotimi Oluwunmi ),

like a cockroach in heat, u don come again. no ya wa. I re-read every single thread on this post and nowhere do I or anyone on here mention anything about my "design props". Contrary to popular belief, I actually pride myself in my lack of "design props".

As I have maintained over and over, I am a developer, not a designer. At work, I don't come up with design. Rather, I take what a designer gives me and turn that into a web page. I offer my critiques based on my years of experience. I have done a lot, seen a lot and I read a lot. Just because I don't eat amala doesn't mean I wouldn't know how to appreciate amala that is well-prepared. Remember, you are the same person who, on this forum, boasted to all about how you put up an 800-page website

You started something similar to this at exactly this time last year. Now, you are at it again. I will respectfully ask you to stop and apologize. Otherwise, I will be forced to divulge information about you on here that will make everyone lose respect for you. We are all on here to learn and not to be adherents to the "Crab in a basket" mentality.


A word is enough for the wise.

oga martins,

Note for the future: always test your website out on all major browsers before release. Am I saying I don't make mistakes? Mba. However, by testing my sites across all major browsers upfront, I eliminate a majority of bugs. I guess based on my years of experience, I tend to find things that others ignore. I have been "beaten down" by quality assurance pple in my career so many times that like "Thing Fall Apart"'s hunter of the eneke bird, I have learnt to shoot without missing.

I know, especially for those of us back home, the argument is that majority of the world uses IE. That is still no excuse not to check out your sites on the others. Their argument is akin to saying that since most Nigerians typically eat beef suya, then all suya joints should have just beef. That just doesn't hold water. There are those who eat goat, mutton, chicken, etc. Strive to cater to all, but of course have your main target audience in mind.

Having the patience and discipline to do such things like unit/integration testing across all major browsers is what separates the "PhD" web developer from the "BSc" web developer or the proverbial wheat from the chaff.

I hope this helps.

tundewoods,

I think it's all about competition. Is there any company out there that offers the same things that interswitch does? If not, then therein lies the problem. If there is, then why (at least this is what I get from your post) do pple flock to interswitch in droves.

Referring to your paragraph on GSM, if I recall correctly, they had a monopoly until the other companies came into town. Trust me, when other companies offer the same thing that makes interswitch so "necessary" that pple feel they can't do without it, prices will drop (of course, we are talking about Nigeria where, for the most part, we don't adhere to the natural laws of economics, but again, I could be wrong). I saw it happen in the phone industry and I can guarantee you it will happen with the online payment industry as well.

As always, my 2 cents.

martins,

it's crisp and clean, the way I like it.

A few things:

1) In FF, the text in the upper left (example "default calendar", "about us", etc) as well as the link above the text are cut off from view

2) Under "help" menu, you have "contac us". I am sure this is a grammatical error.

3) Your calendar shows that it is Sunday, August 26. I am in the US and as at the time of this post, it is 9pm on August 25th (saturday). I would assume you would be using the system time in your code as opposed to your local time. If you are having problems with the calendar, I would suggest you use google calendar. I use it on all sites I have done with a calendar of events. It comes complete with the ability to create recurring events. It's typical google - they create the code, give it out for free and store the data. All you do is reuse.

4) In your header graphic, why the so many references to CIW? There are other certifications - brainbench and microsoft, to mention but a few.

i hope these help.

jovie,

I have been looking at this post for at least a week and have been witholding my comments. You want "hard criticism". You should be careful what you ask for.

When the site was up, it was horrible. Hopefully, it being down means you are redesigning it.

I look forward to seeing a better site.

webemarald,

it is called "lightbox": http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/

if you think lightbox is cool, check out (on the same site) lightbox 2. For an example of lightbox 2 in action:

http://www.ibompeoplescongress.org/ipc-photo-gallery/ipc-jazz-night-photos.php

While you all are there, you might as well review it for me, if you all don't mind. I finished this site 2 weeks ago but was lazy posting it here for a review, in particular because I am tired of hearing, "your site is so simple"

damn! when it comes to what i use to make my sites unique, I can't believe I am giving away my secrets. Oh well, if I no love una, I no for do am. If I don't play my part in helping my brothers and sisters back home with respect to putting up quality websites, who will?

I hope this helps.

juintade,

on another accessibility note, consider using the "title" attribute as well - "alt" will only appear if the image is missing or not loaded whereas "title" will show when you hover over it (as in a tooltip).

all:

if ever you have to decided b/w text and images, consider using this cool technology called sifr:

what it is/when to use/when not to use it: http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/
examples: http://www.isarie.com/index.php?p=17&o=30#fonts

this technology basically takes an "id" you have associated with say, an H1 tag and, via javascript, rewrites that text as a flash object. In the end, your text comes out crisper and as though they were vector images. When the text is rendered, it is not done as a flash object though (you can confirm this by clicking on it. You won't see the "flash player' context menu). It is still text and it is still accessible. It's just rendered differently.

Granted I have given you 2 links above, one thing you should never do with it: apply it to all the text on your pages. Why? There is significant overhead associated with it. When I use it, it is just for my page titles.

Enjoy!

blogger1,

duuuude, this is the 5th posting promoting your services (under different topics). is it that hot in houston?

wurdz,

if i were you, i wdnt worry about where to get materials. Just put yourself in the shoes of a pharm sales person. What would you like to see in a program you would be willing to buy? Think objects. Think processes. Think fellow sales pple. Think clients. I am sure you will come up with something.

If everyone did what you are thinking of doing, then everyone would be giving the same presentation. Don't you think your professors are googling for the very same thing and it is a possibility tht you could be flagged for plagiarism? Try to be unique.

I hope this helps.

now that it seems we are about to have the payment thing down pat, the next horizon is to figure out how I can get the item I bought online from a company in lagos to my villa in uyo

thanks smart for the offer. When in need, I will certainly YIM you.

Thanks once again.

It's all about competition bro. Unless Nigeria still follows the "we don't conform to any natural laws" mantra, it is only a matter of time before prices come down even more. Do you all remember how it was when there was just econet? Again, it is only a matter of time.

So, in an effort to impart my knowledge to posterity , I have decided to practice what I preach, so to speak, by sharing with you all what I use for unit testing at work. Basically, you develop the tests as you write your code and once you are done writing your code, you run the test(s) again. If anything changed, links aren't going to where they are supposed to go, etc, the test fails.

Say hello to Selenium. The site: http://www.openqa.org/ , the IDE: http://openqa.org/selenium-ide/

Note:
[list]
[li]This is an FF plugin. It doesn't work in IE although what you are testing, since it is front-end, will be verified for all browsers.[/li]
[li]This is for front-end testing (where elements are on a page, link verification, etc). It doesn't verify business logic. For that, you would need (if you code in java) JUnit[/li]
[/list]

You basically run the test the first time by starting from, say, your home page, and clicking to the end page. You then modify the test case file (which you have a choice of saving as java, html, perl, php, ruby, python or c#) to, say, verify or assert links, images, text, etc. Note that when you run your tests, the "verify" function will verify your test and continue on testing where the "assert" function will stop the test if a condition isn't meant. Right-clicking from within your FF browser will pull up a list of functions you can use (of course for this to show, you should have installed the Selenium IDE).

If you have any questions, let me know. It has definitely made my life a lot easier. Happy coding and testing!

1ofall,

very true. I use iStockPhoto a lot and some others. I guess my point is, it is okay if 1 or 2 use a resource. When you have, say, majority of the developers on nairaland using the same thing, then such a site to me becomes stale.

so that leads to my next question:

If, at least based on the responses so far, most of us use gettyimages and as tope has duly observed, smartsoft is using an obviously gettyimages photo, should I even use gettyimages? i would want my images to be as unique as possible. I certainly don't want people (especially my peers) looking at my work and saying, "oh yeah, that's from gettyimages"

If there are any sites out there, please let me know. I need photos not only of places and things but of people as well. I don't want to b one of those who uses photos of oyibo people to advertise naija products

Thanks,

It is the dawn of even greater things to come. As many of you might remember, many posts ago, I posed this question, "why do many pple think online payment is difficult when as far back as 2002, one could buy phone credits via their phone (which got automatically debited from their bank account)? Y not borrow from the same technology?"

I am happy to read about this. The next step is for the Nigerian user to have full faith in this product and before you know it, it will spread like wild fire. I for one, will take advantage of it, if I qualify

http://www.acewebdevelopment.net
"Redefining Web Development"

smartsoft,

it depends. why not post an example of what you mean (i am a very visual-oriented person ).

Afam,

If you recall, there was a time I would link the AKSG website as a perfect example of lack of testing (in particular, I would always say the site looked horrible when viewed in FF and you would always say words to the effect of, "not again".

That's what I meant. I just can't help referencing those 2 sites as examples of what not to do flash-wise

webemarald,

First and foremost, thanks for the compliments.

As you have said, "a little flash aint bad". I would like to emphasize, "a little". In fact, having flash on a site isn't bad at all. The problem is in the abuse of flash (or as prodgalson has aptly called it, "flashterbation". If you go through my portfolio page, I do have a site where I used it, "a little" per client request. If a client wants it, I will use it, but only, "a little", so as to draw attention to something. I wouldn't have it all over the place and/or repeat the animation so many times (ala, and sorry Afam ) http://www.akwaibomstategov.com or http://www.unionbankng.com/ that in the end, people like me would end up nauseated.

Lastly, call me greedy, but it takes time to develop a quality site. In addition to the html/css/javascript, etc, it takes time to design a robust database and it takes time to develop a flash movie. I can't afford to give a client bells and whistles for peanuts. I have mouths to feed. Moreover, chances are that if the table were turned and it was I who wanted a website, they wouldn't cut me any slack.

Back to the issue at hand - for the most part, before I launch any site, I let a few people that I have met via the forum test it out. Once it passes their muster, I then announce it on this forum for others to test it out. When I announce, "site review", I am not necessarily asking for one's critique aesthetics-wise. I am asking for you all to do random clicking, verify functionality, etc. This is what is call, "User Acceptance Testing" or "Quality Assurance". I then take the suggestions from you all, I fix the changes and then "release" the site to the client. For the few who still have something to say after release, I tell them that the site not only reflects my opinion, but that of my peers (which means you. Believe me, 'cause of the respect I have for you all on this forum, I promote you guys to the fullest ) so there is little else I could do from a developer standpoint.

As always, my 2 cents

If we need a society, fine. In my opinion though, if pple think nigerian developers are amateurs, then it should be up to the individual, not a society, to prove such people wrong. In the end, a client will go for whoever they are comfortable with or who they have been referred to, based on past work.

If having a society were the solution, then, we should have heard of electronics sellers society, road construction workers society, periwinkle sellers society and waterleaf sellers society. Granted some of these societies already exist, I doubt they have done any good for society, other than of course, promoting hiking and hoarding.

tundewoods,

At least your own better - I can't recount the number of times I have watched a nollywood movie where the distributors list a website that is not even online. I won't even mention websites of those of us here on this forum that list sites on their portfolio page, 90% of which are now offline

As far as your numbered list goes, I would disagree with a couple - a website should be 100% complete, from a visual and content standpoint. As far as errors, I say 99% (because to me 5% is still significant. 1% would be something a user would inadvertently find. It's okay if we agree to disagree on this one though ).

The last time I mentioned Quality Assurance/usability testing on this forum, I could sense that it is new territory for some of us back home. Some people even went as far as saying, for example, "if you look at google, all it is is a blank page and yet they are making billions". Each site has its purpose. In the end, every site shouldn't and couldn't be a google. There are people in the states who are making millions on usability and Quality Assurance alone, not even typing in a single line of code. As a matter of fact, for those who are interested, there is a conference in Boston, USA from Nov 5 - 8 this year where it will be all about usability. I can't wait for when clients will start saying, "boy, do I have a crappy website! I need a redesign. I mean my clients can't even find anything on there". In my opinion, we as Nigerians, your truly included, have been indoctrinated in the ways of, "how I go do now?". If something happens that we don't like, rather than rectify it, we accept it and move on. So, we are used to seeing pages with useless animations, broken links, non-existent pages, etc

When I see sites like this, I say to myself, "no wonder clients are not used to paying a lot". My sites may be "simple", but one thing I get, especially from clients at home, is, "the site looks so simple, yet so professional".

I hope this helps.

tundewoods,

So i just tried to pay my tithes (yeah, I know, I am not a member, but bear with me ) and I got this error when I clicked submit:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01c2'

Wrong number of arguments or invalid property assignment: 'year'

/final/tranx_payment_2.asp, line 15

You might want to let the church/developer of the site know, if you happen to know any of the parties involved.

nduaj,

On this page: http://www.yemisanniandco.com/career.php - it would be nice if the "*"s were in red (draws attention to it) and if they lined up with their respective labels in *all* cases (so for example, check the one that is supposed to be next to "Class Of Degree".

I hope this helps.

here is one approach (you can do this using javascript or whatever back-end language you use):

1) create at least 3 graphic files and name them, say, 1.jpg, 2.jpg, 3.jpg and so on

2) generate a random number b/w 1 and the number of images you have

3) replace the, say, "1" in "1.jpg" with, using php say, "<?php echo $randomNumber; ?>.jpg

4) Refresh your page.

If you implemented the code correctly, you should see the graphics switching out.

I hope this helps.

ruudie,

depending on what you use to access your files (as in cPanel), you can set up your emails to be rcvd as "HTML".

Either way, it is something you set up on your server.

I hope this helps.

so,

oga webemarald, is it baseless based on your personal opinion or based on some information (statistics, research,etc) that only you are privy to. I am just wondering.

By the way, I am not in support of such a society either. I however would have probably phrased my response a little differently. They way you put it is so harsh. Just my humble opinion anyways

nduaj,

Isn't this the same site I talked of earlier where I said the right nav links weren't working and I didn't like the close up of that guy in one of the headers? If so, you for use the other post now

Thanks for removing that scary header and then work on the nav links, thatz all from me.

LOL Afam,

Unfortunately, at least based on what I have been able to glean from this forum, we hv been indoctrinated (by who or what, I dont know) to blv that if a site doesn't have some kind of movement (ala flash or marquee) then such a site is "simple". Am I saying a site shdnt "move"? Nope. I am just saying, it isn't mandatory.

To me, the site is perfect as is - it delivers on functionality. The only problem I may (emphasis on "may" have with the site is the background color. The site does look gloomy. Then again, his first album was titled, "Get rich or die trying"

So who said on some post some time ago that a musician's/actor's website must have flash and have music playing in the background? I blv I said it wasn't compulsory. Anyways, via proof of contradiction, I present to you:

http://www.50cent.com/-/Main.aspx - the dude is worth $400million. I am sure he could afford such a site.

Later,