₦airaland Forum

also, the typical naija pick up lines ("You are the sugar in my tea, the only mosquito that bites me, the only cockcroach in my toilet", etc) won't work with oyibo either.

LMAO

nurexg,

your post sounds very cryptic, but if I understand what you are saying, you are looking at a 3D-array if you ask me.

As for multiplying n times, again this sounds very cryptic, so I will pass on that one.

Assuming my first line above is correct, then you can do something like this:

for(i=0; i<arraySize; i++) {
do stuff
for(j=0; j<arraySize; j++) {
do stuff
for(k=0; k<arraySize; k++) {
do stuff
}
}
}

Of course, this is generic. It all depends on what you are trying to do. Perhaps a quick google for "java 3d arrays" is in order?

I hope this helps.

you can talk to girls anywhere, even in the toilet. It's all about attitude. From personal experience, once a girl senses confidence (emphasis on "confidence", not "over-confidence", she is all yours.

On the other hand, gaylord, your use of the phrase "lay my hands on them" sounds so predatory. As a matter of fact, I bet it exudes in the way you approach the women. If oyibo says "no", better back off or you could be looking at a rape charge. There are too many of them for you to sweat it on one or two. No be like, from my experience, naija wey d girl go dey say "no", yet is struggling to take off her pants If you can't find them in London, search elsewhere. Oyibo full England abi?

Finally, here is a good pickup line for you - you walk up to the girl (again, anywhere) and say, "Hi my name is Focker, gaylord focker (if you have watched the movie, Meet my parents/fockers, then you will get the joke)". That should get her inquisitive mind cracking

Good luck (assuming you are still to "lay hands" on a white girl by now)!

IB,

Your story reminds me of a guy who used to cut my hair in Calabar. He was so nice that every time I would visit Nigeria, I would go there for a hair cut, even though there were other places with a better environment and charged less. We exchanged numbers and emails but at some point, both means of communication on his end were no longer working.

During my last visit (2004), I went there only to hear that he had moved to PH. I was and still am very sad over his move. In fact, even though I have never been to PH, if I knew where he was, I would visit there just for another hair cut. For me to do that should tell you what good customer service is all about!

Finally, I find it interesting that the same pple who treat you badly, customer-service-wise in naija, will immediately brighten up and call you "Sir" the minute you add another N100 as tip after the service. I have done this, on purpose, several times and it works like a charm, so much so that if I go back to the place, they clear the area and treat me specially. So I ask myself and you guys too - Is it that there is no customer service in Nigeria or there is but it comes at a price? Think about that

Yeah Ndipe,

At that time (80s), Auntie Margaret (AM), Unical Staff Qtrs, et al were the elementary school du jour in terms of facilities, etc. I don't know about now.

During my last visit though (2004), I did notice that the infrastructure at AM was kind of dilapidated. I was told it began to fall apart after Auntie Margaret herself passed away

Having said that, it is still possible that the quality of education is still high there. I have often dreamt of bringing back all the alumni for a fund raising, just to "put the pieces back together again", so to speak. We go see.

Back to this Roem school, I am also interested in knowing how much the school fees are. Based on photos, it does look comparable to schools, of similar status, in the states. If it's a boarding school, even better. Who knows, my children may end up going there if there is no such place in Akwa Ibom, when they are of age

The concept, again, is huge and for the features, I just hope nylawal charged a boat load

thatz what you get, for the most part, when you have unions

On a more serious note, if it is part of their union slang that they dress a certain way and she knowingly violated that, then she should be banned in accordance with the rules, but if it is some arbitrary thing, then they are wrong for that.

On the other hand, she is probably making too much and as in the case of the G8 banning a few years ago, she is just being targetted.

One thing upfront:

Granted the majority of the world surfs the web using IE, have you actually tested your site on FF or even Safari? I use, as a web developer, FF and I can tell you right now, the site doesn't look good at all on FF - in particular, your menu items.

Others may beg to differ but for me, go back and test your code then get back to me.

**Always** unit/integration test your code before launching it. I hope this helps.

Either way, I hope you got paid a lot to do this, 'cause the concept is huge. I have been asked by an elementary school owner in Lagos to code their site and I have been looking for ideas

Thanks,

So what's the deal with tinapa? Have any of you on here gone shopping there yet? How are the prices? How much is it to rent a shopping space there? If you don't have a means of transportation, how (and how much does it cost) to get there?

Answers to these and more would be appreciated

Thanks,

It's all about attitude folks. If pple don't want to accept us, we make them accept us. Do you all think India/China just sat there and the US just started going to them? Nope. They made the US notice them.

Also, why not look at nollywood? They are already on the global map. Perhaps we could borrow from their experience (which would actually be cool cos we would know to avoid areas where they met resistance)? Just a thought.

I see this happening on 2 fronts: Government, via its embassies, promoting Nigeria's potential to the world and individuals, taking the risk to actually go to, say, career fairs, etc to advertise themselves.

Interestingly, I had a conversation with an american co-worker yesterday and one thing he said struck me. He said, "my perception of you is your reality of me". So if oyibo percieves us to be not up to task, then the reality is, until we disprove them at least, that we are not up to task. Very sad, but true.

If India and China can do it, so can we!

Na wa for dis babe sef

Actors Guild slams one year ban on top actress, Ini Edo
By AZUH AMATUS
Friday, April 27, 2007 Iniobong Edo
Photo: Sun News Publishing

Mores Stories on This Section
The national body of Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), has banned top and controversial Nollywood actress, Iniobong Edo for one year, for what it termed gross misconduct, indiscipline and outright violation of professional duties.

The ban order, which was ratified by Mr Ejike Asiegbu, the national president of AGN alongside his executive members takes effect from April 17, 2007.

A press statement signed by Mr Acho Ugoenyi, the national secretary of AGN said Ini Edo is no longer eligible to participate in movie productions with effect from April 17.
"This measure will serve as a deterrent to others. The petition of Mr Emeka Duru (a production manager) at the instance of his producer and director respectively in conjunction with the disciplinary committees report agreed on the ban…. I have been directed to communicate to you, the one calendar year ban order slammed on you, with effect from April 17, 2007, for gross misconduct, indiscipline and outright violation of professional ethics," said the statement.

The release further reminded Edo that the Actors Guild of Nigeria, is committed to the sustenance of discipline, and the enforcement of professional ethics among its members.
Meanwhile, to ensure the ban has taken effect, the AGN, also officially informed Movie Producers and Marketers Association, the Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Directors Guild of Nigeria (DGN), Nigerian Society of Cinematographers, (NSC), Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) and the Lagos State chapter of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN).

Efforts by Daily Sun to speak with Edo who had been earlier banned for six months, for indecent dressing by the Enugu State chapter of AGN, proved abortive. Several calls made to her mobile phone lines did not go through.
Iniobong Edo, from Akwa-Ibom State, came to limelight with a scintillating role in a movie entitled, Worlds Apart some years ago and ever since her career had been on the rise with several blockbuster movies to her credit.

http://www.defjam.com/site/promo/contest/rihanna_covergirl/

Enjoy!!

(regardless of whether I am in the states or naija): Fried Yam (or potato), eggs and stew. Top that off with a glass of orange juice and in my opinion, no need to wait for the second coming - u r in heaven already

boraddo,

I don't know if it's a matter of having the right answer to everything or of me being blessed to experience a lot in my lifetime that I can safely/confidently speak from experience

Certifications are good, but at the end of the day, if you can't sell yourself, they are worthless. As I have said before, I know a DBA with 20 years' experience who failed MCDBA twice. Yet, I bet you that he makes more than the guy who just obtained his certification yesterday.

Certification should be used to gain recognition and not for money per se. That is why when I read posts like "12 year old get JAVA certified (not that there's anything wrong with it)", it to me trivializes the whole concept of certification.

alanbolo, your certifications plenty o! Kudos!! I know how corporate american politics is. It can be so frustrating, especially for those of us from "the outside". You are always trying to prove yourself even though you are probably the smartest of the bunch there. If you have the resources to go solo, go for it! Don't wait for all the planets to line up because, from my experience, they never will. Just close eye do am, again, as long as you have the funds not only to sustain yourself for at least 6 months, but to sustain your business as well. Good luck!

As with all things monetary, you can't just do a straight conversion of dollars to naira. For one, cost of living b/w the 2 countries is different. Moreover, $70K in New York is not the same as $70K in Atlanta. That money goes farther in Atlanta than in New York by the way (again, cost of living).

I say let the market determine how much you are worth. If you don't like it, don't take the job. This will push the salary even higher. However, as long as we have those willing to work for pittance pay, your salary will remain low.

I hope this helps.

Yeah,

AJAX is becoming such a buzz word that pple r now feeling compelled to use it at every turn, as if it is the second coming of Christ.

Take my job for instance: Now that the project managers think "AJAX" is a pretty cool name, they ask for it at every turn. "We want to implement a photo gallery for our cars, do it in AJAX". Of course, they are not aware that if the number of photos is fixed and less than 5, then it doesn't make sense to use AJAX, at least to me. Now if the number were not known upfront, in which case the server cd be pinged for say, the next 3 photos while the present 3 are loading, it makes sense to use AJAX. It is getting so silly that even the developers are thinking of "AJAXifying" the entire site without thinking about the pros and cons. It sort of reminds me of the abuse of Flash on various naija websites. I would say that for every 10 naija sites I have visited, 11 use Flash. Nothing wrong with using flash, but there is definitely something wrong with abusing it.

Is AJAX cool? sure. Can some pretty cool things be done with it? sure. However, most pple tend to forget that the essence of AJAX is to return data, stripped of all formatting and not for returning an entire page.

So, in a nutshell, use AJAX but don't just use it for AJAX's sake or to look "cool". Know when to and when not to use it and be able to stand your ground when it comes to educating those who may want to bully you into using it, even when it isn't ideal. You may look "cool" with the babes/clients, but definitely not with your peers.

I hope this helps.

As a quick update:

I finished SEOing the site last friday. As of April 24, 2007, the site came up in the top 3 search results returned for certain keywords.

Of course, since I told the client 4 - 6 months, I will keep my mouth shut for at least a month before giving him the news. That way, it looks like a miracle

It's nice to know that I am at least doing something right

This thread reminds me of the now defunct ECOMOG coins.

Mallams sure did take care of those

Not to beat on a dead horse, but again, I was paid to code for google and google doesn't place emphasis on keywords. Keyword density, sure, but not keywords, as in meta tags.

backlinks r good but rnt all in all. Take one of my personal sites, www.geocities.com/myibibio. If at all, perhaps no more than 5 links worldwide (2 of which are from 2 sites of my own ). But type in "Ibibio dictionary" (which by the way isn't part of my keywords if u view source), that site comes in #1. So it sure isn't all about backlinks. There's more:

1) semantic markup

2) keyword density

3) site map

among others.

Is your banner flash? Regardless, have you tried z-indexing on the popup div?

It isn't a dreamweaver-specific problem, that's for sure.

I hope this helps.

Actually loungr,

When I said "top 5", I meant SEO-wise, not PPC-wise. For PPC, there is a lot of competition for keywords. As a matter of fact, there are some words my client is paying $10 per click for.

SEO-wise however, it all depends on link quality, keyword-density of your pages and semantic markup for your pages, among others. Besides, google doesn't even use keywords as a criteria for SEO as many pple simply view source, copy and paste from their competition.

I hope this helps.

iv read research somewhere (I forget where so don't ask ) that said its best for family members **not** to teach how to drive. Tis always best to get a friend, classmate, etc to do it.

I can speak from experience that I ignored this and tried teaching my wife how to drive. Needless to say, if we were an American couple, chances are that we would have been part of the "over 50% of marriages end in divorce" statistic

One of the keys to a long life is enjoying your job. If you love your job and you aren't just saying it, and, comparable to what your peers are making in the Computer Science field, you are making more, stay where you are. Education is good, but don't fall for the title ("I am a computer scientist", "MBA, ICANN, PSC, FSN, PFON" crap. The list goes on and on of people who aren't doing anything whatsoever related to their disciplines, who are making piles of money.

In the end, what truly matters in life is that you are able to provide, **honestly**, for yourself and your family. In the end, for all you know, your fellow "computer scientists" may be struggling to pay rent but are hiding behind the veil of their "I am a computer scientist" ego to give you a false impression.

Bottomline: Stick with what you love - simple, short and sharp

if for no other reason, they should strongly consider attending the same church for their (potential) kids' sake(s). There is nothing as bad as a confused child.

Sorry loungr,

I meant top 5 results returned from a google search, SEO-wise. This will be the result of semantic markup, rich keywords (as determined by words used in his industry), etc.

I hope this answers your question.

dblock

What Aussie dust. I speak and act the way I am, I am not influenced by location, seems to me that evryone that replies to me, says soemthing like that, I find it quite funny actually

Glad you caught the humor. Cos it was indeed meant to be humorous

And what exactly is the common man. I come from Ekiti/Sapele/Ogun/Akure, and none of my relatives fall under the low standard of living category, and those are very small towns.

You speak for yourself and perhaps 100 - 1000 others? Is that representational of the 120million+ pples living in Nigeria? I doubt it.

I am not sucked in by nothing, I wans't born in Ilu Oyibo. I know the value of the naira. I used to buy bubble gum for 1 naira, with 128 naira that's 128 bubble gums, in Australia you can buy about 3(Aus$ Is 0.78 US$).

Goood, so stop with the GDP crap already

I have been commissioned (I don't know why I use this word. I guess it sounds like a royal assignment ) to do the SEO/PPC work on www.epickmeup.com, a transportation service company. Client doesn't want to pay for a redesign, so I am basically wrapping wounds with better bandages, so to speak.

A brief history:
- Site had high page download time

- Headers weren't marked with in H tags but B tags

- There were no P tags. The developer used double BRs

- Title and keywords were the same for each page

- Nav bars were inconsistent across the site

- No site map

- No external CSS/JS file. Everything done either inline or on the page.

PPC solution:
In March, I registered the site with Adwords. Site traffic jumped from 87 in February to 215 in March to 712 so far in April

SEO Solution:
Still in progress. I intend to address the above in addition to:

- Coding for XHTML transitional because of all the tables

- remove html and inline styles from the tables and put them in external stylesheets.

- Validate his "reservations" page. I already did this on the back-end.

Hopefully, with PPC already in place, it is only a matter of time before he sees SEO results. The plan is get him to the top 5 ASAP. This project is due May 1st.

Obviously, there won't be much cosmetic changes. All changes will only be available via "view source".

If there is anything else you guys think I should take into consideration, do post it here. Again, remember, I am not being paid to redesign and so I will keep such changes to the barest minimum. The site only has 4 pages, so I didn't charge him much

Just thought I should share

I guess this article shatters the myth that Web 2.0 sites are the all and all. Enjoy!!

===============

Participation on Web 2.0 sites remains weak -study

By Eric Auchard

412 words

17 April 2007

22:01

Reuters News

English

(c) 2007 Reuters Limited

SAN FRANCISCO, April 17 (Reuters) - Web 2.0, a catchphrase for the latest generation of Web sites where users contribute their own text, pictures and video content, is far less participatory than commonly assumed, a study showed on Tuesday.

A tiny 0.16 percent of visits to Google's top video-sharing site, YouTube, are by users seeking to upload video for others to watch, according to a study of online surfing data by Bill Tancer, an analyst with Web audience measurement firm Hitwise.

Similarly, only two-tenths of one percent of visits to Flickr, a popular photo-editing site owned by Yahoo Inc. , are to upload new photos, the Hitwise study found.

The vast majority of visitors are the Internet equivalent of the television generation's couch potatoes -- voyeurs who like to watch rather than create, Tancer's statistics show.

Wikipedia, the anyone-can-edit online encyclopaedia, is the one exception cited in the Hitwise study: 4.6 percent of all visits to Wikipedia pages are to edit entries on the site.

But despite relatively low-user involvement, visits to Web 2.0-style sites have spiked 668 percent in two years, Tancer said.

"Web 2.0 and participatory sites (are) really gaining traction," he told an audience of roughly 3,000 Internet entrepreneurs, developers and financiers attending the Web 2.0 Expo industry conference in San Francisco this week.

Web 2.0, a phrase popularized by conference organizer Tim O'Reilly, refers to the current generation of Web sites that seek to turn viewers into contributors by giving them tools to write, post, comment and upload their own creative work.

Besides Wikipedia, other well-known Web 2.0 destinations are social network sites like News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook and photo-sharing site Photobucket.

Visits by Web users to the category of participatory Web 2.0 sites account for 12 percent of U.S. Web activity, up from only 2 percent two years ago, the study showed.

Web 2.0 photo-sharing sites now account for 56 percent of visits to all online photo sites. Of that, Photobucket alone accounts for 41 percent of the traffic, Hitwise data shows.

An older, first generation of sites, now in the minority, are photo-finishing sites that give users the ability to store, share and print photos.

dblock,

obviously, you must have caught a wiff of the aussie dust to be attacking me like that

Before you reply, barking like a brisbane chihuahua, read my post, word by word, again please. Based on what I wrote, I doubt you qualify as "the common man (or in your case, based on the photo on your profile page, woman )". Who said anything about "living off of $1 a day?". Are you trying to impress me with your knowledge of economics? Though that quote is a topic for another day, I will say that even if we lived off of $1 a day, we sure can buy a lot more, on an item-by-item basis, for N128 than I can buy for $1 (which seems so small when you are trying to put down an entire continent) living in the states. Just a quick example: I used to cut my hair in the states for $12. For that amount in Naira, even with no light, I can pay the barber N100 per hair cut and still hv enough for another 14. Don't get sucked in by oyibo rhetoric. Don't get me going off on this tangent please, cos I will soak you, blue you, wash you, starch you and dry you

Nigerians can sure enjoy golf, but how many realistically can? Do you know why soccer is popular there, compared to golf? It all has to do with equipment. Why build something that a few can enjoy when you could spend the money on something a majority of the masses can enjoy? Again I ask: Per square feet, how many will be able to utilize the hotel per unit time, compared to Tinapa? Another question (directed at another post)? Why boast of being able to transport people by boat to Tinapa when we could have, with all our resources, transported people by boat to a tourist attraction in Akwa Ibom State?

Though I don't have the stats to prove this, but I can guarantee you that if you were to ask a cross-section of the state (by that I mean "the common man" in say, Ikot Obio Itong, and not in the cities) what golf is and if they would like to play it and then ask the same question about soccer (of course, you would say the word "football" ), they would ALL go for soccer.

dblock, hopefully with you, it's not all in a name. I know you are at least 12 hours ahead of New York Time (about 9am currently). Make sure you are totally awake before you post your next response. When it boils down to it, I can bet my next 10 pay checks that I am more patriotic with respect to Akwa Ibom than you are. Feel free to YIM me for proof as I don't want to bore people and distract from the main point of this thread

As far as the airport is concerned, again different topic, but I don't have to go physically see the airport under construction when I can visit the website (which I seriously doubt you knew existed): http://www.akianigeria.com/akwaibom/home/ai_state - we live in the internet age, I don't need to actually be there, just like in the case of Tinapa, to see it.

Again, **read** my post again and answer intellectually and not emotionally. I am impressed with your knowledge of economics sha. As long as you can back up what you have said (especially the 60% part. I am curious as to where you got those figures. Hopefully it's not based on what you read from some oyibo article as I am sure you know, they don't have our best interests at heart), keep it up!

Thanks,

I could be wrong for saying this but I would rather Attah had spent his political capital implementing something that "the common man" could have at least been able to enter. How much is it per night at the hotel? How many of our pple have even heard of the word "golf" (I say this seriously. Remember, there are those who can't even put meat in their soup, then you expect them to care about playing golf)? Some things to think about. Between golf and soccer, which is more popular.

At least, even if the "common man" can't affor tinapa prices, they can at least window shop. Either way, someone is paid (be it the taxi that takes you there, or the merchant in the shop, or the petrol station where you bought your fuel to drive you to the place, etc) and the visitor to tinapa at least gets to walk around, take pictures, window shop, etc.

Ndipe, true talk. No matter how idealistic one may want life to be, realistically, we have a loooong way to go. At least sha, if such pple would drop a few naira notes at the place, it's all good. All we want is their money abi? LOL

In my opinion, it is an infrastructure that will single-handedly revoke all stupid, negative, stereotypical thoughts that Nigerians have had about the south-eastern part of the country

Idundu is a village in what could be termed Calabar Metropolis (outskirts of Calabar).

Why that name of all other names (like Ikot Omin, Urua 8 miles, etc - again, if you know these areas, raise your hand pls ) came to mind, I really can't say

what looks like a glorified mall to those of us in places where there are malls is the closest to "heaven" that some pple will ever get. I have had pple write me to say they wept (including an inlaw who was visiting from the states) cos they couldn't believe that they would ever see such a thing of beauty, in their neck of the woods, in their lifetime.

Remember, what you see everyday and take for granted is what some pple at, say, Idundu (those who know where that is, raise your hand ), would probably never see in 10 lifetimes if Duke hadn't taken the initiative.

and of course, I reply in "devil's advocate"-tense