₦airaland Forum

yep Markesh, that site belongs to yours truly Do spread the word and send in your suggestions/comments. My sole purpose in life is to perpetuate the Ibibio language/culture in the diaspora.

Yep, I did attend fgc ik. I graduated in 1990. R u aware of the alumni site (US version) Ude Eko put up? If not, here it is:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3234/welcome.html

Again, spread the word and Pro Unitate!!

markesh abadie

Anyways, so is Jenifer (the girl on top of one of you) a fellow cousin or sister? If either, very disturbing

As I will always maintain, there are 2 types of education when it comes to everything in life: book education and street education.

Book education is what you get from school. You learn theories or facts based on another's research. You typically learn how to learn. By that I mean, you most likely will not use a single thing you learnt in the University in the real world. However, due to your diverse education, you can basically, except for specialized professions like law and medicine for example, pick up and go with anything you set your mind to. Personally, I am yet to use a single line of math I learnt from my probability and permutation classes at my job

Street education is what you learn duking it out on your own. So for example, I graduated with specialization in software engineering. However, since I like the fact that with the web, I can tell nwankwo in Isiala ngwa to go to his nearest cafe, enter a web address and see what I have done real time, I went into web dev. I bought the books, did ogboju, made mistakes and learnt on my own. Eventually, my work got recognized and many classes/seminars/workshops later, I am 7 years strong in the game. As cactus said up top, it can get boring after a while, especially if you are someone like me who maintains library of my code. That is why I have moved on to architecture/web usability. Coding can get monotonous real quick.

Book education, IMHO, is what gets you a job. Street education gets you a career. At my current job, there is a guy who graduated in history who cranks out JSP code as if his popsie impregnated his momsie with java-injected sperm (sorry, but I cdnt resist going there )). All he did was pick it up as a recreation. Fortunately, it was at a time when as long as you heard of anything in the field, you were hired on the spot. There were many .coms back then.

My advice? Only the strong survive in this rat race world. You become strong by learning from the streets. As I tell many people, book education is good, but at the end of the day, of what use is it if you are a medical doctor, saddled with student loans and living in apartment, while your neighborhood taxi driver is living in a $200,000 house? I say what I say based on personal experience, which has seen me losing my job (for 2 years) 2 wks before moving into my first house and 6 months to my wedding in naija, with no means of paying the first mortgage. Without street education, yours truly would have been posting this entry from the halls of a salvation army house. he he.

Chew on the above folks. Hopefully, you would have learnt something by the time you get to this line

babadee,

no one asked for "story" but I felt it needed to be told as it pisses me off big time. I have way too much on my mind to add contemplating whether or not to pick up a possibly unnecessary phone call to the list

If no one had brought this up, I would have launched my own thread. I hv always wanted to put it up, but as I said, I have been pre-occupied with other things

wetin consign bird with toothbrush?

spikedcylinder na so o

I remember the sec sch days when we would share the tiny bunk beds. You wake up in the middle of the night and u hv spit from the other guy all over you. Worse still if the guy was a pisser LOL

spike, dont get me started with my reminiscing

To the uninformed flashers in the house:

In the US, most of us have phone services where, unlike you guys over there in naija, we pay for both calls we make and recieve. What does this mean? If you flash me, especially with an unavailable number, and I pick up, even though it lasted 5 seconds, I get charged for a full minute. To make matters worse, most of us have minute plans, so for example, I am on a 400 minute plan. Sure, this applies to only weekdays and b/w 7am and 9pm, but still, it takes only so many flashes to finish my time limit. To add insult to injury, going over ur minutes could cost you as much as 35cents per extra minute. Are you doing the math here?

The disadvantage of flashing is that, for me at least, I don't pick up calls emanating from nigeria/numbers I don't recognize anymore. Result? Calls that could possibly be life-critical are ignored. Is it just me who thinks this way?

Okay, I am off my soapbox now

Whatever happened to a time in Naija when grown men could walk around and hold hands in public/sleep on the same bed and waking up with their bodies intertwined, in an innocent and "non-gay" manner?

Chei!!

I used to be one of the haters of pink, that is, until I got married. Now I have 2 pink shirts. Pple actually walk up to me and (especially the guys) say, "Man, it takes a strong man to not only wear pink, but pull it off!"

Dudes, pink is just a color. Stop getting ur thongs in a bunch over it LOL

kheme no shakings

I am actually a developer who is trying to get things together in advance for a possible relocation/setting up of a biz in Nigeria.

If you would love to talk more about it, you can either YIM me (udotot25) or email me (itoro@bellsouth.net).

sorry guys, too long to copy and paste, so visit for more: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-07-11T154250Z_01_N11382172_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-MYSPACE.xml

Weeeeell,

In my opinion and from personal experience, I am going to have to agree with some of you and disagree with some of you as well. Sorry

Reading on your own is definitely cheaper, but requires discipline. Also, there is something about mingling with fellow humans. It's called socializing. You get to rub shoulders with diverse pples, learn from them, network with them. If a school environment weren't necessary, y r so many people taking jamb 10 times just to go to the university?

Having said that, just because Temitope puts up a sign outside his shop along Ibadan expressway doesnt make him a good teacher. As they say in the states, those who can, do and those who can't, teach Obtaining a certification doesnt guarantee you a job or success in your career.

As I said, those who can't (as in those who arent willing to swim with the sharks in a capitalistic society) tend to teach, *generally speaking*. Some who teach do it because they can't interact with people in the real world. There are people born to help others, those born to do research, those born to live the comfortable life, and those born to take risk and hopefully reap the rewards tenfold.

To the person who said he should get a laptop and buy some books, what if he doesnt have the resources to obtain such? Even for a free ebook, it still requires time at a cybercafe at the very least. You can only learn so much for N100 or so an hour.

To the one who asked y those who are teaching arent making money off the many pple wanting websites, could it b because they are making money off of those who come to them for teaching? I personally would want to teach in some capacity. After my many years of experience, and not to discourage any of you, quite frankly, web dev is getting boring. All it takes is for you to come up with enough code in your library that soon your work becomes nothing but cut and paste. That's been my experience anyway. Trust me, I have grown gray hair in the biz

To summarize, I would go for a blend of both - attend a class, then solidify what you have learnt via self-training. Follow that up with giving yourself coding assignments, go work for someone to gain the experience/connections and/or work for yourself. Thanks to sites like scriptlance and ecoder, there should be plenty of work out there for you to get your feet wet.

As always, my 2 cents

Would it have actually been a french win? I only counted 3 actual french players on the team. The rest were of African descent.

Oh well, what do I know?

First step should be to improve what we already have, b4 we expand. Having said that, taking MMIA for instnace, it is definitely small. From my circle of friends, there are tons of pple who would want to come home regularly. However, most flights arrive at night and flights in general are not as many as they would like.

A country like Nigeria should be able to boast of a bigger airport that takes a lot of traffic. No single flight that I know of, especially during xmas time, from atlanta to naija (via europe) is ever even .001% empty. We also for whatever reason seem not to mind paying the exhorbitant rates associated with the high season. In my opinion, we should be able to at least match by 1/4th Atlanta's airport that handles 2 take-offs and landings per minute.

As always, my 2 cents.

Is it just me or have the rss feeds from NL of late been recycling stuff from as long as 2 or so months ago? Could it be that a static file is being used as opposed to a dynamic one? If so, y?

If the aim is to prevent pple from choosing whether or not to visit NL thus resulting in lower ad impressions thus resulting in lower revenue to NL, then its a bad idea. Personally, and I am sure others will agree, rather than make me want to visit nairaland for the latest, it is making me want to quit Nairaland altogether, and trust me, I don't want to quit Nairaland o!

So can anyone address the above? Thanks,

What Is A Web Developer's Worth In Nigeria?

What is the current salary for an entry level position in web development?

Please, your answer(s) should be in the format:

Front end (User Interface - html/css/javascript/ajax/flash/graphics): =N= per annum

Back end (JSP/PHP, etc): =N= per annum

As an example, this company in calabar: http://www.kapstoneng.com , is offering to pay flash developers =N=4.5million per annum. So the format would look something like this: Flash: =N=4.5million per annum

Also, please do not include anything software. So no java, c, c++, etc (u c where I am headed with this). Finally, the self-employed amongst us need not reply

Thanks in advance.

haywhy,

Site is pretty heavy - 48 secs on a 56K modem. Remember, u rnt necessarily creating a site for those with fast connections at a cybercafe using satellite speeds. there are pple (i was once one of them until 3 months ago ) who still use modems. In fact, it appears to me you have more graphics than content.

The white lines in the green area are broken b/w the home page and the other pages. No search functionality. Why flash for navigation? Finally, my pet peeve: y no actual photos of nigerians on the site?

Thatz all for me.

diddy4,

I could be wrong but I think:

1) zizou got suspended about 6 yrs ago for 6 games or so for head-butting someone

2) materazzi totally faked the impact of the head-butt for effect.

Again, just thinking out loud, but i could be wrong

Well, WC 2006 is over but I am sure that what will be on everyone's mind for at least this week is not that Italy won but why Zidane would do such a shameless thing, being the captain in particular, as head-butt an opponent on what could have been the best day of his career.

So I also have been scouring google for the reason and it turns out I am not alone. Here is a link to what someone claims was said. Of course, take with a pinch of salt. I could have pasted it here but I think tis best to c it in its entirety. You will hv to scroll to the bottom somewhat b4 u find what was said: http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/07/the-only-question-what-did-materazzi-say-to-zidane.html

Enjoy!! If u find/hear anything different, do let us know

aaah,

The typical "client wants what I don't recommend" dilemma

I have had to personally deal with this a lot. In fact, I have gotten into, literally, heated conversations with such clients. BY the time I was done, the guy (whose wife was also there and happened to agree with my suggesitons, to my surprise), the guy was begging me to calm down. The way I look at it is, my reputation is on the line. I will be advertising whatever site I code to other clients with the hopes of landing contracts from them. Besides, I don't want to be the butt of jokes among my peers. I even remember telling one client that it would either b the way I suggested or he could get his money back. I guess he felt I was overly passionate, cos he caved in to my recommendations

Bottomline, sure, the client is making sure you have food on your table at the end of the day. That notwithstanding, you should try your best to push your agenda through, otherwise wat is this person paying you for? To be a rubber-stamping factory worker? Tufia!!

Tell the person you aren't just paid to be a yes-man and code the site, but to offer your professional opinion on things. Of course, if he/she still insists, it's their site. In the end, na dem go lose money

Good luck!!

For starters:

1) I would either get rid of the sub-navigation rollover or make it look better

2) I would use a prettier font

3) I would integrate the header links ("about us" et al) with the rest of the page. Right now, looks odd.

4) get rid of what seems like a clip art "advertise here" red star you have at the top. Use a custom one.

Bubble or not, all that goes up must come down. Just a reality. Demand now is high, but as time goes on, every okoro, tunde and suleiman will have a website and demand will go down. At that point, as seun stated above, demand will turn from those who "slap together" websites, to those who "know" websites.

Also, in my opinion, as I have experienced in the states, after a dynamic site has been put together, in order to keep the clients coming, demand will also turn towards those who know how to create the best front end experience, a.k.a. the User Interface. It won't be about the senseless iterative flash nightmares people put up. No, it will be about making sites lightweight, making them "richer".

Finally, what to me will set the naija web dev biz ablaze is when naijans in naija will be able to accept/make payments via credit card or paypal and not just bank deposits. In my opinion, someone in naija should come up with such a set up, rather than wait and consequently be humiliated, by oyibo and their blacklisting policies. If we no do am, na who go do am?

Having said what I have just said, again in my opinion, now is the time to jump aboard the naija web dev/software dev ship. As Nnamdi Azikiwe stated many years ago, no condition is permanent.

As always, my 2 cents

Sorry smartsoft, but I am just gonna have to throw in a little confusion into your probably already confused self

I personally tried the hourly stuff, but it didn't work for me, especially for nigerian-based sites. So, I came up with package rates, already printed out on paper. Before I agree to anything with the client, I hand them the paper, ask them to go over it and tell them I will get back to them in a day or two. I figure, that way, I don't come out looking that desperate (even though I am )

Presently, I am trying to find the motivation to come up with a personal website. On there, I will state the same prices. Typically, I charge $1000 for a 5-page static site (template) and $1500 for a similar, custom setup. I switched to static/flash-less as I discovered from experience that when pple know you can do dynamic stuff, they usually want to get the most out of you for the least amount of money. After all, to the non-coder, what is special about pulling stuff out of a database? "Should be a simple thing, abi no b u b guru?" For Nigerian-based sites though, I charge a flat N200K, again, for static sites.

Of course, depending on client attitude, as prodgal said, negotiation is possible. Also, I do get objection upfront. Typically along the lines of "okoro is doing the same thing for N30K, y should I pay so much for yours?" To which I retort "well, if okoro tells you to take panadol for a headache and u do and it works, does that make him a doctor?". At this point, most clients typically begin laughing and say something like "ol boy, make you stop dat ting o". Having loosened them up, my original asking price, for the most part, stays that way.

As has been said up top, go to various sites and c what is being charged for what you know. Once you do that, I would suggest you have it in writing. From personal experience (I have a very weak conscience and usually eye contact is all it takes for me to knock off N100K from the original cost ), it is best to have something in writing that you just hand off to the client, telling them you will be back in a couple of days. That gives them the impression that you aren't desperate and that you probably are so busy which would imply that you are worth the price.

Okay, I am off my soapbox now. I hope this helps sha.

Keyshia,

If you don't live in that town, it is perfectly normal to take a cab to your client's. I have done that many times during the .com consultancy days

Depending on how much you intend charging the client, $60 to me sounds like a drop in the bucket. Besides, you can always pass along that cost to the customer, hidden of course

Finally, as for the $60 or whatever amount you intend spending on transportation et al, I will assume you are in the states (unless the $ you mean is that of another country. If this is so, ignore the following ), in which case you can always deduct that amount as a business expense.

I hope this helps.

loungr,

Yes Sir! Sorry I cldnt be of assistance to you Sir! I just thought I should give a suggestion Sir! Point noted and taken Sir!

Good job man,

That leads me to this question: Now that it seems you will be signing a multi-million naira singing contract, what will happen to your website contracts?

So, recently, my employers paid thousands of $$ to one of the gurus of CSS, Molly (www.molly.com) to come up with advice and standards for our site. One of the things she said, which struck me was that the era of rounded curves and gradients is over. According to her, these just make the developer come up with all sorts of crazy hacks/unnecessary use of images. The days of the boxy design are back.

I am also including a link here to a site talking about the same thing, pretty much: http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/8-web-cliches-of-2006.asp

I just thought I should share, free of charge , so you can apply to current/future projects. Am I not sweet?

loungr,

My advice to you would be to get 2 pple, both proficient in the 2 skills you are looking for. Sure, there are those who are a jack of all trades. However, I would go for division of labor. That way, they can each work to the best of their ability at what they are good at.

As always, my 2 cents. Hopefully, it is worth something

Sorry, no skype yet. To be very honest, I am a very busy man, seldom reached by phone. YIM/Email (itoro@bellsouth.net) is best.

I hope you understand. Again my YIM handle is udotot25. Also, give me your number so I can call you sometime.

Thanks,

westerna,

Looks like u were going for the cell phone touch with that skin. Regardless, it looks way too dark.

I suppose we could take this discussion away from here and do it YIM-style. My YIM handle is udotot25. I look forward to hearing from you.

gbengaijot LOL,

"Second coming" is a term used in the Atlanta, US area at least, amongst Nigerians in the diaspora to describe someone who had returned to Naija during the good times, but due to austerity measures et al, they returned to the US or wherever it may have been.

So, for example, I was born in the states, went back with my family when I was 7, but due to the closing of schools surrounding June 12, my Dad said I should return to "my country", thus making it my second time in the states, aka "Second coming" I thought it was a well-known term. My bad.

I hope this helps.