₦airaland Forum

You can't eat your cake and have it too.  You can't break up with him, and not hurt him.  That's an oxymoron.

In a nutshell, when you're ready to move on, find somebody else, then deliver the bad news.  He'll reel in agony for a few days/weeks.  But eventually, he'll get a grip and move on.

Free yourself of the shackles of expensive software.

AutoCAD - LinuxCAD, QCAD
Photoshop - GIMP
Illustrator - inkscape.org
Windows - LINUX, Linspire
M$ Office - OpenOffice.org
Publisher - Scribus
Visio - Dia, Kivio
Windows Terminal Server - LTSP

Most run on Windows, as well as Linux.

I've never understood group dynamics. Everytime I try to engage in some kind of group effort, I always end up being the only one to complete the project, or worse still, I see the plan go down the tube. In a group, you'll always find somebody who's not focused, or too busy to come through with his end of the deal.

Also what happens when there's a disagreement? You know how people are - when you don't approve of their ideas, they turn vindictive on you. These are real issues to consider before wasting valuable time on some group endeavor.

For several people to work on the same project successfully, you must first and foremost learn cvs. Without it, you'd be wiping out each other's changes to the code.

Nobody plans to fail. We just fail to plan. So, plan or you'd fail.

segs4eva  and sbucareer are in love.

By the way, what do you think about the XHTML 2.0 draft? I think it sucks!

You're ahead of me on that one. I have so many projects lined up, which leaves me with little time for pending standards.

@Zahymaka

You totally understand what I've been trying to impart upon these boneheads in here about the essence of web design.

A webpage must be designed to be easily crawled by a search engine.  And what all that boils down to is: text, lots of it.  Not flash, not heavy graphics, but text.

I'm sure that saying your site passes XHTML 1.1 validation means nothing to most.  But to those who understand web tech, you deserve commendation for the effort.

I see that people could post comments to your blog.  That is what is likely to break your page in the long run, unless you've turned off html, or you've written an html validator into your site that sanitizes inputs and checks tags before posting.

U aint still saying nothing.

Of course I have said everything. You just need to read it when you're not sleepy that's all.

U need a little knowledge of everything but not necessarily too detailed a knowledge to run a buisness. After all u will not do all the mundane tasks yourself.

If u do all the mundane tasks your compnay will forever remain a "village one-man show".

What u need to do is to employ people smarter than you are and in Nigeria, you can employ them for a song.

1 million naira is chicken change. So, employing people is out of the question.

You'd be a better manager if you know a lot about the business you're planning to setup. This is moreso in the ISP area. Therefore, acquiring knowledge before starting is key.

A new business stands a chance of succeeding if it has a low TCO in the beginning.
As the business grows and begins to make money, you can then begin to hire people and delegate duties to them.

I'm actually pretty impressed with it to be honest, everything is well laid out and easy to use.

Everything just "feels" right.

Are you saying previous versions were difficult to use?

@ Oasis, your point is?

You know precisely what I mean. I don't see anything ambigious in my statement.

Condom ke? Whateva happened to saying NO to prmarital sex!

The last vestiges of the ancient world.

Lets call a spade a spade instead of calling it a garden spoon, what is not good is not good,there is no other name for bad!!!many people are trying to cover up the evils of co-habitation under the guise of one reason or the other!!!

Isn't it smarter to learn of any bad habits b4 marriage, rather than after?

Which is better, co-habitation, or a divorce? Or have you forgotten that divorces do happen?

Wow, you guys are really on top of the game. Newest releases mattered to me when I was a lab consultant. Now, I'm just a casual Ms Office user. I downloaded OpenOffice the other day, and the similarity with Ms Office is remarkable. I'm sure that is not unconnected with Microsoft's decision to shuffle things a bit.

Marriage is going out the door these days.  So, living together is what we see more and more of.  It strikes me what stark difference exists between Nigeria and the western world.  In the west, it's not an issue, except for the few religious folks perhaps.

I certainly think living together unmarried is not too far from living together married.  So, it does give both parties an opportunity to savor what married life is like without actually saying I do.

I've collected a ton of vhs tapes over the years. Now that dvd has taken over, I decided to shift into high gear and transfer everything to dvd. So I purchased a single unit (vhs->dvd recorder) that does it in one go. Well, it turned out to be a waste of time, because most of the tapes have anti-copy protection on them. Luckily, the store had a good return policy, and I was able to swap it for something alse.

So, before you blow $100 on a capture card, think!

Having said that, my current tv/capture card is an ati all-in-wonder. Works great. I've also heard good things about Hauppage cards.

There are two reasons people use rubber:
1. To prevent std
2. To prevent unplanned pregnancy.

Which one applies to you?

You would have answered your own question, when you find an alternative solution to one or both of the situations above.

Oasis,much as i respect your works and opinion,you seems to have limited web designing to dating sites and selling things.

Assumptions based on one piece of evidence can be a dangerous thing.  You would make a horrible PI.

I wish to point out that some sites do NOT need to be search engine friendly,they have to be flashy!!! eg: Celebrities sites,footbal clubs sites etc,  their fans will wait for the sites to load even if it takes 3 hours!!

I won't argue with that.  My only beef with some of us here is that we throw unoptimised images on the web, and argue that size doesn't matter because the tartget audience is on broadband.

I happen to be working on an e-commerce site that is heavy on graphics.  But, I'm striving to keep the image sizes down, while still looking good. 

Preview the site at: http://www.mytruefans.com/

Check out the forum, chatroom, store,  etc.  The bio pages are coming soon.  Hold your critiques.  Site is not finished yet.

I built the site on a template supplied by the client, and spruced up with my personal touch.

So, like I've said a dozen times here, anybody can grab a template and modify it.  Therefore, the real test of web knowledge, is programming skills.

Besides while it is true that search engines do not index flash based websites because of the absence of texts,you can get around this by embedding your flash in html and adding metatags to the head section of the html.

Search engines do complex things that only SEO experts know about.  For example, if your flash/image file is 50k, and you do have all the ascii text for a search engine to index, you still get rated lower than say the same page without grapics/flash.  Did you know that?

It's a big ruse that search engines can't crawl flash sites. I have read some tricks that you can use to make your flash websites SEFly.

I will post the link when i find it again.

Let me help you out:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060117-082751

Legal status is very important in America.  Everything rides on your social security number, and if you don't have one legally, Nigeria is a better option.

I don't really know how hard it is to get work as an illegal alien.  An estimated 20 million Mexicans live in the US illegally.  They're all working.  How is that possible?  Well, Mexicans are known to create fake documents and sell them to illegals, or they may use legal papers of relatives.  Since, most employers don't check legal status, the fake papers work.  Also, illegal aliens can apply for a work-only social security card, to enable them pay taxes to the USA.

I don't think America deports illegal aliens, except in rare circumstances where the person is considered a threat to national security.  Getting into America is the difficult part.  Once you're in, you're ok.

However, as an illegal alien, employers will try to take advantage of you, even if they don't know your immigration status.  Only people living legally can fight them in such cases. Also, you can't get a driver's license without legal status, and it's tough in America if you don't drive.

Most illegal aliens earn minimum wage - about $6 an hour ($12,000 a year, working 40 hours a week).  After taxes, you may take home less than $10k.

If you're not staying in cities like NY or LA, a typical studio apartment costs $500/month to rent.  If you share an apartment, it'd cost about the same.  By the time you pay for transportation, gas, electricity, phone, cable tv, laundry, food, etc, you're left with nothing.

So, you have to take up extra jobs to make ends meet.  With another part-time job + weekend jobs, you can probably take home another $10,000 a year.  But trust me, you'd be returning home each day tired as a dog.

My advice is to return to Nigeria, and plan for another strategy.  Maybe try to get into a nursing school in America.  Since America is experiencing an acute shortage of nurses, chances are good that after graduation, a hospital would petition for legal status on your behalf.  They're allowed to do that.  Nurses earn at least $50,000/year as fresh graduates, and they work a ton of overtime hours too.

But the other problem is how to get a student visa in Nigeria to study in a nursing school, when you're already a medical doctor.

Your other option is to start a relationship with an American (http://www.oasisoflove.com). She has to come to Nigeria at least once to see you. After that, you can obtain a fiancee visa to enter the US. After marriage, green card, then naturalization.

oasis what kind of challenge are you talking about?

The challenge of a man who entertains suicidal thoughts when things don't go his way.

What else is he going to try to kill himself over?

To touch on symlinks vs hard links, it's something that can be confusing.

Symlink is like Windows' shortcut.  Just a path to a file or directory.
A hard link on the other hand actually has the contents of the target object.  So, if you delete the target for a particular hard link, the hard link is still usable.

See if these illustrations make sense:

symlink---------------------------|
symlink-----------------------|main_filename---------->mainfile
symlink---------------------------|


hard link---------------------------|
hard link-----------------------|mainfile
hard link---------------------------|

See how hard links always point directly to the mainfile?

If you're linking between different file systems, your only option is to use symlinks.  For example, if you have linux and windows computers networked together via NTFS, only symlinks will allow you to read across those different file systems.

Hard links create problems when you're doing backups.

A hard link is a file just like a symbolic link, but the contents are different. A symbolic link contains a pointer to the actual file, while a hard link is the actual file itself.

Therefore, during backup, a hard linked file is copied as many times as there are hard links to it, such that during restore, the actual file is restored, instead of the hard links.

If I've managed to confuse you more, sorry bro. That's the nature of the beast.

Seun,

This forum auto replaces g-u-y with boy.

It's common knowledge that you don't get into a relationship with someone who's fresh out of another relationship.  People on a rebound don't have their ducks in a row. 

While he may truly love you, it's impossible to tell under these conditions.

Furthermore, what kind of man commits suicide because of a woman?  That is indicative of emotional issues, which may have nothing to do with his love for you.  Are you sure you want to inherit that kind of challenge?

As for the other guy, if he's not your type, tell him so, gently of course.

@sbucareer

Your ideas are very interesting. I'm also an advocate of creativity. What I find with most of us is that we lack originality. Most suggestions I see are about how to create something that's already been done to death. I always stress the need for learning how to build things from scratch, rather than piggy backing on someone else's prototype.

As marvelous as technology is today, we've barely scratched the surface, as far as what can be done with it is concerned.

A good example is oxygen and nitrogen. We know oxygen is flammable, while nitrogen is basically inert. But why? Unless you understand the atomic structures of these elements, you cannot offer an explanation as to why. On the other hand, a good knowledge of atomic structures gives you the ability to create things never before done by anyone.

Have you heard of George Washington Carver? http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa041897.htm

He invented over 800 products from peanuts, soybeans, potatoes, etc.

What kind of control?

We're talking about investment here.

You contradict yourself when you say that Unless you are rich enough to buy a major percentage of each company you invest in . I thought the topic said I'd have unlimited capital?

What is business at the end of the day?  Isn't it gambling?

Let me school you about how things work in the real world.

A company gets large enough, and offers an IPO.  It begins to offer stocks for sale.  Examples, Google, Microsoft, AT&T, etc.

If you purchase that company's stocks, you automaticallyl own a part of the company.

When that company make money, you make money.

If it loses money, you lose money.

Your task then is to forcast a market that is likely to do well in the coming months or years.

Isn't that exactly what you're doing when you establish a business?

In fact, trading stocks is less risky than establishing your business, because when one market fizzles, you can move your money quickly elsewhere, without worrying about liquidating assets.

Now compare that to establishing your own company?

If your business makes money, you make money.  If it loses money, you lose money. 

Now as a smart thinker, tell me the difference between the two: running your own business vs buying stocks in another? You're gambling either way.

Is your aim of establishing a business to make money?

Stock market.

Why do you need google's specifically?  Why not come up with you own?

oasisoflove.com has a complex ranking system that includes: photos, last date of visit, profile completeness, percentage of messages replied, speed of response, frequency of visit, whether user lied about geolocation, distance, etc.  More is being added.  I didn't need to use anybody's pre-made formula.  You can do the same by deciding what criteria to use in ranking websites in your SE.

The fact about google, and SE's in general is, they're highly dynamic.  What works today with them for high SERP, may be gone during their next update.  If not, SEO experts would take over the search engines with their black hat tricks.

If you really want to learn, then search for google pr formula.  You'd read till you head hurts.