₦airaland Forum

I would like to assist you. If you really want to learn programming, then you have to forget about this language or that language. They are really the same. What you see as language , is just surface language,or abstractions. Nothing special. The way to go is to just choose one, the one with great online community, and a lot of readily available materials online. It should be free and open source, unless you have deep pocket. Never do copy and paste, carefully read the basic syntax, and try implement basic stuff on your own. Anything you fancy. Fall back to community when the going gets tough, and try always to read beginners' threads in your chosen language. Some day, you would start answering some of the questions.
In programming you will be needing data stores and ways to access them. So, watch out for sequence(vector, array, list) and hash table. Also remember sort and search algorithms, they are everywhere. Regular expression incarnations: match, split, concatenation for strings.
If you are able to wrap your head around the above algorithms and data structures, you could really carry out interesting tasks in any programming language. Finally , remember that you have to read source codes for you to become an expert.

This is my 50 cents

The bride and groom wore matching Army fatigues, short haircuts and huge grins. The couple, Army Pvts. Caitlin Murray and Sean Whitney, wed at the Albany International Airport in New York on Thursday, before catching flights to separate military assignments.
The wedding ceremony, reported by the Albany Times Union, was short and sweet, and pulled together in two hours. (Impressive, considering sometimes it can take that long to get through security.) The town’s marriage officer was called in to perform the civil ceremony. Because no family was in attendance given the last-minute decision, the airport’s CEO acted as ring bearer and witness.


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/soldiers-marry-airport-then-depart-separate-deployments-173159096.html

I have been using NIPOST for some time now, and I also use a couple of leading couriers companies for my business and private needs.
I just started noticing something different at NIPOST offices where I do some low level transactions. They are becoming business minded and professional in their dealings. They even keep to time and promises. I wanted to see if indeed they have improved, so I sent registered mail to a friend, somewhere in Kaduna. It took just 5 days to get there. I tried them again and again, it was even getting better. With this level of confidence, I decided to "taste" their courier services. It was amazing, their speed at par with multinational courier firms. And when it comes to cost, it is just 60%. I would like to say a big thank you to NIPOST, and indeed they have “recharged” my faith. All we need is a good leader and someone willing to solve problems.

'Responsibility'
"Taxation for big companies, or for anyone in society, can't be, and mustn't be, a voluntary arrangement," said Mr Alexander.

"Thinking of the tax system as if it is like the church plate going around on a Sunday morning is completely the wrong way to think about it."

He added: "Paying tax is not a voluntary choice, it is not something you can just chose to do willy nilly because you think it will please your customers, it is an obligation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20657312

It looks like we are judging her based on the color of her skin, this is pretty wrong.
I am really sad. Queen Victoria was 18 when she took over English empire. And we know very well that she was successful. This Ugandan sensation stood for election and won. To me that is not "come chop". And when it comes to fresh ideas, real ideas, I think she would do far better than old woods. She is part of Gen-Y, and social media-driven society. She would be helped by the new media, and that would help her to make informed decision. I sincerely wish her well, and I look forward to her greatness.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A teenaged young woman fresh out of high school has won a seat in Uganda's parliament, adding to the ruling party's majority but embarrassing some who say her success lowers expectations of lawmakers in the East African country.

Proscovia Oromait, who is 19 and a college hopeful, contested elections deep in eastern Uganda to fill the seat left vacant by her father's death. President Yoweri Museveni's ruling party had been desperate for a win there, having lost seven in eight parliamentary by-elections this year. The polls have come to be widely seen as a test of Museveni's popularity, and some party bosses calculated that she would win with a sympathy vote. The result was Uganda's youngest lawmaker ever — and a boost for Museveni's party.


http://news.yahoo.com/teenager-wins-seat-ugandas-parliament-135353425.html

I am proud to be an African... I would like to see more scientific breakthroughs from Africans living in Africa.

http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=8220


Plote

@8ightball



[quote]Is @seun a dropout?

[/ quote]

No! My BAD

I have personally apologized to him. Please help me beg him to forgive me.

Computing has changed the world in profound ways. It has opened up wonderful new ways for people to connect, design, research, play, create, and express themselves. However, just using a computer is only a small part of the picture. The real trans-formative and empowering experience comes when one learns how to program the computer, to translate ideas into code.

These days we all have pretty fast computers with us wherever we go.And we really love them. It defines who we are.
But, should we continue to sit by and watch this amazing technology? Shouldn't we participate in defining it?
My answer to this is we can! And it would not even cost you anything to get started. Just time and energy is all that it would cost you! If your answer to my second question is "YES", then we can walk together. You will not even only walk with me, we will walk with global community of programmers and developers.

(map int "church"
I would want you to make an intuitive guess what the above is. And do you think it is really difficult to figure out? Maybe yes, but my bet is that you will someday find out that it is not as difficult as 2 + 2. Remember that we were made to believe that 2 + 2 = 4. Is that really true? I will say a big "NO". Say we have two goats and two tubers of yam, is it not same as 2 + 2? And what do you think the answer would be?

Back to the reason for this write-up , it is to motivate you and to let you know that you can write your own computer programs. That your can write your own games, that you can turn your Microsoft excel and co into something amazing by adding a few lines of code. You can monitor your warehouses via your phone. You can open your gates with your phone. What you can do is only limited to your imagination and skill set(note that I am only referring to computers here). You don't need a degree or university education. One may say that I am wrong here. Okay, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter they all have one thing
in common. Guess what? They were all started off by dropouts. One may say that that is US not Nigeria. Now, let's sketch how to get started. We have thousands of free computer languages out there on the net. And most of them are Turing complete.



http://www.satajanus.com/

[size=16pt]I would very much want us to have a day to celebrate our achievements and progress. A day to show the world that we are here. And the only way to do that is by showcasing our talent, projects we have done. Therefore, I am initiating a contest, that way we would have something to show the world, and also make some noise [/size]

Here is the requirements:
It must be based on Arduino boards
It must solve a problem (real one)
Your code should be public , preferable github
We need a YouTube video of your project
A blog (you may use github gist/blog) to explain what you have done, and technical decisions
It must not be cut and paste from the books or internet. It must be original

The best project engineer will go home with Scanalogic-2 4 channel Logic Analyzer and Digital signal generator .
Entry closes on June 29, 2012.

You may invite your friends to participate, it is open to all.

Sponsors: Plote and www.satajanus.com

Beaf,

Thanks for that line. However, I would like also to have contests every three months. It would covers the use of Microcontrollers. I have not decided the form it might take yet. I would like to have input from you and others here.

Regards, Plote

@Beaf,

Sure, they have a great list of distributors. However, West Africa was missing until recently. And not everyone has the means to source mere components from Europe and the US. We need to have something close to our doors, and we also need to build community of hackers.
That is what we are out there to achieve.

Regards, Plote

@xterra2,

Please visit www.satajanus.com. Well, we ship to Abuja. While on that site indicate what you want, we will immediately reach you.

Regards Plote

While learning Clojure some years ago I stumbled upon a project that used Clojure and Arduino. Immediately, I wanted to try it out, I searched for where to get a board within my city(Port-Harcourt) or my country. I was disappointed , there was not a single distributor within the whole West Africa. It occurred to me that I may not be the only one facing this challenge and for my subcontinent to reduce poverty, we need to be part of Arduino world. How would they hack if there is no prototype board to play with? Who would supply boards when there is no distributor? These were the questions that came to my mind. Thereafter, I seized this wonderful opportunity and approached Arduino manufacturing team for distributorship. I was surprised that my application was approved. They even encouraged me to have online presence which they would link to.

http://arduino.cc/blog/2012/05/07/arduino-around-the-world-africa/

The above is from me, I am into Arduino boards distribution. I would like to hear from you, how we can move up together? We need to get our people into hardware and software hacking. I feel honored to be here, nairaland.com. This is my first post, I hope to pitch my net here.

Plote