₦airaland Forum

yemo:
boss blossoms - nice joomla customization!

ota pia pia? kia! dem still dey make am? Wat of conquer mixture and mist alba? he he

here is a site that is guaranteed not to suck: www.jquery.com

If you come back to me and say it sucks, na koboko soaked in suya pepper I go take flog u

okay o. Poster change "impossible" to "it doesn't make sense".

Logik: u feel better now?

efetur, thanks once again.

I have actually dabbled into the world of consulting in Nigeria. The problem is, IMHO, we aren't ready for it. I mean, some are not willing to pay more than 10K for a website. How will they pay 10K for a review? I guess I am shaking oranges off the wrong tree.

Sha, I haven't given hope. If it's meant to be, it will be.

1) Not possible. At best, you can add javascript to disable right-click. A smart person can always view source. what are you trying to hide that hasn't been done already, especially in this day of open source?

2) You can scour google for these

3) Either you code this or use free carts from your host. Either way, if Nigeria isn't a recognized country, you probably can't use them. You are then stuck with interswitch et al.

4) seek and ye shall find.

Good luck!

Ekitigene, the pleasure is mine.

Now, you will soon come to know me as someone is rarely satisfied with the status quo To that effect, I re-visited your site, found that it looks better than what it did the first time around but I think you need to take care of the following:

1) I clicked submit on your form, not filling out any fields and was redirected to a page that said, "Bad Referrer - Access Denied"

2) I think you can still make the home page less crowded - consider grouping your news items into say, national, state and local news. Put those nav items at the top. Then just have large images of the main news items per section.

3) Why is there a search bar on secondary pages but not the home page? Furthermore, why is is that the search bar seems squished by the google ad? I think you need to put the ad above the search bar and increase the width of the search bar textfield. I would also center the top horizontal ad.

4) I think you need to use CSS to style your table borders as opposed to using border="1". Also, get rid of the height. Let the table flow naturally

5) I think the date.com and bmi ads are out of place. You need to find a way to work them in such that they fit naturally.

Again, generally speaking, refer to the nation's website for pointers. Good luck!

http://www.websitedevelopmentng.com/

1) Hovering over certain nav items, those nav items "jump" from side to side. You need to fix that so it is consistent across the board

2) I don't recall seeing a contact us in the nav items but I saw it at the bottom, though the link is unclickable. Since I assume your main aim is to get potential customers, I think this info should be more prominent on the site.

3) Home page: I feel instant quote should be moved to the top. It doesn't have to be that large either. It was at the bottom and if I didn't scroll, I wouldn't have noticed. I think this too is a very important module on your site. Worse case, provide a link to a more detailed page.

4) If you insist on having google ads, I say make it horizontal. The vertical one there is making the page unnecessarily long

5) I am torn as to the purpose of the guy with his mouth wide open. I think that photo needs to be more professional. I see that he is pointing at the site on the screen but that wasn't immediately obvious to me.

6) About us: too much text. Unfortunately, many people don't have the time to read anymore. Your text should be like ping pong game - kpam, kpam, kpam. Read main points, move on. Same with "promotion" and "website design".

7) Login page: Why is "forgot password" link not working? Also why the extra nav bar?

8 ) Articles link: not working, at least not on "login" page. Are you taking advantage of includes?

9) Branding page: Why provide info that isn't clickable?

10) Testimonials should be more prominent

11) Blocks at top right: I don't think that is necessary. You need to move up your projects which drive customers to your business.

well, to further explain myself:

Use of template isn't what is bad, IMHO but how you use it. Do you just copy and paste or do you modify it to meet your needs?

Again, let's take my next client. I am using a template monster template with series of indented tables. I could have used it as-is but as I stated, it sucks. Here is what I will be doing to make it unique, sort of:

1) Clear out the content area tables and replace them with divs
2) Replace the image nav items with text (this will involved using photoshop to recreate the background images
3) Move all styles to a css file
4) Group all tables with similar attributes together so I can create a class in my stylesheet for them.
5) Replace the header image and logo with the client's.

Again, use of a template isn't inherently bad. It's what you do with/to it that may be.

b4 i proceed, letz take a look at what I wrote on this template thingy about a year ago:
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-149270.0.html

Dis template stuff don tire me.  It is basically a product of "aburo yemi" mentality where, just because yemi woke up one morning to say templates are bad, automatically, everybody born after yemi is made to feel that using templates is a bad thing.  Do we realize that this very forum is a template of an original smf?  The computer we will use to browse this site, do we realize that it is based on a template developed years ago?  If you pretty much design/develop the same kinds of websites like I do, do you realize that except for the interface, the underlying code is the same? What about you as a human being? I bet you didn't know that you are based on, yes, a template (we have unique features, yes, but by and large, we all share similar characteristics).

There is nothing wrong in using a template per se. At least the lady has even tried to confess as much.  It cuts down on development time for one.  Of course the client's site won't be unique which is something I would strongly advocate for, but again, if the client has no problem with it and is willing to dole out 100K, who are we to put sand in someone's garri?  Don't get me wrong, it is a good time to take advantage and offer your Unique Selling Point (USP) but do so in a professional manner, as opposed to, "template is bad".  Show that you have a better alternative.

I am working with a client right now who actually went ahead, "to save money" to buy a template off of template monster.  From the design to the underlying code (it uses nested tables), it sucks big time.  TO make matters worse, the client didn't buy the unique version which means that another company could use the very same template for their site featuring similar products.  I brought this up to the client but he insists that that is what he wants.  Again, at least I told him what he is getting into.

Using a template doesn't make anyone any less of a professional.  That's just me.

femig:

So far, I haven't been at a loss with respect to offering ning as an online community solution. I have implemented 3 thus far. I am even getting maintenance fees for 2 of the 3.

In the original post, I overlooked the part about email, I guess cos it was buried within the post. Once I saw, "chat", "picture upload", "real time news", I didn't bother any further. You are right though, ning doesn't allow you to create/have email addresses that meet the poster's specs. You know more about ning than you give yourself credit for

I am a very lazy coder. I believe in minimum (though professional and high quality) effort while achieving maximum benefit/profit. I have never developed my own "S.N." from scratch and I don't have the intention to either. Why reinvent the wheel? If a client puts a gun to my head regarding the email issue, worse case, here is what I might do:

1) Get a very cheap web hosting solution, say abc.com, one that basically I will purchase for the sole purpose of creating email addresses.

2) Name the ning site like so: abc.ning.com

As mentioned earlier, I would tell the client what is up, upfront. I always stress the fact that though it has everything they need, unless they are willing to pay to remove ning-specific stuff, they will get a subdomain for their online community. In all 3 cases, they have not complained. If the client insists that they want a "from scratch" solution and it means losing their business, so be it. I believe in destiny/fate. I will get other jobs. If I don't, again, so be it. In the time I would use to create 1 "S.N.", I could develop 5 regular sites, making even more money. Again, why suffer? why kill myself? This is how I think.

In summary, your points are noted, valid and well taken. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on how we approach an issue like this.

Sorry for the rant. Okay, I am off my soapbox now

he he. there already is a separate forum for that. Problem is, if you do that, this board will die

If you search for posts under my name, you will notice that most are educational in nature. Either that or they have to do with debating issues. Furthermore, if you check the responses, you will see at most, 2 or 3 responses. You will see 70 views though . On the other hand, put "review" in the topic header, and you get 5 pages of responses.

Your post makes sense but I am afraid it is the classical easier said than done

dhtml: It's called marketing

he he, segsa, his question doesn't have "</li>". Just "<li>"

segs: I went to your site and saw no means of contacting you.

nitation: and where is the link?

I would go for for cold calling - emails are not personal. Me personally, I am always looking for excuse to send an email to the spam folder. I look for keywords. When speaking to someone, you get a response there and then, worse case is the person hangs up on you.

Having said that, I don't like cold calling - I don't like being disturbed for any reason and so I accord others the same respect. My philosophy is, if I want/need something, I know where to go. Worse case, I ask someone. That is why I deal strictly to referrals and adverts.

lojik: good joomla implementation.

bugs: cast the first stone

quadrillo, making the big bucks.  First, Ibadan.  Next, the rest of Nigeria

Though a digression and it's not for you to decide, I wonder why Radio Nigeria, in the name of consistency, doesn't have the main domain as say, radionigeria.com and then subdomain the "branch" stations (so yours would be, say, ibadan.radionigeria.com). Seems to make sense to me. There is no need having say, 36 different urls.

Sha, I tried the site 4 times and kept getting "The server at radionigeriaibadan.net is taking too long to respond." in FireFox.  I will try again later in the day.

quadrillo:
Thanks for the tip. Now, if I am in an environment where they only have FW, I know what to do.

Thanks once again.

bugs:
With all due respect to the developer, I have seen better state sites. I believe I even put a few in the url I pasted above.

Imo' site is cool but could be better. Ekele munu o! he he

bugs: well, at least you thought up a ("smart" idea. Now, get to work on a *legitimate* solution

Smaaaart. Never thought of that. Then again, as I said, I put it out for my clients on the table. They go into any deal I have with their eyes wide open. I would also assume (I stand corrected) that if ning were to pursue, they could tell via their logs that abc.com was pinging their site via the iframe and that might be a violation of their terms and conditions.

As for what to call you, I will let you decide that for yourself

he he, remo, it isn't that bad.  Again, reference part of my prior post:

Yep smartsoft, knowing about it and being able to implement it and having the time to implement it are 3 different things

You make it sound like telling the client that he can use dreamweaver automatically means that he will know what he is doing, he he.

On my very first joomla project, the client actually insisted that I use joomla (he mentioned it by name, mentioning the various benefits and even mentioned a few plug-ins, to my surprise).  He however admitted that he doesn't know how to use it and even if he did, he didn't have the time and would rather an expert deal with it.  And guess what? I charged him the same amount of money.  I dunno, maybe it is in how one presents one's self.

From my experience, just like I know how to change the oil in my car, many potential clients know what's up.  Having said that, most do realize that they need an expert to actually do the work in order for it to have the special look and feel.

Also, look at the following scenarios:
1) When you write your proposal, chances are that you will indicate what technologies you will use (I do).  If the client were that sinister, he/she would cancel the contract and go implement it him/herself armed with what is in your proposal

2) In today's encryption/decryption techniques, the norm now is to give out a public key, which everyone has but to only share the private key with the trusted party.  In other words, the hackers may have the public key but it will be tough, within reason of course, for them to get the private key.

3) Let's take ning for instance.  You don't tell the client that you are going to use it but you do.  I am assuming you don't bill the change of domain (@ $25 a month) from abc.ning.com to abc.com.  Sooner or later, the client will come back, demanding that that's not what they wanted and that you change it to abc.com.  2 things come to mind here: 1) you skip bail (becoming 419 in the process) OR 2) you tarnish your reputation when you finally tell the client the truth.

I believe in TMI (Too Much Information) up front.  The more the client knows, the less likely they are to ask further questions.   The more you tell them stuff, the more respect they have for you.  My experience anyways.

Think about it

yep smartsoft, knowing about it and being able to implement it and having the time to implement it are 3 different things

I have had the opportunity to charge clients major bucks only to give them ning but my conscience won't let me. Don't get me wrong, if they want help implementing, I will charge, but I can't charge them say $3K to do $500 equivalent of work, especially considering I am not writing a single line of code (not to say you guys shouldn't do that )

Whenever I tell such clients about ning, they thank me senseless like I was some kind of father xmas, he he.

take a look at ning.com - u can do all that yourself in no time

The only drawbacks are that unless you are willing to part with monthly fees which varies per ning ad, for instance, the google ads are owned by ning.

Other than that, I strongly recommend ning. I have used it to provide the online community portion of various websites I have implemented for my clients.

good luck!

smartsoft, ebubedike, the man whose back never touches the ground, I salute o! nno nu ooooo!

I dare not paste my state's url. It is so terrible that I have nicknamed it "orange peel". As ugly as it looks, I hear the "webmaster" rolls around town in an official government car and is presenting proposals for other websites. I managed to track him down via google and facebook. When I started challenging him, he immediately asked for my "works", challenged them as "babyish and amateurish" and then promptly signed off, never to return (that was december, 2008 or so).

kia!

This website was reviewed to death, long time ago, here: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-274895.64.html

JAMB website sucks!

Now, go recode a version of your own and share it with us

Wow! I didn't know Osun State shared a border with the ocean. I didn't know Osun State had whales