₦airaland Forum

Unfortunately, it's the little things that get to me. I see one thing and like the proverbial grinding mill, I grind to a halt. But if you insist

1) Use CSS in place of tables - it it taking too long to load with all those slices

2) I click any of the links at the bottom of the page and I get "large volume of data" in my browser (FF) and then it stalls. Are those downloads? If so, why so large? Can't you create actual pages and thus have smaller sizes per page?

3) No contact form? What of if I am not in Nigeria, like your work and want to contact you ASAP? You expect me to leave my job and go buy a phone card?

4) Maybe you make your font a little larger. For one, I didn't catch the "To download" text till after my browser stalled on me. Perhaps, if this is an instruction, you make it more pronounced (bold it, change color, etc)

Overall, nice and clean layout and simple which I like. Having said that, since I am one of the few ones who goes beyond what is on screen and actually "pops the hood" so to speak, again I say, take care of the little stuff and you should be good to go.

Good luck!

Now, why would there be a yahoo.com address listed for email? How hard is it to set up an email address for the site?

1) Based on the footer, the copyright expired in 2005.

2) There is www.drudgereport.com and www.drudgeretort.com. Very close to my house, there are 2 fuel stations on opposite side of the road. When one drops price by 1 cent, the other drops by 2 cents. I swear the 2 are continuously spying each other with binoculars In the end, both co-exist in peace and harmony.

What Seun needs to do now, in addition to buying up as many similar-sounding URLs, is to study the other site, if possible have some ppl do some testing to see what they don't like and incorporate the good stuff into his.

Competition, it's what makes capitalism great

So Seun,

I just found out about a site that looks just like yours but ending with "lists" - probably a copycat from this forum did it.

Your response? 

paule,

If you don't understand what I said, too bad, so sad. Besides, the last time I checked, the answer to the question wasn't for you but the poster.

Geez! What's up with some people on here and their "ability" to mind-read? Can't they just shut up?

leky,

You go to oshodi, you get a white shirt for N10. You go to Ikeja to a boutique to get a white shirt, probably more durable, and you pay N1000. You go to VI, same white shirt, but again probably even better quality, you pay N10,000.

My point: If d guy wants to toil for the rest of his life selling 3K websites, let him do it. Use it as motivation not to sell your talent so cheap. Just fast and pray that one day, he sees the light

You probably can't do that directly but through an educational institution. I don't know if this applies to .edu.ng though.

You upload it to the same place you upload your other files. I personally like to have a "documents" folder where I dump all documents meant for download.

To provide ability to download, you use the same technique you use to create regular links <a href="link to pdf goes here">Click here to download</a>

Good luck!

At least I got yawa commending the guy.

You got it wrong buddy. Again, with the assumptions.

I was gonna say what I was gonna say regardless. The issue is, I don't just say things anyhow. I am quick to listen but slow to speak. I wait till the situation is right

Why not focus on setting up a dev shop of your own? I have toyed with the same thoughts and I don't want to have to be held at ransom over a pay check. You are in the states and hence know that there, even if you work for 5 minutes, you get paid, when and as agreed, even for the 5 minutes. One thing I don't want to have to do upon my return is be dependent on someone for a salary (unless it is an oil firm where I know they always pay) and/or rely on government contracts for survival.

So in summary, I would say, forget about working for someone and think about setting up your own thing, preferably working with the private sector.

Good luck and let us know how it goes as I go dey follow you soonest, Lord willing

I have no experience using the Motorolas but I do have experience browsing sites, including NL, on mobile devices. I personally don't think it matters anyway.

As a matter of fact, I browsed NL on my phone (blackberry) over the weekend and though there were things I didn't like (like having access to only the first 3 or so posts per screen), I liked the simplicity of it all.

Does this response help?

I think the phrase, "Real programmer" is a dangerous one. To me, and call me crazy, it implies that there it takes something to be a "fake" programmer. As Nigerians, generally speaking, I know we like to make things bigger than they are but it isn't necessarily a good thing. Think in terms of what it will take to be a "good" programmer, period.

You need to think in terms of what is in demand and how you can leverage your skill set to match those demands. You also need to continuously learn above and beyond just in case another opportunity comes along in an area you are not presently working in right now. That way, you always remain marketable and in demand.

My suggestion(s)? Look to see what is in demand within your locale and start from there. Steadily improve yourself while there and in your spare time, learn what the 2nd most thing in demand is. You should be fine from that point.

Good luck!

Yes Kehers,

You are correct

By the way, I did say that the javascript part was unnecessary and I didn't say where the data was coming from (just that it was generated by a loop) but I won't use that to take away from your answer

I will try to come up with more questions in the future.

i got latest materials i picked up and start reading with a dummy experience on web development before

don't sell yourself short. From your post, I can see you are a very determined lad. As they say, practice makes perfect. You will make it. It might take a while but with perseverance, you will get there.

Good luck!

Why? You scared?

Drop code make bobos learn e jo

bamboozled? developer mindset? wow! the mind-reading mentality on this board is amazing!

Nigerian clients may insist on some kind of animation but just as they have been conditioned to like it, they can be "uncondtioned" - I can attest to that. You can even get away with using a javascript library for your animations if need be. Don't limit yourself to flash.

dhtml,

You can't take silence for a lack of interest - even you said you have been observing my posts for months before you decided to start commenting

Drop the tutorial and those with ears and eyes will listen and observe

he he, "soiling"? Abi person "egest" for im pants? Very foul language, if you ask me

Sorry omni but can't help but say a few more things:

Webdezzi:
1) By telling the world you could block his IP address, aren't you in essence saying, "go and run your attacks from another IP"?  The answer to this question is "yes" by the way.  I then ask, how many IP addresses will you block b4 you drive yourself crazy?

2) Do you think if nitation is as good as he is, that he will be so stupid as to soil your site with a known IP address?  In other words, assuming he is in botswana, do you think he would actually make the attack traceable to botswana?

Again, I think you tarnish your reputation here with each subsequent post.  I would be raising the proverbial white flag very high abt now, if I were you.

Believe you me, you have some good guardian angels. Your site would have been history a loong time ago. Trust me

I believe this has already been discussed on another thread. I would heed the advice given there. Yes, the site above is russian. I guess site ownership changed hands b4 the diary went to press. Either way, it's bad.

Having said the above, I don't subscribe to the "newbie" thingie. To me, it's a sorry excuse for bad work. Besides, for how long will you remain a "newbie"? Fact is, if we want to be honest, we are all newbies and should be so. I am always learning new things every day. I don't know it all. Anyone who says they do, are hypocrites. That is why I don't subscribe to the "guru" or "webmaster" crap. I am a developer, period.

You might take the following under advisement:
1) Get rid of the animations - they are making me (and perhaps others) sick.

2) You are validating your contact form but when it comes to email, entering an incomplete address just says, "wrong field". It would be nice if you could actually address the problem (something like "invalid email address format (then you provide an example)).

3) Incomplete pages.

4) Site Map page not consistent with look and feel of others

5) Top nav bar doesn't look balanced. I imagine you wanted to center it.

6) I took a peek at your code. There is no need using BRs with Ps. Ps are for paragraphs. If you need extra space b/w them, modify the margins/paddings settings via CSS

Good luck!

dammytosh,

This issue has been known for at least 3 years now. In fact, when I did my own research, I found out that the "developers" of the site boasted of executives with over 20 years of combined experience in software development.

The reason the site is the way it is, is quite simple: It was given to ppl not based on intellect but based on cronyism.

Let's for a moment, assume I am wrong and these guys know what they are doing. At the very least, why didn't they do any kind of load testing? Didn't they anticipate millions of hits at the same time? If you dig deeper, chances are that they are running that site off of 1 server which might not even be a dedicated one at that.

IMHO, rather than let ppl go thru this, they shd just revert to the way it was, with a twist: provide fillable PDF forms that ppl can fill out online. At least, the characters typed will be legible.

webdezzi,

and when you say I am taking it "personal", are you saying this as a matter of fact, by virtue of the fact that you are a mind reader or based on what you (don't) know? Just curious.

What I am doing is, speaking up against what I perceive as an argument that really shouldn't have been here in the first place. Tables are for presenting tabular data. That is what they were originally made for. The only reason they were abused and used for layout was due to the limitations we as developers had at the time.

As for "newbies", sure it is good for them to know about tables and layout from a historical perspective so that they can appreciate where they are and where they are going. For instance, if I were to teach a class on this, I would start off coding a site with embedded tables. Then to drive home my point, I would code the same site in their presence using DIVs. The only way to really drive home this point, IMHO is to get a layout, code it in tables and code the same site in DIVs. That is what actually made me make the switch in 2005. Seeing is believing to me.

I have a table that prints out say, a bunch of numbers via a loop. I am using PHP. The output looks like so:

<table>
<tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>8</td></tr>
</table>

Now, I want to be able to, upon hover in a particular cell, make the background of each individual cell change color. Of course this would be too easy if the colors were the same. So to make this juicier, I want each cell to have a differnent background color, upon hover. As a hint, that means each cell needs to have a unique ID so that I can access it via the DOM. I could give all of them a class, but I would still need to use document.getElementById() to access the unique ID before accessing className().

Question:
How do I give each TD it's own unique ID? Note: I am not asking for the onHover code. That is just to make you think. I just need the solution to my actual question: how to give each cell it's unique ID.

I await responses

Those of you who know me (or think you do ) know that if there is one thing I love to do, it's looking out for websites. Whether I am reading a book, driving down the road, watching TV, etc, I am always on the lookout for a "www" so I can check it out later and see if there is anything I can "borrow"

I just got my state govt's 2009 diary. First thing I did? You got it - flipped to see if there were any sites listed. I first went to the list of Federal Agency sites. Pretty impressive list. Being the trouble maker that I am, I decided to click through a few at random. This was by far the best (as listed in the diary):

National Bureau of Statistics: http://www.bosng.org/

Check it out and share what you think with the rest of us. Hint: You might want to get an interpreter

I personally don't comment on CMS sites - even with customization, they aren't original (from the ground up). Having said that, I will add to what dhtml has said by saying that your logo isn't readable, at least not to me. Maybe it's the background, maybe its the 2 separate colors and the background. Either way, I can't read it.

Good luck fixing that!

The issues here are pride and arrogance. we all know what happens after Pride.

If it were me, true or false, I would play dumb and thank nitation for coming up with his script. I would also see how much I could learn from him in this regard and use that to make my site even harder to crack. Rather, what we are hearing is, "yeah, so you got in. big deal. why not prove it again. after all, I have backups".

If I were nitation (and I am not saying he should do this ), I would, just for webdezzi saying so, visit his site weekly and do a dump of his site just for the heck of it.

One thing that kills us as Nigerians, generally speaking: Pride, arrogance and "do you know who I am?" mentality. To me, the mere fact that the site has been hacked is enough to damage all credibility, regardless of impact. Then again, what do I know? Nothing really

This is why I use nothing but FireFox to surf the net

I mean, if MSFT came out a few weeks or so ago and advised that ppl stop using IE for the time being due to security loop holes, that pretty much sums it up.

omni:

Some posters in general are like the proverbial squirrel caught with its hand, holding a palm kernel, in a coke bottle - the only way for it to run to safety is for it to let go of the nut but then again, it is too greedy to let go of the nut.

God help us all!

dhtml,

It's called "typecasting". It's like seeing Nkem Owoh in a romantic movie. Having been typecast as a comedian, if you are like me, you probably won't watch such a movie. Likewise, you have typecast yourself as a javascript developer.

What will help you will be more than what even izal has to offer

You probably need to lay low for while. For one though, as long as your tutorials proliferate (and I am not saying there is anything wrong with them), it only solidifies the typecasting

dhtml,

It's called "typecasting". It's like seeing Nkem Owoh in a romantic movie. Having been typecast as a comedian, if you are like me, you probably won't watch such a movie. Likewise, you have typecast yourself as a javascript developer.

What will help you will be more than what even izal has to offer

You probably need to lay low for while. For one though, as long as your tutorials proliferate (and I am not saying there is anything wrong with them), it only solidifies the typecasting

If I understand what you mean, you can use CSS, by using a separate print stylesheet to achieve this. The advantage is that you don't maintain 2 separate pages with the same content. This is also good from a maintainance stand point.

Do a google for "printer friendly stylesheets" and you should come up with something.

Good luck!