₦airaland Forum

interesting @smartsoft:

wise up you guys, simple word here, give him/her what they want,

This is exactly what I said prior to my last post and if I recall, you said this in response:

well what are you saying now is the best huh ? is giving the client what he/she wants ?

And the answer to your question is a resounding YES!!

@mambe
Ignoring other parts of your post so as not to help fan the flames and to concentrate on the issue of the day so we can LEARN something, I will say that I agree with your additions of Aesthetics (which I termed design above), Accessibility and Usability as well as functionality.

All 4 of the above combined will result in a website people are willing to visit and use over and over again.

Any one have anything more to add? Remember, we are here to LEARN!!

Geez guys! Can we just cut the crap? Just imagine what mighty web app you all could have built if you channeled the energy dissipated on this single thread into some grand venture. I bet it would rival what the likes of google and myspace et al are doing. As for Afamz sites, this is what I have to say: Though I may not personally like the way they look, as long as his clients like it, who are we to say otherwise? In the end, if that client's customer base doesn't appreciate it, it's on them not us to judge. Remember: One manz meat is anotherz poison; What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander; Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Need I go on (cos I could ). I dare say that on what many here are saying is crappy, he has made more money on them than what many on here charge on average for "flashy" websites (some from reading here, charge as low as 15K. Tufia!!)

For me, the future of web dev lies in both hence the web 2.0 movement. Functionality is essential but if users don't like the way a site looks, they won't go back. Of course there are other factors that influence this. Also, this is where usability testing comes in. In other words, users might be willing to accept a level of design on site A but the same users may not accept that same level of design on site B. Case in point: I like both myspace and facebook. Having said that, if facebook were to have adopted the myspace approach, I personally wouldn't be visiting. Why? To me, it would have been, "Just another mysapce". In my opinion, what makes facebook stand out is its sheer simplicity.

Folks, letz either stay on point or dump the thread altogether. From my response, you can see that I am sticking to the thread whose title is worthy of discussion. If you want to debate Afamz designs/functionality, create another thread. I joined this forum because of intellectual thread titles like this one.

thats me and please edit your post to remove that name,its not for public consumption

Done. Sorry about that

maybe its a problem from fastermail,

more than likely

u said i should just open the file and add whatever i need to add,which file do you mean

The PHP file, include file or whatever file you want to edit. Most cPanels come with a "code editor" or "file editor" button you click which will bring up the file and its raw code. All I was saying is that depending on my location, I usually just edit my code via the cPanel as opposed to opening up the file in an editor, making changes and uploading. Of course, I do this for files I rarely touch otherwise, I might mistakenly overwrite the cPanel code with an older version that I upload.

As at the time of this posting, I am yet to get your email but will be on the lookout for it.

What version of IE are you using cos I just checked in FF2 and IE8 and the page is messed up only in FF2. As I said in my 2nd or so post, you need to delete the DIV with class clear line and paste it where I told you to paste it.

By the way, if u hv done so and r still encountering the problems, then might I suggest that you dump the flash buttons for regular css or image buttons? If you are using flash so as to achieve some kind of catchy animation, CSS and images can b made to do same via CSS commands and javascript rollovers respectively.

@tunde
not really but i hate it wen i am deceived - 2 posts saying the same thing but under different topic titles.

@josy
I got an email from an xxxxx. Is that you? If so, how come the email was blank? What happened to the code in question? Please resend.

Also, I think your cpanel can accept scripts. Just open the file as you would an HTML file and add whatever you need to add.

Pretty good. A few pointers (I surf via firefox):

1) On contact page, there appears to be padding b/w your nav items. I assume you aren't using includes for that, in which case, it's bad that you aren't

2) contact form doesn't validate, both front and back end

3) The font is bad. Consider using arial or some other san-serif. At the very least, you could have followed the lead of http://www.basepointinternational.com/bpi/

4) On the home page, you sliced the photos of those humans such that "W" and "To" are part of it, so it looks broken. Same applies to the black background, top right. Same thing on languages page. Without viewing source, I assume tables galore. Again, why aren't you using includes?

5) "Website design by" is in red. Looks weird. Why did you choose red?

Make those changes and unless anyone else has something to say, you should be good to go.

@amusan
That proposition doesn't make sense to me. First off, you "develop" sites and not "design", Naija lingo aside. You can design a site via DW because it has Design view. In notepad, you can develop a site, via the code itself.

My point is: If I type "<table><tr><td>stuff here</td></tr></table>" in both DW and notepad, the outcome will be the same. However, if I "draw" a table in DW, I couldn't replicate that in notepad.

Folks, I am not saying we should code exclusively in notepad. All I am saying is, even if you know DW very well, it doesn't hurt to know the underlying code peradventure you find yourself in a situation where you have no access to DW or any other WYSIWYG. Take me for example, 2 situations come to mind:

1) I have been coding for close to 10 years now. I started off with notepad. I then migrated to HomeSite. I have never used DW in my life however, since I know how to code "raw", if I am at a place that has no WYSIWYG or has another one like TextPad, IntelliJ, etc, I can still get my work done.

2) I was at a friend's house when it dawned on me that I needed to make a change to a site I was working on. Rather than postpone it till I got home, I borrowed her laptop, logged on to my web host, opened up the file via my web host, and made my changes. If I were a DW baby, I wouldn't have been able to do that.

@mambe
Yeah, there is probably a bias towards clicks originating from Africa. Possible causes that just came to mind:

1) Many in Africa think they can make a living off of it which means that either they or their buddies find a way to manipulate the system by abusing the clicks, hence the lower amount paid per click.

2) Companies that advertise on google probably don't see themselves making a lot of money and so don't want to advertise for that target audience. Google responds by offering lower ad charges for the African market which in turn translates to lower amounts paid per click

3) It could be that when doing a straight dollar conversion, the amount of money an African company pays for an ad is not comparable to what a company in America is paying. Of course, Google is probably paying out money in proportion to how much an advertiser spends.

I think the issue here guys is focus - If all you are going to do is set up the latest rip off of NL or nigerian myspace or nigerian facebook, I doubt you will make it big via adsense. However, if you are willing to do what it takes to cater to even the 1% of a **worldwide** audience, then you can make it, regardless of google's payout to African accounts.

In my opinion, our problem is that rather than be original, we rip off what is already out there. Need I count them?
NL - tons of wannabes are out ther
Facebook - omo 9ja
milliondollarhomepage - millionnairahomepage

Why can't we be original and lead people to our sites? The reason I focus on one forum at a time is that for one, I don't want to have to remember 100 different login credentials (sure, I can use the same thing for all my accounts but I am not that dumb) for 100 different sites that at the end of the day, offer me the same thing.

Be unique, be original and I guarantee you, you will make it.

@poster, isn't this a double post (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-144972.0.html)?

@poster
Based on your post, I don't think the subject of this post is right. Be that as it may, I would say listen to omnipotens. He speaks well.

I am neither of the guys you mentioned above but hope that nonetheless, my comments are useful to you.

Well, since PHP seems to be the programming language du jour, go with that. That implies that you will need MySQL for your DB and can use PHPMyAdmin (or whatever it's called) as a front-end DB tool - login features, session management, ability to register, DB for movies, their titles, ratings, etc

Also, since they want a feature rich app, I would guess you wouldn't go wrong with any of the javascript libs out there to provide some eye candy - tickets ordered come flying into view, lightbox features to highlight a synopsis of the movie, an autocomplete feature to help visitors narrow down a movie, provided they know the name, etc

Good Luck!

I think you should provide 2 screenshots - 1 for IE and 1 for FF. Alternatively, upload the files to your server or to a free server like geocities and provide the link here.

Thanks,

yep and that means that if you have anything in includes, you need to paste the contents of such files as well.

@charliebiz
Again, have you tried the header link I sent earlier? Also, do you have any html code before your first line of PHP code? If so, that is the problem. You need to remove all HTML code before the call to header(). If you really need the HTML code there, then I would suggest you move your header() to the top of the file and add your HTML code after that.

Do you have any code like below in your file, before the call to header()?

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html><head>

If so, that is the reason you are getting those errors. You need to place your call to header() directly above such a line above.

In conclusion, make sure there are no HTML codes above any of your PHP code snippets and you should be good to go.

@charliebiz
I will let Afam re-clarify himself, but I will also take a stab at what he is saying:

1) remove all blank spaces from your code from all pages. Again, if the functionality is the same, put that stuff in an include.

2) I can't say there is something wrong with your code until you fix the header problem. Once you fix that, re-run your code. If there are any errors at that point, post them here.

3) Looking at your code though, I am going to guess that it has to do with the "header" function. Please refer to http://us2.php.net/header for more information. Note on that page that you cannot have any HTML code b4 the call to header.

Thanks,

@charliebiz
In addition to what Afam has said, and this especially applies if you are using any kind of includes and/or session vars and/or trying to send any HTTP-HEADER stuff, make sure you do all that before your very first line of HTML code.

@Mustay
Don't you mean typewriter? I guess you are too young to remember that

@webdezzi
and I saw that. However, my point was that in order for you to totally ensure that your code is a bug-free as possible, it would help to do what I stated. After all, our sole aim in life is to endeavor to produce error-free code right?

@amusan
yeah, you would think Gates paid me to do this right?

Anyways, I advocate notepad because it is how I got introduced to the game 10 years ago. Back then, that is all you had. Also, back in the day, I had discovered that the best way to get a job as a coder was to tell the interviewer that your favorite WYSIWYG was notepad. You should have seen their pupils dilating at the mention of it.

Oh well, I hereby resign my advocation of notepad. All I am saying is if you are learning, as someone else has rightfully pointed out, get your hands dirty. Even if you use DW, just make sure you use the code view and not the design view.

Better?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/302914bc-40a7-11dd-bd48-0000779fd2ac.html

Facebook, the fast-growing social network, has taken a significant lead over MySpace in visitor numbers for the first time, according to one popular measure of internet traffic.

Facebook attracted more than 123m unique visitors in May, an increase of 162 per cent over the same period last year according to ComScore, a company that monitors websites. That compared with 114.6m unique visitors at MySpace, Facebook’s leading rival, whose traffic grew just 5 per cent during the same period, ComScore said.

The findings mark the first time that Facebook, launched in 2004, has taken a significant lead in unique visitors, after ComScore’s April traffic figures showed the rivals in a virtual tie. They come at a time of change inside Facebook, as the one-time upstart attempts to transform itself into a leading media company. Several members of the original executive team have left the company in recent weeks.

The departures include Adam D’Angelo, chief technology officer and personal confidant of Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 23-year-old founder and chief executive; and Matt Cohler, Facebook’s first official hire, who was in charge of product development.

Mr Zuckerberg has appointed Sheryl Sandberg as his second-in-command. Ms Sandberg, who helped develop Google’s lucrative advertising business, is expected to play a crucial role in the development of Facebook’s revenue model.

The management changes come as the company is under pressure to justify the $15bn valuation it drew last year in an investment round with Microsoft.

Facebook is a private company and does not disclose official sales or profit figures. But people close to the company have claimed that it made $150m in sales last year. That figure is expected to grow to $300m-$350m this year as it attempts to broaden its revenue stream.

Counting unique visitors is just one way to measure the website popularity. Many sites, including Facebook, measure audience engagement by tracking the number of repeat, or “active” users of their sites, leaving out those who visit a site once and never return. MySpace claims to have about 110m active users, Facebook about 80m.

@edet
I think you would still have issues with the DIV tag with the class break. Did you try to do what I mentioned above as well?

@poster
1) I hope you are aware that because we have no access to source.css, button1.swf, etc that there is no way we can see your images/movies without you including access to the server you are on.

2) You need to use indenting more. This would help narrow down your errors much quicker. It took me 5 minutes just to get that straight.

3) FF follows web standards better than IE so FF's behaviour is what should have actually happened in both browsers if IE followed web standards more closely.

4) In the future, to reduce your dependence on DIVs or "cure yourself of divitis" as XHMTL purists call it, consider using "<br class="clear" /> as opposed to "<div class="clear"></div>". They do the same thing, just fewer key strokes and you save a byte or 2.

5) Solution:
Cut the "<div class="clear"></div>" line from where it is now and paste it right before the closing DIV tag (the one for "main_container". That should fix it. If not, hit us up again.


Thanks,

@webdezzi
You might want to check your FF configs with respect to javascript hiding. If you have the web developer toolkit, you should have the javascript console come up by default. Next time, look for a red circle with an exclamation point in the top right of your browser, click on it and see what errors you have.

Other FF extensions, among others:
1) HTML validator
2) Color Picker
3) Ruler
4) Live RSS feed
5) IE tab (with this, I don't have to ever manually open IE again )

Again, the status bar javascript warning is not what I am talking about. Sorry for the confusion. There are other errors that IE ignores which you can only see if you turn off/on the config for that in your IE options menu. Just do this from your IE:
1) Tools -> Options -> Advanced Tab -> Browsing

2) Check if "Disable script debugging" is checked. If so, then as I stated above, by default it is always checked. If not, it means you unchecked it. However, I doubt the average user would know to uncheck it. I am saying this based on work experience - the quality assurance tester at a place I worked years ago almost got me to strangle him because he found an error I could not replicate. It was only after I sat with him and he showed me how to enable the script debugger that I was able to replicate and subsequently fix the error. Also, there are javascript errors that can only be replicated when you are not using HTTP 1.1 settings and again you can check the status of your settings via #1 above, only this time, it would be under "HTTP 1.1 settings" and not "browsing". Again, I say this from work experience.

Back to FF. Since you have the toolkit, I assume you know where to go for extensions and I am sure you are aware that there are tons of them. Just go through the list and download those that suit your needs.

To the others: Happy Browsing! Get FireFox!!

@SAM_MILLA
I beg to differ when you say notepad is for beginners. How many beginners would know the full attributes of a table tag call (as in border, cellpadding, cellspacing, etc)?

A beginner is probably better off using some WYSIWYG. However, as they progress, they should be familiar with what is "under the hood". That is where either the code view of a WYSIWYG or notepad comes in.

I strongly advocate notepad if you really want to know what is going on. Having said that, IMHO, I think a beginner will have more trouble on their hands if they immediately start with notepad assuming they have no idea about HTML and its workings.

As I have said above, notepad being a raw and bare bones text editor, should be used as a last resort. So for example, you need to put up something real quick but you aren't at your computer and the one you have access to is your friend's and they don't have a WYSIWYG. Via notepad, you can quickly make a change without having to wait for days just because you don't have your favorite WYSIWYG.

@Afam
Ignored

@josy
I did say I wouldn't reply to this but seeing your post and your approach, I am compelled to break my promise. Send me a URL and/or contact me via my email address and I will see what I can do. I won't charge you by the way. I was only kidding to see your reaction and judging from it, I can tell you are a very humble person.

@webdezzi
Yeah, notepad to me is what the four-figure table was to me back in my secondary school days. Regardless, sometimes in life, you have to appreciate history so that you know from whence you came and where you are going.

@webdezzi

she went ahead to ask me what object was missing, a ruler or a pencil?

You're kidding right?

I would actually beg to differ with respect to IE and finding javascript errors:

1) IE by default has the debugger turned off. This hides even the slightest error unless the user turns this feature on
2) FF comes with a javascript console which also catches CSS errors
3) Other tools that work well on FF are venkman and firebug
4) IE does have a similar tool but a majority of developers are used to doing their testing on FF because it follows W3C and web standards better than IE

Now, with respect to 4 above, am I saying that IE won't get better? Nope, so don't misquote me please. With IE8 and all its promises (or lack thereof), who knows? Also, maybe with time, more and more developers will start trusting IE's debugging tool. For now though, I would say to join the bandwagon of fellow developers who use FF primarily for testing.

@webemarald
Thanks for jumping in. Truthfully, I am not seeking any favors on the grounds that I am female. I am quite a strong black woman willing to defend my own, anytime, anywhere, anyhow. I also know that many Nigerian men find such women intimidating and threatening ("Can you imagine this woman?". Having said that, I can be nice and gentle and no my place in society as far as tradition is concerned (I am a really nice woman, I really am )

If I make a mistake, I expect people to point it out. If I am convinced that I have made a mistake, that is, if I haven't seen it first, I will be the first to apologize. I also believe in facts and the use of the dictionary so, when it comes to words, before I type anything, I am confident that it suits the situation which is why I rarely take my words back.

I know majority of my posts are rather harsh and/or controversial but they aren't meant to be taken that way. I guess I am a rather hard pill to swallow (reminds me of those chloroquin pills I had to take as a kid) but hey, that's just who I am.

Thanks once again. Again, the error wasn't a slip up. What was a slip up, for which I have admitted, is that I didn't provide a snapshot.

By the way, if everyone would take the time to read my post, I specified the date and time I found the error. Again, choice of words. I did that for a reason. If anyone didn't look at the page at that exact date and time, then you have nothing to say on this matter. In a court of law, I would have been completely vindicated as the judge would ask, "under risk of public execution, did you indeed look at the page AT THE EXACT DATE AND TIME quoted?"

For your reading pleasure, I will close with quoting that exact date and time again:

(as at the time of this writing - 545pm naija time, June 20, 2008)

I thought my "chalk it up" statement would end this thread but I guess not.

Look folks, I know what I saw and am not crazy or going "ya wa". Haven't any of you experienced something that others say they haven't and even suggested that perhaps you're the one going kolo? Geez! Let us take a look at the meaning of "riddled": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/riddled - I choose my words carefully which is why I rarely take back or withdraw anything I say.

Look folks, I know what I saw. There were 4 php errors on the page. I refreshed 3 times, same thing. I closed my browser, after which I regretted not copying and pasting the error I saw and left for a while. I owned up to my mistake. You guys are still posting.

Let us not forget, this is the web. It wasn't a CD that would have had to send out a patch for download. This is the web. It is possible my dear friends that someone uploaded code that didn't work at that particular time, discovered the error later and fixed it by the time you guys went to the page? Are any of you guys going to LIE and say you have never uploaded bad code that caused a page to crash only to immediately re-upload the right code? Consider your answer(s) wisely.

Again, I will stand by what I saw. Again, next time I encounter such, I will take a screen shot and paste it on here for all to see.

Thanks (If I know this forum well, I bet someone else will post something to the contrary again )