₦airaland Forum

Hmm, this site looks like it could benefit from the Kolejo framework. Ask WebMonk for more details

I beg to differ, albeit slightly, in the sense that I agree with you with respect to the lazy ones.

Here is how I approach a problem:
1) Attempt doing it on my own
2) If I spend more than 2 or 3 hours on #1, I google for it
3) If I find an answer to #2, I grab the code, **make sure I understand what it is doing**, then implement.

From some of the many issues that are brought to the forum, I can easily deduce that the problem isn't per se that they can't find a solution but that they copied and pasted, without full understanding of what they are copying and pasting. Besides, if any one has been doing this for a while, there are certain tasks that should be templatized on our hard drives somewhere, ready for copying and pasting upon request.

When I conduct interviews, I undertake the same approach: I first ask verbal questions to see how you think then I make you write some code on paper, to see how you code and if the code is efficiently written.

Bottomline, people shouldn't whine about your approach. In the end, it makes one a better and disciplined programmer.

Mobinga: you couldn't have said it any better.

I can state based on personal experience that in the 6 years that I have been freelancing, I have only done 1 job that was via a search on google. The rest have been via referrals. I might not get as many as I would like but hey, 1 site a month on average isn't too bad.

As always, words of wisdom spoken by the one and only monk.

OP: Hear ye him

Afam4eva:
As bad as that universal site looks, I am afraid the (bad) use of the background image and the positioning of everything on that gogo site makes the gogo site the worst for me

IMHO, you have answered your own question.

Bear in mind that .net is (officially) reserved for ISPs. Pretty much everyone in the world know about .com. Stick with that, especially considering your url is short and easy to remember.

good luck!

Well, are these issues are legit but this is what I noticed:

When I load a website and the images appear to be "loading in layers", I automatically suspect that the image dimensions, as declared in the code, are less than the size of the actual image. So I noticed this with the site's header and using firefox, I right-clicked to see the dimensions (view image info). I noticed it was a background image (problem #1) but that was just a start.

Behold what I discovered to be the background image: http://www.gogolaw.net/images/index2.gif

Then note how the home page, for instance, has been coded (firefox and firebug come in real handy here)

dhtml:
There is an even more glaring issue with the site. I will wait for you and others to try and identify before I chime in.

Wow! I usually do this towards december each year but this website did such a goof that I couldn't wait and think I will go ahead and declare it the worst site I have seen this year.

Let me see how discerning your eyes are: Could you tell me what makes this site so bad?

http://www.gogolaw.net/

Is this site a victim of paying someone on the cheap to do the job or the case of the lawyer being bamboozled, out of ignorance? I am going for the former.

So, having just read that the event is over, I decided to google their website, peradventure, they have an olympics-style website with medal tally. This is what I met:

http://www.nigeriasportsfestival.org/ - I particular "like" this page http://www.nigeriasportsfestival.org/imageGallery.html with messages "coming soon", even after the games are over.

So what say you? Anything on here make you wanna visit it again for festival updates?

. . .and no, I didn't do this site

gabuzee: yep, that too. As I said, google uses 200+ variables to gauge how relevant a site is.

Here is another:
There are 3 types of sites: Research sites, commercial sites and one other I don't recall. Google ranks research sites higher because of? Yep, you got it - content.

gabuzee: It is important to have them but of its 200+ variables that it uses to rank sites, they don't rank that high. Why?

1) They know that many people simply go to their competitor's website, copy their meta tags and paste on their own sites
2) Many people practice keyword stuffing
3) Even many more add keywords and other meta tag info that has nothing to do with what their website is about

If you want to rank high, concentrate on the content of your site in particular.

1) Nigeria is a civil service society. As a result, many have been preconditioned to think that govt job is the all in all.
2) Many people, generally speaking, prefer not to take risk of self employment, partially because of #1 above
3) Many people, generally speaking, want fast and easy money (read: politics and oil), as opposed to doing it the hard way
4) Dignity in labor: Few in Nigeria, generally speaking, are yet to learn this concept
5) Crumbling education system
6) Lack of incentive for private sector to create jobs (insecurity, crumbling infrastructure, etc)

Would you like me to list more? I have a whole bag load of them

1) I submitted the contact form. 2 things I noted:
a) not validating properly for phone number
b) I get this weird error message when I do enter the right info:

The form was not submitted for the following reasons:

You are coming from an unauthorized domain.

Please use your browser's back button to return to the form and try again.

You just potentially lost N1m

2) Learn to indent your html properly: Makes stuff easier to read

3) Why is registered trademark, in footer, in tiny font and displayed as a SUP?

4) I can't select any text on the services page. Very weird

5) On services page, "check here" link in red is not clickable

6) Remove social icons that aren't active. No need leaving them in there with hashes. Very annoying, at least to me

@mobinga what matters most on this board? My sex or what is in my head?

@remoranger I dey o. How I go forget my boiz now? Na we we. I am always on YIM, albeit via meebo and depending on whether or not I am behind a firewall, it is hit and miss, with respect to whether it works or not. Hit me up some time.

1) Will ziptydostd font render the same in all browsers?

2) Oops! http://www.hpgafrica.com/news/news_detail.php?news_id=' - looks like someone didn't handle all exceptions.  same for: http://www.hpgafrica.com/testimonials/detail.php?test_id=%27

3) I click submit on contact form, without filling values and get error "sprytooltip1 not available on this page"

4) On this page in FF, the "details" button looks out of place: http://www.hpgafrica.com/products/health/index.php

5) Inconsistent spacing b/w headers on this page: http://www.hpgafrica.com/about/index.php

6) FAQ page: it would be nice to have a "back to top" after each answer, for convenience

7) newsletter box, in right column could use at least 5px padding all around. the text is touching the edges

8 ) convention for "close" button is top left.  I am referring the modal you get when you click the newsltter "sign up now" button

9) "go" button, next to google search textbox looks weird

OP:

Referring to reply #11 (by dual core), you are yet to fulfill the purpose of this thread yourself.

Please remove the splinter from your eye, yada yada yada

@afam:

I didn't wiggle myself out of anything. Since we're Nigerians, if i'm talking of SEO rankings for Nigerian companies you should ordinarily know that i'm referring to google.com.ng and not google.com. Because if you type google.com in your browser it automatically redirects you to the Nigerian version after checking your IP or something like that.

Please note the emoticon I used. I was yanking your legs. Be that as it may, I shouldn't have to "ordinarily know" anything. You need to be explicit because though this forum is nigeria-based, not everyone who uses it resides in Nigeria. Make sense? Don't assume or make assumptions.

@afam:

@yawatide
I'm talking about google Nigeria(google.com.ng).

Then you should have said so. By the way, nice "way" to wiggle yourself out of this one

@afam4eva: Let's also realize that searches are geo-centric. By that, I mean that when I type same keywords in my locale, those 2 companies don't come up even though they might come up #1 on your side of the planet.

@afam
1) Because most of us think that it is all about "web design"
2) Because most of us concentrate too much on the short term money as opposed to long term continuity
3) Inferiority complex
4) Borrowing from #2, not willing to do what it takes to create a brand that everyone and anyone will remember (like Coke, Facebook, etc)

OP:
and you just so happened to google efcc's site, out of all the sites on the web

Dual, you don come again o. Today na saturday. You should be recovering from friday clubbing

i_want_to

Whereas my goal is to develop 1000 over the span of my career, yours is to do same in 6 months.  I troway salute and wish you luck.

I personally think that's a little ambitious on your part, especially the $10,000 a day minimum:

You would need to develop:
- ~167 sites a month
- ~ 5 sites a day
- ~ 1 site every 4 hours (assuming you don't sleep)

Again, I think developing solid websites at this rate maybe a tad overly ambitious but hey, I have been wrong before and don't mind being wrong again.

My suggestion, if it is worth anything, would be to subscribe to the "quality, not quantity concept".  In other words build the 1 solid site/app that could generate that revenue stream as opposed to 1000.

If you can do it, go for it. Keep us abreast on your progress. Once again, I wish you well and I wish you luck!

Very scary. I suggest you find someone in your area to help you out, 1-on-1.

Call me lazy and old school and out of touch but I am tired of maintaining too many profiles and login credentials. That is why I stick to the same thing for years. I only visit facebook when I get a friend request and only use it to stay in touch with secondary school mates.

I wonder how many people are like me. By the way, as of yesterday, Google health has failed and it looks like the new google+1 product will fail as well.

Google+ will probably be another failed product, like the current google+1. Why do I say so? Facebook is a brand. Like Coke, it is tough to beat a brand.

Will Google+ take away some of the market? Sure but I still don't think that will be enough to make Facebook feel threatened.

I will open the floor but won't contribute just yet, so I don't inadvertently draw the crowd in a certain direction.

Oya, drop your opinion here

http://mashable.com/2011/06/28/google-plus/#18163Google-Circles

(Screenshots are on the page referenced)

Google has finally unveiled Google+, the company’s top secret social layer that turns all of Google into one giant social network.

Google+, which begins rolling out a very limited field test on Tuesday, is the culmination of a year-long project led by Google Senior Vice President of Social Vic Gundotra. The project, which has been delayed several times, is — without doubt — Google’s answer to Facebook.

The search giant’s new social project will be omnipresent on every Google product, thanks to a complete redesign of the Google navigation bar. The familiar gray bar at the top of every Google page will turn black, and come with several new options for accessing your Google+ profile, viewing notifications and instantly sharing content at any time. The notification system is similar to how Facebook handles notifications, complete with a red number that increases with each additional notice.

At its core, Google+ is a social network. The first thing users are introduced to when they visit Google+ is the Stream. It’s much like the Facebook News Feed, allowing users to share photos, videos, links or their location with friends.

Uhhhm, let's see:

1) Little or no images
2) little or no other external objects (css, javascript, etc)
3) NL is probably paying a premium for a dedicated server and guaranteed uptime

Does anyone have anything else to add?

Well, this is the usual naija lack of continuity in play. Rather than build on, and improve upon what was there before, Rochas wan declare say na im b d new oga in town. So he must to wipe out everything that bares the former gov's name and/or legacy.

When will we learn?

Make we forgive am "small": He just declared education free for all, abi?  if so, then the money he could have appropriated for a solid web developer is being drained to pay for the "free" education. 

On a serious note, at least the website has been updated. The same can't be said of other govt websites where new people have come in. NASS website for instance doesn't have the new members listed yet.