₦airaland Forum

My point is the whole web development game in Nigeria is b!llSh!t. We just really need to step out game up. Even our www.nigeria.gov.ng testifies to the fact that we dont have good designers and developers in Nigeria. So badly, the few good ones don't even reperesent Nigeria . . .

I beg to differ with the bolded section. We do have good ones. They just aren't being used in part because of cronyism and in part because of those who charge on the cheap and in part because of a lack of processes with respect to those who are hiring to do the jobs.

Cyno:
1) Take advantage of the full screen. 960px is preferred
2) Site is too "boxy"
3) Contact form not validating properly (phone)
4) Error condition of contact form goes to a white page instead a page similar to the success page
5) Use correct image dimensions. On home page, this image is "forced" into small dimensions: http://www.cynolaw.com/webpix.JPG
6) On home page, remove scrolling marquee (it is distracting) or reduce the timing of the scroll
7) Remove: Programmer/Developer: Eluemelem Frank N. in footer (not professional). If you must, add your company name
8 ) you need to learn the art of tableless design

BFA
1) Background color is too dark
2) Menu doesn't stretch to match width of content area
3) Contact form doesn't validate at all
4) On blog page, there is no menu to take me to other sections of the site
5) FB icon takes me to my own FB page, not BFA's
6) Bad code on partners page: <table cellspacing="" cellpadding="20" v>

Wetin concern agbero with overload? These guys are in the private sector out to make money for themselves. PHCN? Fair game but private company? Not good. Or is this company in bed with PHCN? If you are in the know, let us know.

http://punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20110625364931

A relatively unknown group, naijacyberhackivists, has launched a series of attacks targeted at the web sites of firms linked to the power sector in the country.

The group, which says its campaign is a protest against the crisis in the power sector, on Friday, defaced the web site of a leading generator supplier in Nigeria, Mikano Steel Nigeria.

The website is www.mikano-intl.com.

The hackers posted a ghoulish image on Mikano’s web site under the inscription ‘Let there be light in Nigeria.’

Below it was the message, ‘Hacked by Naija Cyber Hacktivists,’ and the organisation’s logo.

The group said Mikano’s site was hacked using a small 1kva Tiger generator and five litres of fuel.

It said the campaign would be extended to the web site of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria.

It said it would run the campaign on the Facebook through the Nigeria Million March project and on Twitter under the banner of “Let There Be Light In Nigeria.”

It stated, “We are standing against darkness! We are saying enough is enough!

“We are saying let there be light in Nigeria! Young and old, liberal, progressives and conservatives, North, South, East and West, Christians and Muslims.

“We cannot sit at our systems, browsing Facebook, tweeting while expecting a revolution. Every time we decide not to exercise our rights, we contribute to the oppression of the human body and the repression of the human mind.

“You have a choice to make, , walk willingly into your own submission or a choice to get up, walk the walk and say enough is enough – no more darkness in Nigeria.”

It said it would organise a peaceful protest against the energy crisis to be known as ‘Nigerian Million March,’ which would not have a political agenda or affiliation.

It said the protest would serve “to create a greater awareness that the lack of electricity denies Nigerians of their basic necessities of life such as employment, security, good health, education, economic growth and many more.”

The hackers said they would use defacement and distributed denial-of-service to highlight their protest, adding that the main targets would be http://www.phcnonline.com/ and http://www.mikano-intl.com.

It vowed to organise the attacks on July 24, August 24 and September 24.

No attack was, however, noticed on PHCN’s web site.

NaijaCyberHactivists appears to have adopted the style of a transnational hacker group, Lulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec, which has claimed responsibility for several high profile attacks.

Among the web sites attacked by LulzSec are those of the Brazilian government, Petrobras, Sony Corporation, Sega, International Monetary Fund and the Arizona Police in the United States.

You have to understand that so-called "experts (well, I guess I should add "generally speaking" but I digress)" will come up with terms (in all fields) to justify their paychecks and to keep the money flowing.

As I tell people, I would rather have a bounce rate of 90% and make $100 from clicks than have 10% bounce rate and make $5. Bet me, next thing someone will say 10% and everyone will scramble and say it is the new norm, bending over backwards to satisfy that goal. This also applies to food. For example, they said at some point that red wine is bad for you. Few years later, it automatically is good for your heart.

Lesson of the day:
Be like a sift. Take in everything but let very little remain.

Kai! Just like kidnappers, boiz no dey fear God's wrath

Correct version (note the double quotes):
<a href="http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1982/11/24/AS241182017/?s=nigeria&st=2&pn=95" Target="_blank">ITN SOURCE Nigeria</a>

No, I mean exactly the way I posted it, directly above your question

People who know me call me a web developer. So, what might you have for me?

This is what I mean:

// EDIT THE 2 LINES BELOW AS REQUIRED
$email_to = "info@frisahost.com";
$email_subject = "Registration Data";

$domain_name = $_POST['domain_name']; // required
$first_name = $_POST['first_name']; // required
$last_name = $_POST['last_name']; // required
$email_from = $_POST['email']; // required
$address = $_POST['address']; // required
$telephone = $_POST['telephone']; // not required
$hosting_plans = $_POST['hosting_plans']; // required

function died($error) {
// your error code can go here
echo "The "Domain name" field cannot be empty!, but there were error(s) found with the form you submitted. ";
echo "The "Domain name" field cannot be empty!.

";
echo "The "First Name" field cannot be empty!.

";
echo "The "Last Name" field cannot be empty!.

";
echo "The "Email Address" field cannot be empty!.

";
echo "The Address" field cannot be empty!.

";
echo "The Telephone Number" field cannot be empty!.

";
echo "The "Hosting Plan" field cannot be empty!.

";
echo $error."

";
echo "Please go back and fix these errors.

";
die();
}

// validation expected data exists
if(!isset($_POST['domain_name']) ||
!isset($_POST['first_name']) ||
!isset($_POST['last_name']) ||
!isset($_POST['email']) ||
!isset($_POST['address']) ||
!isset($_POST['telephone']) ||
!isset($_POST['Hosting_plans'])) {
died('We are sorry, but there appears to be a problem with the form you submitted.');
}

To play it safe, after you have modified your code to match the above, add echo statements to each field, upload it, fill in all fields, hit submit, and verify that what you entered is actually being spit out

FHemmmmy:
My point: Again, no one knows.

1) I see you didn't move your code the way I asked you to
2) Undo all your changes and restore it to the state where it wasn't giving you the errors

Help them how? Dem pay me?

We even try to tell them via NL.  They should thank God that we care.

In the future, such high profile sites should be handled by an actual firm and not, as I suspect, some guy sitting under a Mango tree, coding with lantern who happens to have been subcontracted for peanuts by a crony.

1) Get rid of the scrolling marquees on the home page or at best, keep only 1 (that scrolls much slower): They are distracting
2) Search form directs me to products page. Why?
3) Why did you use flash menu buttons and not css?

@DC:
I truly think, based on recent posts, that you should start writing comedy scripts for nollywood LOL

Yep, unfortunately, the guy will just move from site to site, transferring domains and the hackers will follow him too.  I seriously doubt that the home page had any code that could subject the page to an attack.  I am calling out the web host on this one (I stand to be corrected)

@DC:
ROFLMAO! LWKMD!!

ultimades:
But on what date? And when you say intervals, is it March, June, September, December?

Come on man! If they told you, then everyone would be ranked #1 as they would be improving their sites all at the same time

Just like it is in the Bible, the Lord cometh like a thief in the night. Lesson: Always be prepared

What I am saying is, move the section, where you are capturing the form fields:
$domain_name = $_POST['domain_name']; // required
$first_name = $_POST['first_name']; // required
$last_name = $_POST['last_name']; // required
$email_from = $_POST['email_address']; // required
$email_from = $_POST['address']; // required
$telephone = $_POST['telephone']; // required
$comments = $_POST['hosting_plans']; // required

from where it is now to just below the code where you are assigning $email_to. My point is that since the code always reads from top to bottom, it doesn't make sense, at least to me, to check if a form field isset when you have not even declared it, not to talk of assigning anything to it. In other words, you are asking if a null value is set, and of course, it isn't.

Good luck!

he he, why your name reminds me of a character from godfather 2, i hv no idea

"(In ruffled, whispering voice) Mr. Barzini, I told you to take care of that thing for me" LMAO!

Possible problem:
It looks to me as if you are checking for whether or not your php vars have values, and "died" them if they don't, before you are even capturing those values. If this is the case, then no wonder you will always get the error: the values are never set to begin with.

Trying moving the portion where you are capturing the values up above the "!isset" code and let us know if that works.

I can't speak for the former but for the latter, you will just have to wait for the next google dance. What is google dance? Google it. How often do they dance? No one knows.

More than likely, the name of one or form fields on the "ordernow.html" page doesn't match what sendform2.php is expecting. Either that or the names match but a validation is failing.

Like DC said, paste the code.

and what if JS is turned off? Besides, using css will cut down on code quantity, which should also help with page download times.

Mr. Barzini,

Of course, the key question is will they, and others learn from this and start hiring competent people/firms? Sadly, the answer to that question is "no"

Easy way:
Go to a site you like, view source, and copy the menu portion, including the css and images used

"hard" but preferred way:
Google "CSS dropdown tutorial"

Good luck!

1) Contact form isn't validating properly

2) your DIV CLASS corodup shouldn't have a height. It might look good on pages with a lot of content but some of them have 1 or 2 lines and you have a huge gap b/w text and the contact button

3) I would move the phone numbers from the footer to the header. I assume you want people to contact the company as soon as possible. Remember, not everyone has high resolution screens

4) "Thank you" page shouldn't be a white page with a link that says, "click to go to home pge". Why not just take me to the home page or better yet, take me to a "thank you" page that isn't white but looks just like the other pages?

5) Cgheck the size of your images. For example, this image is 1000x300 and is 51KBs:
http://www.visfotlimited.com/image/slide11.jpg

I guarantee you, you could save over 50% of that by using a transparent image and using html hex code for the purple and using actual text and not an image. Remember, not everyone, and in particular your target audience, surfs with high speed internet.

6) Either increase the font size of the slogan beneath the logo or increase the letter spacing. I found it hard to read.

Other than that, the code is clean, well indented and easy to read. Kudos on that!

Yes it is tedious but again, maybe in a Nigerian environment where things, generally speaking, are out of whack but again, speaking for the US at least, most big companies use J2EE so there must be some benefit to them going that route, as opposed to the easier php, etc.

I don't have a dog in this fight. I just do what my bosses tell me, so no need to debate any further. After all, with the same J2EE, they are making billions while those of us who don't make 10% of that are doing the debating/arguing

OP:
Be honest with yourself and answer your own question. what does your gut tell you? furthermore, look at other things in life that are learned and again, answer your own question.

Mr. Barzini,

I will agree with you that the whole Java thing is too cumbersome but you must agree that it must have something good for major websites to code using J2EE technologies (JSP, EJB, etc).

mrPerfect:
I sure wish and hope that the site does get updated. Unfortunately, if precedence is anything to go by, it will be a while. I mean, the hacked page referenced by slyrox is still there and half the broken pages that I noticed 3 years ago are still there as well.

u can learn anything in 7 days and perhaps know enough to get something going. But can you master it enough to do stuff that will last you a lifetime? Na im d koko