₦airaland Forum

I could have sworn that the name was already agreed upon as far back as post #93  

Regardless, at this point, assuming January is still the conference month, any name that makes sense will and should do.

I see this as a blessing, a chance for you to explore your coding potentials. Smiley
Make 2010 your year of coding things right.

I think you should use DW CS4.

huh?

Just put something up, quad 

This isn't a time for debating what platform to use.  Even an html-based site would do, assuming there is no need for a registration page.

The clock is ticking

Afam:

No yawa, nothing spoil

One of the major problems in the industry is the disconnect between promises and delivery.

Again, rather than focus on building the next facebook app or kidding ourselves that we will be as rich as bill gates (and cursing anyone who tells it like it is in saying it will never happen ), may I suggest, in addition to the topic I introduced before, "going back to basics", another topic, as (indirectly) proposed by Afam, titled "The Disconnect between Promises and Delivery in Web Development in Nigeria"?

[quote author="pc guru"]i remember last year during nysc i had a 2 notebooks and was writing you and dhtml's thread that had to do with web design[/quote]Wow! I guess I need to write some books and open up a school then

absolutely free or just plain free, same difference

i don't know if there is anything like "typical rates" as it depends on locale, hits to your website, etc but for an idea, you can visit http://www.sunnewsonline.com/online-advert-rates.htm to see what they charge for advertising on their site.

good luck!

my yahoo id is my username, without the dashes.

Aaaah, true capitalism

lagosthost, I do have a question though: why would you deceive the public by directing us to a "/wedding" link, which at least I was expecting to find more details about your wedding website deals, then redirecting to your home page? I understand if you say you are doing it for the web logs, to see how many people are coming from nairaland but you could have still tracked hits with a separate page on weddings.

If this were a google adword campaign, where you are paying per click, you would have failed (money-wise) and would have left many clickers frustrated as again, one would expect a page on wedding website deals only to be overwhelmed with your home page where I personally couldn't find anything to do with weddings (if it is there and I couldn't find it, I guess you need to do something about it, with respect to making the text more prominent.) As a faithful member of the "don't make me think" school of thought, after scanning the home page for 2 seconds or so and not finding the information I need, I closed the tab with your site and moved on.

Think about it. Good luck and happy 2010!

Far be it from me to say, "it's bad, but", but as akinbola has said, this one even better sef (again, not to give it kudos as it SUCKS big time). For instance, the only evidence of "flash skills or what I will call lack of good knowledge of usability )" by the "webmaster" is the "check email" icon that has been shaking (and is still shaking) since I visited the site. I wonder if the "webmaster" realizes that by having that thing shake, my attention is on that and that alone, as opposed to looking at the text in red saying something about 2010. In other words, am I to check email upon first visiting on the site? Is it the only thing worth doing on the site? Is the site so bad, even by the "webmaster"'s confession that he doesn't want us to notice that and hence make us get hypnotized by the "check email" icon?

I don't know where to start when it comes to education: the client or the "webmaster". This is why i have said, and will continue to say, that the first web conference should have as it's first topic for discussion/presentation, "getting back to the basics". There is no need talking about building the next facebook if we can't even code a site that validates.

This conference:
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-356662.0.html

I disclaim it in the name of (fill in the blanks of your God)

On a serious note, IMHO, the onus is more on those of us who don't charge 5K per website to explain and prove to potential clients why 5K is ridiculously small. Granted I haven't been approached with 5K jobs, I have been approached with prices that I consider an insult. In the end, I explain to the client why I can't accept such ("it isn't as easy as you think", "i actually went to school for this and continue to further myself", "i have expenses to meet after which I have to feed my family", among others). Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't. If the latter, guess what? I move on, even if it means going dry for a while.

For 2009, all my jobs were obtained via referral and I like it that way. Before anyone contacts me, they know what they are getting (pricing, etc). My philosophy has always been I would rather do 5 sites a year at 300K each than 1,000 sites at 5K each. Sure you make more money with the latter but what about the time (which is money) that you could have spent doing other things (vacation, relaxing, sleeping, reading, etc) that you could be doing with your spare time?

As I have said before, I really hope that the upcoming web conference will be spent discussing issues like this instead of how to come up with the next facebook or "trends in Nigeria's web industry". If we can't even, generally speaking, code a site without use of tables and dreamweaver, then as far as I am concerned, we have no "trends", or at least good trends anyway.

Here is to a successful 2010 to us all!

for the latest joomla install, I would strongly recommend you visit joomla.org and get the zip from there. From experience, I would say that the install, including the instructions on the site, are pretty straightforward. It also has a low learning curve, IMHO and without reading a manual, you should be able to play around with it to your heart's desire.

good luck!

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, by golly, it is a duck

pc guru:

Speaking from a totally neutral standpoint, I don't think any one school, even harvard can teach you everything. As a matter of fact, I personally can state that I have used maybe 10% of what I learned in school in my work. What school taught me mainly is how to think for myself.

I salute you for taking the initiative in personal responsibility by teaching yourself. I also find it interesting (this is a compliment) that you have learned most of what you know via nairaland. That says/means a lot about this forum. Perhaps it should register for its own accreditation

Sometimes a certificate is just that, a certificate. that is why I personally put no value in them. At the end of the day, you have to demonstrate to me that you know what you claim you know and that I will enjoy working with/for you.

@ yawa-ti-de,you recommend this guy to me, now you have to be responsible for this

you guys should check this out

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-334695.32.html

Show me an exact quote

Dual the promoter. How much is your cut? 

1) Based on all my comments on this board, I would dare not post that site if I were the one who did it.  Why? I always take the proverbial wood out of my eyes before I attempt to take the speck out of my neighbors

2) From the subject header, I would expect anyone with basic english skills to realize that it isn't a site I did.

Relax dual, we have 40 or so more hours left in 2009.  I am willing to sheath my swords till at least saturday 

perfecto!

Always think of your layout in terms of a grid. That'll do it from me, for now

Hopefully, the conference is similar (maybe not in terms of content but the environment, topics covered,etc ) to something like this:

http://vimeo.com/5913249

Other factors to consider:

1) Flash isn't exactly SEO-friendly

2) If don poorly, it won't be lean, leading to Dual's comments

3) Is it going to be the type on the union bank site where it becomes a frustrating distraction? If yes, abandon the idea.

4) Consider your target audience, ala Dual's comments once again. If it's for kids for example, good choice. If it's for people who have to pay N100 per hour at some cyber cafe where connectivity might be questionable, maybe you should think again.

Remember, many of the javascript frameworks can, and are doing, what at some point was only doable in flash and they are leaner, unobtrusive and I dare say more interactive, to boot.

good luck!

For starters, what doctype are you using? If you aren't specifying one, perhaps the site isn't consistent with other major browsers because it is operating in quirks mode? If you don't have doctype set to at least xhtml transitional, that could explain the differences. Also by combining doctype with a w3c validator, you can weed out the errors in your code, some of which might be reasons again, why your site isn't showing up consistently in major browsers.

The lesson here:
If you code to web standards, your site will show up even on a mobile device with pretty much the same code.

1) majority of people now surf with a 1024x768 resolution. Expand your site to at least 960px

2) do front end validation on your contact form. I shouldn't have to fill out the form, wait for the new page to load, then get told I didn't do it right, then click back, wait for the page to load, etc. It makes for one frustrated user

3) Validation on registration page is inconsistent with that of contact form

4) navigation is missing on registration page

5) Image gallery link not working. past events/planning committee are a dead urls.

6) Remove the hit counter. That is so 20th century

7) Remove the scrolling marquee. remove "register online" at the bottom and replace it with "latest news"

8 ) I see "6th" at top left. what is that for? Is it "6th nasfat" or "6th in the name of allah"? Why do you have to make me think what it is about? My time is golden. My time is money.

Now I feel like I am the one running the project

1) align the search, the "register" and the twitter to the right such that they all line up with the rightmost side of the categories

2) Put some kind of background on the search field to make it visible. It took me a minute to spot it.

and what do you mean by "floating"? As in floating in the sky like an angel? or floating left or right as in CSS?

Much better

Just one more (sorry, can't help it ) thing: Maybe you shorten the length of your search textfield

It looks way better now, that's for sure. Thanks for not taking my comments personally. In the end, we all become better developers

It is SPLENDID! I nominate it for website (whose URL hasn't been published) of the year

na wa o! All this because our leaders have failed to take the necessary steps to ensure we don't suffer the level of unemployment that we are currently suffering

We have done it to ourselves. take for instance this bufoon caught on a plane over the weekend. If we don't jump out to issue press releases and do press conferences (where is yar'adua when you need him? ), there will always be some who will conclude that all Nigerians are like that guy.

Shifting gears to web dev, if we don't speak up about charging cheap sums (how you define "cheap" is up to you), granted in the name of capitalism, I won't fault them as it is up to the competition to come up with reasons to let the clients know otherwise, clients will assume that that is the going rate. Worse still, as word of mouth goes around and around, the 5K becomes the norm.

Hopefully, rather than thinking of how to build the next facebook/google, if the 2010 web conference as advertised does happen, an issue like this will be one of the main topics for discussion.