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Thursday, January 12, 2012
SOPA needs to be stopped!
I heard about SOPA almost a year ago. Since then I had dismissed thoughts about this new Policy. But it’s 2weeks before the United States government votes for or against this bill.
Let me explain what this is in lay man’s term. SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act. It is an act that allows corporate organizations shut down unauthorized sites where videos, music or files could be downloaded from. Well, you may think this won’t affect you if you don’t download series, games or movies but this law covers even the lifting off of content or links from websites without obtaining permission.
Now, how does this affect you or me? Most of the growth in developing countries, Nigeria included have been through the help of the internet. Not just the internet but access to loads of resources online. The access to these resources will in the future be extremely limited if this law takes effect.
In fact, websites like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter can be shut down if a user breaks any of the guidelines. They could even sue search engines for indexing sites that have download links to ‘unauthorized’ resources. You and I know that most of the sites where you download things like stock images, scripts, tutorials also have content that may be tagged as suspicious. For the mere fact that these websites have the illegal stuff, the whole site could be shut down.
It will also cripple new start ups because it allows companies sue websites that are not doing their filtering well enough.
To fully understand what is going on, you can watch this video below.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Lessons from Branding
As a web developer with recent focus on front end development, I have found myself working closely with Corporate and Branding departments of different companies. I have gained deeper understanding of branding processes and brand identity.
This short vacation I embarked on, I loaded myself with a lot of books- most on management and others on Start ups, User Experience Design and Branding. Some titles include The Lean Start Up by Eric Ries, Seductive Interation Design by Stephen P. Anderson, KaChing: How to Run An Online Business that Pays and Pays by Joel comm and of course the biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
Apart from the Joel Comm book that I found particularly interesting, Brandwashed was a very interesting book, captivating me from the very first leaf.
It is so interesting how selling a brand and selling a product can start from the psyche. Why are soft drinks hardly colored blue? Do you know how fear gets introduced into selling? The book exposes secrets in making sales through the sensual stimulations, brand addictino, peer pressure, celebrities and fame etc .
Today, I flipped on my Feed Reader and read Binary Moon’s article on Business Lessons From Innocent Drinks. Reading this article re-emphasized to me the importance of your own brand image.
Working with Nysteria, I must admit we never really got into our consciousness our Mission Statement. I believe if we had, it would have reflected more in our work ethics and of course, the way we perceive each other- the business as a whole.
In his article, Ben Gillbanks points out the importance of Openness, Mission statements and positive ethics- things he learned when he visited Innocent Drinks.
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Using Mind Maps
What is a Mind Map
A Mind Map is an extremely useful tool and an equally forgotten tool when it comes to planning- and planning anything. Taking a course in User Experience design, I was reintroduced to Mind Mapping and I must say it is pretty amazing how good use of this tool can add positively to the planning of your project or your task.
I have spent hundreds of hours planning different aspects of my life, including pet projects, relationship management and career development objectives and I see the use of Mind Maps invaluable.
According to Wikipedia, ”Mind maps are, by definition, a graphical method of taking notes. Their visual basis helps one to distinguish words or ideas, often with colors and symbols. They generally take a hierarchical or tree branch format, with ideas branching into their subsections. Mind maps allow for greater creativity when recording ideas and information, as well as allowing the note-taker to associate words with visual representations.[citation needed] Mind maps differ from concept maps in that mind maps focus on only one word or idea, whereas concept maps connect multiple words or ideas.
A key distinction between mind maps and modelling graphs is that there is no rigorous right or wrong with mind maps, relying on the arbitrariness of mnemonic systems. A UML Diagram or a Semantic network has structured elements modelling relationships, with lines connecting objects to indicate relationship. This is generally done in black and white with a clear and agreed iconography.
Mind maps serve a different purpose: they help with memory and organization. Mind maps are collections of words structured by the mental context of the author with visual mnemonics,and, through the use of colour, icons and visual links are informal and necessary to the proper functioning of the mind map.
What is a Mind Map Used For?
Mind Maps can be used for
- problem solving
- outline/framework design
- structure/relationship representations
- anonymous collaboration
- marriage of words and visuals
- individual expression of creativity
- condensing material into a concise and memorable format
- team building or synergy creating activity
- enhancing work morale
How to use Mind Maps
| 1. Take a blank piece of paper, A4 or larger. | Blank paper allows 360º of freedom to express the full range of your cortical skills, whereas pre-drawn lines restrict the natural flow of your thoughts. |
| 2. Use the paper in landscape orientation. | Words and images have more space in the direction we write, so they don’t bump into margins as quickly. |
| 3. Start in the centre. | Thoughts start in the centre of our mental world. The Mind Map page reflects this! |
4. Make a central image that represents the topic about which you are writing/thinking:
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A picture is worth a thousand words. It opens up associations, focuses the thoughts, is fun and results in better recall:
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5. The main themes around the central image are like the chapter headings of a book:
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The main themes, connected to the central image on the main branches, allow their relative importance to be seen. These are the Basic Ordering Ideas (BOIs) and aggregate and focus the rest of the Mind Map:
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6. Start to add a second level of thought. These words or images are linked to the main branch that triggered them. Remember:
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Your initial words and images stimulate associations. Attach whatever word or image is triggered. Allow the random movement of your thought; you do not have to ‘finish’ one branch before moving on:
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7. Add a third or fourth level of data as thoughts come to you:
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Your brain is like a multi-handed thought-ball catcher. The Mind Mapallows you to catch and keep whatever ‘thought ball’ is thrown by your brain. |
| 8. Add a new dimension to your Mind Map. Boxes add depth around the word or image. | To make some important points stand out. |
9. Sometimes enclose branches of a Mind Map with outlines in colour:
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The outlines will create unique shapes as you find in clouds and will aid your memory:
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10. Make each Mind Map a little more:
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Your eyes and brain will be attracted to your Mind Map:
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| 11. Have fun!
Add a little humour, exaggeration or absurdity wherever you can. |
Your brain will delight in getting the maximum use and enjoyment from this process and will therefore learn faster, recall more effectively and think more clearly. |
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
My Church Mind: Forget #OccupyNigeria (Omojuwa.com)
Disclaimer below the post
Forget #OccupyNigeria for a minute. Let us not get too emotional about our national challenges. Emotion and sentiments have failed us over and again as a people and are still failing us. What I see on Facebook and on twitter as reasons for the #OccupyNigeria movement are still based on emotion. No man has ever succeeded based on emotions alone. We need to engage our minds. We must set our head in order. We want to #OccupyNigeria? Why? The why will give you the purpose and the objective of occupation. If your “why?” is so we can kill all the rulers and take over leadership, then your end is that you will eventually get killed too because that is how it works. Nigeria has a myriad of problems. The biggest and most costly of which is leadership. Nigeria has no leadership whatsoever! This piece is not about our failing sorry failed leadership, it is about us so called young people…Youths of Nigeria.
The time has come. The time has come for us to forget our differences and preferences and look at ourselves in the face and ask…will it matter or make a difference to this country I for the first time in our lives, we all come out and speak for ONE cause? If your answer is No! thank you for your sincerity. This is where my musing ends for you…
If your answer is Yes! We should talk because you are right, we as a people speaking in harmony as one voice we can change this country. We need a place to start and the proposed fuel subsidy removal by the Federal Government is a very good place to start. In starting, we are not going to be chanting “All we are sayinnnnnnnnng, leave subsidyyyyyyyy. All we are sayinnnnnnnnnng, leave subsidy….” No we won’t do the usual thing because that will get us the usual result – nothing. We can do better and this is what we ought to do.
What informed the plan to remove the subsidy in the first place? Simple, the government is broke and government cannot run on anything but money. In fact, the only reason Nigeria is still running is because we have enough money to keep it running, otherwise our rulers haven’t done much to keep Nigeria running. Government wants to raise about $6billion per year from subsidy removal. They have promised that they will then use the money to invest in health and infrastructure. That sounds good enough, especially the promise part but apart from the fact that promises by the Nigerian government are nothing but words offered to keep Nigerians perpetually hoping for a tomorrow that will never com, the government has said it will reduce recurrent expenditure by 1% every year from next year for the four year duration of the government. With recurrent expenditure at 75 per cent this year, it means that at best recurrent expenditure will be 70 per cent by 2015. Guess what that means? It means the money raised from subsidy will still be funding salaries and emoluments of political office holders and intangible wastes in government. But that is not the end of the argument. Government also says that there is so much corruption in the subsidy set up it has to stop the process in its entirety. That sounds really cool until you ask, why can’t the government having discovered corruption in its own system not cut out the corruption if the cannot go a step further to bring the perpetrators to book. Let us not even consider the argument about the fact that there is no subsidy but a ruse of lies and scams. Let us for a minute forget the fact that we export about the world’s best quality of crude but import the worst type of fuel imaginable. It has been written elsewhere on this blog how Nigerian business men and indeed government shortchange the country in the whole process of petroleum exploration and consumption. It goes from exploitation to confusion. Okay, these are complex issues so we need to pick out what is clear-cut and deal with them.
Government needs money and we know without money government cannot function. This is how we will help them raise money. They will not need to raise money from 150 million Nigerians and they will still raise about $20billion! 744 Local Governments have 744 Local Government Chairmen. How much do they earn? Imagine if we clamour for a 70 per cent reduction in their salaries. Multiply that amount by 744 and by 12 months. Don’t forget the councillors. How many councillors are in each Local Government? How much do they earn? How many of them do we have nationwide? How much can we save for a year if we reduce the salaries by 70 per cent?
Remember the 36 states and their Governors? How much do they really earn per month? How much can Nigeria save per month if we cut their salaries by 70 per cent? How much per year?
Look at the House of Representatives where 90 per cent of them represent nobody but their bank accounts. 360 men earn $1.2 million/year/person. What if we reduce their pay by 70 per cent? We will raise $840,000.00 per Legislator. Multiply that by 360 people you get $302,400,000.00! think of the 55 or so ministers, have that number reduced by 25 and have the remaining have their salaries halved, what do you get? Money into government’s coffers for capital projects. I could go on…
As far as corruption in the subsidy process goes, identify the loopholes and fix them. Nigeria is subsidising its neighbours, we cut out that delusion and subsidise only what our people consume. What happens the little petroleum refined here? It is of far higher quality than the petrol we import. The government should release a timeline and action that states with dates the liberalisation calendar of the downstream sector. What is so difficult about this/
We will never have to occupy if the Nigerian government does the above as I now state categorically.
• Retain the subsidy
• Cut out the corruption in that system and stop subsidising our neighbours’ petrol consumption.
• Reduce the pay of public officers across the board by 70 per cent to generate money and reduce the number of ministers and aides.
• Release a timeline and action plan for the downstream sector for the eventual liberalisation of the downstream sector especially in terms of having private investors refine our petroleum so that we don’t just have enough for our people but we also export petrol and petroleum products.
Is this too much to ask for?
Yes WE WILL #OCCUPYNIGERIA and these are our demands!!! We will not go and march if all of these get done at the point of engagement, where engagements fail, we will sleep and dine on the streets of Nigeria. We are not mad people, we are reasonable young Nigerians and irrespective of where you stand, what you want to see is a better Nigeria where life matters. Get on the #OccupyNigeria train, it will be peaceful and we will achieve results Nigeria and Nigerians will be proud of
@omojuwa
This post was been pulled off Omojuwa.com and a trackback has been sent.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Therapy for Boredom Or Passageway to Death: 74hour youtube video of a man who counted to 100,000
There are many things to do when you are bored.
I could take you through the list. An expert at curing people’s boredom with proven track records, I am able to recommend the newest and best therapy when the case arises. The video below is what I am talking about. Please note also that in as much as its a therapy, there are contraindications. Just a bit too much can throw you off. But one thing is sure: If you watch this to the end, you are either going to be cured of your boredom or you are going to pay for it- in DEATH.
Allow me to introduce you to the man who counted 100,000 in 74hours 29minutes and 8 seconds. Enjoy!
Please visit my friend Nogo’s blog. We decided to write about this at the same time and compare stories.
Monday, August 15, 2011
New Stuff Coming!
The last 2 months have been full of slow and painful events which I am quite grateful for. The days have left me with many more plans, ideas that I am more than ever enthusiastic about bringing to fruition.
I will be hitting this website with updates on my creations, my education in my career path(and the many cyber attacks that I have faced) and my most recent side kick.
Below are some of the images I saw from a website called Back of A Web Page. Really nice ish.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Top 2 ways to improve blog traffic now!
I have spent many months trying to find out how to drive traffic to various websites. In fact, I have made it much of a study. Many of the online articles you see about driving traffic to your websites say the same things.
In fact, quite recently, I read an article on Incomediary titled The Missing Link To More Blog Traffic and I got a little pissed when after reading the whole post, he actually never talked about the missing link to more blog traffic and gave a further link to the WordPress SEO Blueprint.
I would just say: There are two key ways to get traffic to your site.
1. Content is Key!
Write good content. In fact write excellent content. This is why people will want to read more. Spend time reading and cross-checking your write-up. Ask yourself this question: If I came to this website without knowing about this topic, will I find this an interesting read?
Yes, content is key. Content is the foundation. But then just like the above website said, the foundation is not enough. Build the house. That takes us to the next important thing:
2. How to select keywords or titles
So you have your content ready? What next? FIND A GOOD TITLE!
Here is how! Go to Google.com, type in a title you feel makes a good one for your article. See the auto-suggestions. See the ones that pop in your face.
For instance, if I wrote an article that featured how to write great content, I would go and type these words in Google.
The suggestions will help me rephrase my words as I would like to put myself in the minds of those searching.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Changing GRUB boot order in Ubuntu 11.04
I recently downloaded and installed a copy of the new Ubuntu 11.04. The new interface is truly awesome. I have slowly grown to love the idea of Linux. Yes and yes, Linux doesn’t have as much support as the other proprietary operating systems as of now. So once in a while I am still forced to go back to my Windows partition when I need to get some other work done.
The interesting thing about Ubuntu is that GRUB changes the boot sequence to Linux options first, leaving the Windows to be the last option.
I did quite a bit of search on the internet and most of the solutions did not work for me because they offered solutions for GRUB and not GRUB2 which is what’s loaded on Ubuntu 11.04. You can find a list of solutions for GRUB by clicking any of these links:
For the earlier version of GRUB, you would have to do this:
sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst_backup
That has changed now. With GRUB 2 you can no longer edit /boot/grub folder. You now have to go to /etc/default/ folder. To do that run this command in terminal:
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
That will bring out a list of configurations similar to this:
GRUB_DEFAULT=0 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash” GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”"
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo’ #GRUB_GFXMODE=640×480
# Uncomment if you don’t want GRUB to pass “root=UUID=xxx” parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entrys #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_RECOVERY=”true”
Where GRUB default = 0, you change it to your value. 0 means the first option in your list. UPDATE: If Windows is on the 5th option, then you change that to 4.
After changing that, its important for you to update by running:
/boot/grub/grub.cfg
Or your changes won’t be made.
Have fun!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Understanding GIT. And Github
Part 1
You will most likely be reading this if you are a programmer, or if you work on medium to large projects. Or well, if you as enthusiastic about gaining knowledge.. like me. You may also be interested in this if you will be working remotely with other users, especially if you will be creating Open Source software.
For the past couple of months, I had been seeing the word ‘GIT’ thrown around the internet through forums, blogs and videos. At a point, I even got me a free download of the book, ‘Getting Good with GIT’ on Nettuts. I registered on the social coding website Github sometime three months ago, tried for hours to understand it, then dropped it. I have been quite familiar with using CVSs and Subversion because I have hosted a few plugins on WordPress(You will need to know a bit of those to host your plugins on WordPress’ servers). I just checked the website and the link to getting a free copy of Getting Good with GIT is not there. If you want a copy, just leave a comment and I will email it to you.
Through a bit of research and a bit of screwing and unscrewing things, I finally understand how to go about Git, and Github. I will be going through a bit of my own personal experiences but permit me to lift a few things from an article I read on an Harvard.edu document by Charles Duan.
Why GIT?
The purpose of Git is to manage a project, or a set of files, as they change over time. Git stores this information in a data structure called a repository.
A git repository contains, among other things, the following:
- A set of commit objects.
- A set of references to commit objects, called heads.
The Git repository is stored in the same directory as the project itself, in a subdirectory called .git. Note differences from central-repository systems like CVS or Subversion:
- There is only one .git directory, in the root directory of the project.
- The repository is stored in files alongside the project. There is no central server repository.
What is a Commit?
A commit object contains three things:
- A set of files, reflecting the state of a project at a given point in time.
- References to parent commit objects.
- An SHA1 name, a 40-character string that uniquely identifies the commit object. The name is composed of a hash of relevant aspects of the commit, so identical commits will always have the same name.The parent commit objects are those commits that were edited to produce the subsequent state of the project. Generally a commit object will have one parent commit, because one generally takes a project in a given state, makes a few changes, and saves the new state of the project. The section below on merges explains how a commit object could have two or more parents.
A project always has one commit object with no parents. This is the first commit made to the project repository.
Based on the above, you can visualize a repository as a directed acyclic graph of commit objects, with pointers to parent commits always pointing backwards in time, ultimately to the first commit. Starting from any commit, you can walk along the tree by parent commits to see the history of changes that led to that commit.
The idea behind Git is that version control is all about manipulating this graph of commits. Whenever you want to perform some operation to query or manipulate the repository, you should be thinking, “how do I want to query or manipulate the graph of commits?”
What is a Head?
A head is simply a reference to a commit object. Each head has a name. By default, there is a head in every repository called master. A repository can contain any number of heads. At any given time, one head is selected as the “current head.” This head is aliased to HEAD, always in capitals.
Note this difference: a “head” (lowercase) refers to any one of the named heads in the repository; “HEAD” (uppercase) refers exclusively to the currently active head. This distinction is used frequently in Git documentation. I also use the convention that names of heads, including HEAD, are set in italics.
Creating a repository
To create a repository, create a directory for the project if it doesn’t exist, enter it, and run the command git init. The directory does not need to be empty.(For the benefit of this write up, I will be using my own illustrations. Download the Github bash client from github.com. That’s where you can control your GIT. When you download it, you also get a GUI. In my opinion, it’s better to get familiar with the shell.
This will create a .git directory in the [project] directory.
To create a commit, you need to do two things:
- Tell Git which files to include in the commit, with git add. If a file has not changed since the previous commit (the “parent” commit), Git will automatically include it in the commit you are about to perform. Thus, you only need to add files that you have added or modified. Note that it adds directories recursively, so git add . will add everything that has changed.
- Call git commit to create the commit object. The new commit object will have the current HEAD as its parent (and then, after the commit is complete, HEAD will point to the new commit object).
As a shortcut, git commit -a will automatically add all modified files (but not new ones).
Note that if you modify a file but do not add it, then Git will include the previous version (before modifications) to the commit. The modified file will remain in place.
In the next articles on GIT, I will be talking about:
- Branching
- Merging and
- Collaborating
Friday, May 20, 2011
May 21st, End of the World. End of the Words.
So she told me how they said it was 21st
How that those who are good disappear first
And how that many were selling their things
Their furniture, their clothes and their blings
We laughed,”oh people, not right now would the world end”
So there I was at the other end calling friends.
Telling them how tomorrow, the world will be history
“Oh George, what a joke. How do fools unravel mystery”
So we waited for the hours of twenty first of May
Like broke labourers waiting for the month’s pay.
A coke in hand, pop corn between the laps,
We watched the television for news on the earth’s collapse,
Constantly laughing our butts off when some carried placards,
many confessing sins; from prostitutes to beggars, robbers to hackers.
Then it started. I heard the thunder first, skies darkening,
A storm now brewing. “Oh God, this just couldn’t be happening”.
I called for her, got no response. “Honey, stop the damn trick”.
No response. Called her cell, she just won’t pick.
Checked every room, and got nothing but echoes.
Nothing moved. Only curtains and those annoying geckos.
I called my friends but calls wouldn’t go through.
Will they or will they not have any clue?
Pandemonium in my head, armpit goshing with sweat,
Lips randomly moving like those of a well versed flirt.
Just then I heard it, the phone rang out. I wasn’t alone.
“Dude, heard the soccer scores today”, the voice from the phone.
It was George calling from Ghana.”Get a grip , gutless!
The world won’t end. Everyone here is out, talk less.
Just then, Jane jolts opens the bathroom door.
“Honey, what’s all the noise? Why are you on the floor?
Don’t tell me you fell for it! Darling, don’t tell me you did”.
Harold Camping! Harold Camping! What did you read?
This article was written by Seye Kuyinu. My name is Seye Kuyinu. My daily job is to write and draw with languages that translate to 1010101010s. By so doing I give people a better image on the web, and also make life easier for them. You can click here for more about me.