Richy (short for Richard) operates a media outfit in America, gradually building his dream. He owns a website dedicated to showing online music videos, events, live football matches and also brings Nigerians artists in America to limelight. I woke up today and guess what? My website is gone, he cried. Gone? I asked, how? HACKED he responded.

The entire website was gone and some funny things were showing there in it’s stead. Being a popular website, we needed bring this website back up. We were able to rectify this in about two (2) hours. Thanks to the backups.

What’s your question? Am I in the United States with him? No, I’m here in Port Harcourt and do not look so surprised as to how I was able to help troubleshoot a hacked website from Port Harcourt. It’s one global village remember?
Distance between USA and Rivers State is about thousands of miles but with the availability of the internet, it’s just 0 kilometres.

After the website got restored, I decided to abandon the websites I wanted to finish working on to write to you my dedicated readers on the need for us to stand guard against any form of hack.

WHAT OR WHO IS A HACKER?
A hacker is an individual who has good knowledge of how a utility works and can find one or two means of getting into the utility without having to go through the main entrance either because it’s locked and guarded or just for the fun of it.

Imagine a man making a hole into a wall to get into a room while there’s an entrance door to the same room. He could be doing this to save a baby who mistakenly locked himself up in the room or to see how to save a baby in case the scenario above happens. He might also be boring the hole in other to kidnap the baby because the entrance is locked and guarded.

Following the cases I mentioned above, it will be good to let you know that not all hackers are bad and not all hacking attempts are carried out with malicious intentions.
Hacking can be divided into two categories
(1) Ethical Hacking a.k.a white hat
(2) Unethical/cracking a.k.a black hat

Ethical hacking is done to check a particular utility e.g web program and software for errors and security loopholes so they can be covered against attacks from anyone with malicious intentions. A whole lot of Indians are known to be good when it comes to hacking and believe me, they make a lot of money from big corporations who after developing their web applications or software employs them to break into it. When they succeed, they advice the company on the security threats discovered and possible ways of resolving them.
Wait! Are you already thinking of becoming a hacker? You must be kidding me.

UNETHICAL/CRACKING: An angel who once had powers and knew all the protocols went against his master and was rebuked, cast away and left to wander the earth. Now he uses his power and experience to hunt people. I’m not sure I need to explain further on what unethical or black hat hacking is all about. If you call me a bad teacher, I won’t fight you.

After reading this article, you’ll tell yourself, these things do not apply to me. I do not have a website, why should I worry? The truth is hacking and cracking does not only occur in matters relating to websites. This act is very evident in the unsolicited emails we receive in our various inboxes asking us to click on a link because our ATM cards needs upgrading or has been tampered with. Funny these emails looks totally genuine like they are being sent from either GTB or Zenith Bank with matching signatures. When you click on the link they give you, a website opens for you to enter your ATM card details including your most cherished 4 digit pin, once you do this, your money is stolen.

On an occasion, I back traced one of such emails to the malicious web developer and what I discovered amazed me. It was hosted on a sub domain in a church’s website. I got the domain registrar’s contact info but what could I do than send him a warning email to desist as he is not as invisible as he thought he was. I sent a query via the EFCC website but did I get any replies?

Your mobile phones are not free from these threats too. I bet you have heard one or two things about wire tapping, network scrambling and dubious text messages.

One thing I know I achieved today is the fact that I have been able to educate you (in case you didn’t know already) on the dangers prowling the sweet world of Information Communications Technology and the fact that you will be careful henceforth so you will not have to call my line 5am crying like Richard did.

Like i discussed earlier website development is all about putting your creativity in play. You might not know how creative you are until you try it out.

First, lets do some talking here. You keep seeing websites everyday and its like there are millions of pages on them and you keep wondering how were this people able to come up with such millions of pages like facebook?
Now you must know this, Facebook has only a number pages. Facebook operates dynamically. A single page displays several information that should have taken thousands of pages to come up. This is basically how a website works.

Before we proceed, i need you to understand that there are two types of websites:

1). Static websites
2). Dynamic Websites.

STATIC WEBSITES:
This type of website is the one we mostly see online. This is the one companies go for. Basically to display information about a firm. The most important thing to know about this type of website is that the pages are generated manually. i.e. each page that displays any data must be created by the designer and they are all linked together by using hyperlinks. (dont worry, you’ll get to know what hyperlinks are).

DYNAMIC WEBSITES:
I’m not sure i need to say much about this type of website. a direct example is the one we are all on…. “FACEBOOK”. This involved programming. Only one page is designed to display several information which is fetched from database. I do not need to tell you that this website is costly.

What we are here to learn is the STATIC WEBSITE. (i’m so sorry, dynamic websites needs one on one interactions).

======= ARE YOU READY? ========

Now, i want to believe you are a regular internet user. That you know how to create and open folders, that you know how to save files in a particular directory. (directory means folder. Directory usually is used in web designs). If you dont know how to do these, please vamoose. lol.

- On your desktop, create a folder and name it “MY WEBSITES” (please ignore the quotes now and throughout this tutorial) This will serve as the PARENT DIRECTORY for all your web jobs.

- Open this folder and create another folder inside it, name it “iPAGE”. Please dont ask me “WHY iPAGE”?
This means, for every website project you are going to design, there must be a different directory inside the PARENT DIRECTORY (my websites). Are you confused? ok… lets take it this way.

Yar Adua is someone’s name, he has a big compound, each time he marries a wife, he builds a new house for her within the compound. e.g when he married thurai, he built a thatched house for her within the compound and named the mud house “SELFISH THURAI”. when he marries AYATU, he builds a new house for her within the compound also and she will leave there with her children.
In this case, the compound is MY WEBSITES, and the houses he builds for the wives are the different directories you create when you start a new web project. The essense of this is to make be realy neat in your jobs.

If you still do not get this, go and pure cold water on your head. Maybe its overheating.

okay… lets continue.

- open iPAGE directory and create two folders inside it. (1.) images (2.) WORKS
All the images needed for the website development will be kept in the images folder while the raw files used to create the images will be saved in works folder. GOT IT?

Now you will have something like this MY WEBSITES >> iPAGE >> images,works

All your html and css files will be saved in iPAGE alongside the images and works folder.

Now lets start. You are going to create your first web page. Are you not happy?

- now… open a notepad file on your computer. (in case you are a dummy, Click on start menu, at the far down left of your screen, click on run, then type NOTEPAD in the window that comes up, hit ENTER. Now you have a new notepad file open.

- Html page has two sections, The head and the body.
- The head comes first, telling the browser the type of page you are working on.

- Every html document starts with and ends with . NOTE THE “/” BEFORE THE closing html. Anywhere you see this, it means you are closing an already opened tag.

Now lets start the page:

Please take your time to study the codes above, if you can understand it, then there’s no wahala for you again. because this just repeats all the things you need to do throughout website development.

REMEMBER: Whatever tag you open must be closed. once you do not close it, it continues affecting throughout the document.

must be the first ever thing you will put on your page and must be the last thing ever you will have on your page.

This tells the browser that this is the head section of the document. other things can be added into this head section but when we get there, we will talk about it. This must also be closed by

Do yourself a favour, do not copy and paste the sample code above to yours and save, you will only be cheating yourself. try and type it out by yourself.

- save the notepad document as index.html inside the iPAGE DIRECTORY. a notepad file always have a “.txt” extension but this time, we are removing the notepad extention and putting a html extention. This will automatically give you an Internet explorer icon with the name inde.html, so instead of the file opening as notepad when you double click on it, it will open with INTERNET EXPLORER or using your default web browser.

You must be sure to save this file in the right directory. else, you will end up looking for where you saved it.

You have successfully created a webpage using notepad though this page is as useless as anything because its totally empty. It will only show you a white page. If you are getting this at this stage, congratulations, you just showed that you are ready to learn. If not, go to Computer Village, tell them you need to upgrade the RAM and processor in your head. lol.

We shall proceed from here. I want to make sure i am being followed. I want to see the level of followership. Please don’t disapoint me, let me have feedbacks on our wall. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106014422767820&ref=ts

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Let’s imagine you need a week to execute project/assignment/research but your supervisor mandates you to complete and submit in 3days. If I were you, as a complete novice in the computer world, I’ll simply put my pen on the paper, put my hands on my jaws and start weeping.
To avoid seeing yourself in this position, here is a reason you need to read this article. Your supervisor gave a time frame of 3 days for project/assignment/research execution. How you about you beat him to a 10 hour time frame? Did you just say iMPOSSIBLE? Hmmm… you disappoint me. Well, let me take you on a jolly ride to discovering what could make you have an edge in your educational career.
Fetching information on the internet has become so easy that even a 5 year old child can navigate and make up documents needed for a project work. Most of the projects that are being undertaken by individuals today has been carried out by certain persons unknown to you, probably in the nearest country or another continent and possibly in the most remote parts of the world. Starting this projects/assignments all over again can be difficult and time consuming.

How come these documents can be found on the internet? Who posts them online? What do they gain by doing so? These and many other questions should be on your mind now. If not, am sorry to say you are just reading this article because you do not have any other stuffs to read or just to while away time. Anyway, reading this will do you no harm and I hope to catch your attention before you are done with this piece.
Let’s start with how the documents are found online.
Individuals and corporate bodies undertake several research projects. Once done, they document their findings/reports in soft copies (computer typed pages) and post them online. Half of them do not put these materials online for distribution or public viewing but solely to archive them so they can always have access to them from whatever location they find themselves on earth provided there is internet connection. They seem not to know that 85% of documents or web pages on the internet today are accessible by anyone who has internet connection. This is the work of the SEARCH ENGINES.

This is why you will always find one document or two to help you in preparing your research material. Are you not grateful to me for giving you this piece of information?

We just treated two of the above questions. Now to the third one, what do they gain by publishing these documents online? Remember I said half of them do not know that these materials are accessible by individuals around the world. Now you should ask me, what about the other half that knows the documents are not secured online and why do they still put them there? Well, this goes to show that the earth still harbours some individuals who are not greedy or always want to be paid for whatever it is they do as service to the public. (i for one). People publish these documents online for one particular reason, to help others out there. They do not charge you any fee and they do not expect you to ask them to forward you their account information. They do this strictly on charity basis and I bet you this feels really good. You should try it out someday (it doesn’t have to be in the context under discussion). The satisfaction you derive from acts of charity is far greater and long lasting than that you get from a chilled drink.
Exactly what is a search engine? Basically, a search engine is a software program that searches for sites based on the words that you designate as search terms. Search engines look through their own databases of information in order to find what it is that you are looking for. Examples of some known search engines are www.google.com , www.yahoo.com and www.ask.com

The good news about the Internet and its most visible component, the World Wide Web, is that there are hundreds of millions of pages available, waiting to present information on an amazing variety of topics. The bad news about the Internet is that there are hundreds of millions of pages available, most of them titled according to the whim of their author, almost all of them sitting on servers with cryptic names. When you need to know about a particular subject, how do you know which pages to read? If you’re like most people, you visit an Internet search engine.

Internet search engines are special sites on the Web that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. There are differences in the ways various search engines work, but they all perform three basic tasks

How Do Search Engines Work?
Please note: Search engines are not simple. They include incredibly detailed processes and methodologies, and are updated all the time. This is a bare bones look at how search engines work to retrieve your search results. All search engines go by this basic process when conducting search processes, but because there are differences in search engines, there are bound to be different results depending on which engine you use.

- The searcher types a query (keyword. e.g. buy e-gold online) into a search engine.
- Search engine software quickly sorts through literally millions of pages in its database to find matches to this query.
- The search engine’s results are ranked in order of relevancy.

RANKING HIGH ON SEARCH ENGINES
If you/your company already have a website, you will find yourself challenging you web developer after reading this, demanding how well he/she optimized your website to rank well on search engines.
In order to be able to rank well in search engines, we have to first understand how they work and how they rank web sites based on different criteria. With those factors in mind, Websites are built in such ways that they are optimized for search engines, so that they will be able to rank higher quickly.
And the big question is… How does a search engine rank web sites? Here’s how:
1. Search engines have bots which also known as “spiders” that are supposed to go out to the Internet to look for new sites to rank them. Once a website is uploaded to the Internet, these spiders will eventually find the site and rank it according to its algorithms.

2. The spider will pick out important details from the website such as the keywords used in the content of the pages, the quality of the content provided to the consumer, and what keywords the content is best suited for.
3. This information is then stored in what is known as an index, which acts as a huge file cabinet that has folders for every web site on the Internet.
4. Once a person types a search term in the search engine that matches the website’s keywords, the engine will go to its index and locate all the sites that may match the search term. If the website is optimized correctly with the appropriate search terms, it will also be located by the search engine and displayed on the search engine results page (SERP) .
5. The order in which web sites are displayed on the SERP depends on how the search engine gauge the website in terms of quality. The higher quality the content of the web site, or the more value a web site provides to its visitor, the higher it will rank in SERP. Hence, having quality content is extremely crucial if a website wants to rank well on search engines.

All in all, the 2 most important factors that will possibly catapult a website up the search engine rankings are quality content and the right keywords to use throughout the web site content. It is thus important for website developers to do keyword research and find out what keywords or phrases people will type in their searches when they are looking for information that can be provided.

The three key processes in delivering search results to you are: (Ref. google.com)
Crawling: Does Google know about the web site? Can we find it?
Indexing: Can Google index a website?
Serving: Does the site have good and useful content that is relevant to the user’s search?
Let’s discuss the points stated above.
Crawling back to top

Crawling is the process by which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index.
We use a huge set of computers to fetch (or “crawl”) billions of pages on the web. The program that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider). Googlebot uses an algorithmic process: computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site.
Google’s crawl process begins with a list of web page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes, and augmented with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. As Googlebot visits each of these websites it detects links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing sites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.
Google doesn’t accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, and we keep the search side of our business separate from our revenue-generating AdWords service.
Indexing
Googlebot processes each of the pages it crawls in order to compile a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page. In addition, we process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes. Googlebot can process many, but not all, content types. For example, we cannot process the content of some rich media files or dynamic pages.
Serving results
When a user enters a query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page.

FINDING YOUR RESULT ON SEARCH ENGINES
Not every time you enter a search word in search engines do you get the exact results you seek. When this happens, try to restructure your query (search word). E.g We are trying to know more about graphic user interface. If our search does not return the exact answer you need, it does not mean the engine does not have an answer for you. Next thing will be to rephrase the search word to “What is graphic user interface?”. The results that will be listed will be slightly different from what was initially displayed when we used the first search term. There is no limit to how many times you can rephrase a search word to get your desired result. This is the best way to learn about life, people, technology and even recipes on the internet.
Found this article useful or need more information? Drop a comment then.
Thanks

It is just not enough to just learn about tips and tricks that are up your sleeve when trading. Here are several of the best kept Forex trading secrets of highly successful Forex traders. These insights have been realized from accumulation of market wisdom and trading truisms that not all traders are aware of. Apply these insights particularly during volatile periods.

Observe and analyze the market frequently

It pays to often pay particular attention to the Forex market. You should always be aware about market updates, especially news and developments that could pose great impact to your investments and prospects. Enter and exit trades based on precise market information. Impulsive and gut-feel trading should be avoided.

There are instances when excessive market volatility and lack of liquidity could command you not to resume trading at all. Likewise, learn not to wait for a target price you expect the currency to hit. Market direction could instantly change direction and turn away from your direction, but you could always have your eyes opened for anticipation and immediate response. Also be bent not to trade when you are ill, as your judgment call and alertness could be somehow impaired, especially when it comes to sudden market shifts.

Play with trading systems

It is just logical that you make use of effective trading systems. Realize that there are specific types of systems that suit different types of markets. A proven effective trading system may not be able to do wonders in a down market. Systems that work best within trending markets or range bound markets could also fail to facilitate effectiveness when used in other markets.

Always bear in mind that up and down markets are fixed features of Forex trading. That is why in Forex, secret trading insights and ideas always work. Many traders fail to acknowledge the looms of inevitable downturns even at the best performing markets. It is wise to be familiar with and master dominant trends and patterns in specific markets and segments. Choose trades that move along with the market.

Trust your instincts

Develop a sharp and reliable instinct that goes along well with market analysis. Do not make a trade if you feel something is wrong with it. Sometimes, successful traders acknowledge being superstitious. Of course, it is better to be one than to lose money.

Also rely on your instincts when it comes to the temper of other significant market players. For instance, risk managers usually resort to issuing liquidation orders based on their margin call positions. When they do so, such managers often do not look at which trades are oversold or overbought. Stay out of their way.

In this edition of choosing your career in Information Communications Technology, we will be discussing about the Website Development Industry, How profitable this profession is, how much you’ll need to get trained.
Many thanks to those of our readers who either called my phone line or sent emails asking for clarifications on some issues. I am happy to know that this column is creating a positive impact on the economy by trying to reduce the rate of dependency on the Government for the provision of jobs that could have easily been found in our backyards.

At the moment, this column focuses on enlightening the public about the undermined self-employment opportunities that can be found in the Information Communications Technology Industry today. With time, we shall venture into other areas outside the computer industry.
What makes you rich or poor is your mindset. The mind is the most powerful aspect of a human life. Your mind has the capacity to elevate your status or downgrade you for life. It’s left for every individual to make a decision if he/she wants to win or lose the race.
Website development is a job you need to take up with passion. You need to make a total decision to love this business for you to enjoy and prosper in it.

What is a Website/Website Development
A website is like a shop window which is open 24/7 on the internet, accessible to the world at every point in time. It can be related to an online version of a catalogue or magazine. It gives the owner an opportunity of exhibiting his/her products to the international community via cheap and interactive medium which is the internet. Questions can be asked from around the world by potential buyers of a product and an instantaneous reply given to them.

Having a website is not just a commodity for businesses nowadays, but a must. A company or a professional without a website is like a salesman without his business card. The web site needs to be your profile and what’s good about it is that there is limitless information you can put on it. Another good thing is that static content on a website can be changed very easily. Even better, you can opt to go for a dynamic site which will automatically change your content based on changes to your business, like stock items, prices, articles, services and more.

Half the world sources online for materials needed for local and international consumptions, a foreign internet user doesn’t need to have been told about a company in Nigeria or other countries before he/she can have access to what the company does or where they are located. All these can be attributed to the power of search engines like google and ask.com. All outfits e.g. churches, companies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Clubs, etc. now want to be visible to the world.

Website Development is the process of getting all or some of an outfits profile linked from page to page with quality designs on the internet for the entire world to see. This is a follow-up of a conceptual paper design of the project (website to be developed). Website Development is all about creating an online profile for a company. Depending on the developer’s experience, this can be executed within one to two days.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED.
In the previous edition, I stated that jobs are all around us, we only need to open our eyes and see these opportunities waiting to be utilized. I agree that there’s competition in every industry but most of them survive. These outfits are not being run by aliens, they are owned by humans like you. Beings with one head, two eyes, two legs and one heart in a body. The blood of these humans are also red in colour just like yours.
Why the scare? Just like I pointed in the beginning of this article, what makes you rich or poor is just your mindset. Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you are scared of losing, then you can never be near success. You learn more when you lose. Experience they say is the best teacher.
A lot of people worldwide are waiting to be serviced. The demand by new and previously existing outfits has continued to grow over the years, this means big job for you.

HOW LUCRATIVE IS THIS PROFESSION?
Your income in this profession depends on the tactical plans you have put in place to accommodate every job that comes your way. Your ability to think fast and work towards reducing costs even before the job comes will determine how much you will make in this business.

Each web project you handle costs at least forty thousand Naira (N40,000) depending on the nature of the job. If your cost reduction techniques are properly put to play, you’ll end up keeping Twenty Five Thousand Naira (N25,000) as profit. This is the least amount you earn on every project that comes your way. In a situation where you successfully execute five (5) projects in a month, you smile to the bank with One Hundred and Twenty Five Thousand Naira (N125,000).

There are Mega projects like online banking solutions and University Portals (online admission, scratch card processing, student administration). These costs between five hundred thousand to Millions of naira depending on the level of programming involved.
How you get these jobs depends on your dedication to work and ability to convince potential clients that you are the best for the job.
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GETTING INTO THE WEB DESIGN INDUSTRY
Just like in any other profession, you need to be trained to get into the web design industry. Depending on how intelligent you are, one month training should get you going. You are highly advised to buy a computer for personal practice. A desktop will be good but you stand a better chance if you own a laptop due to its flexible nature which will aid your interaction/presentation to clients.

There are two visible training stages in this industry. Your choice depends on what you intend to achieve:
The first is in Website Development which we usually call website designer, the second level is in website programming (this requires a higher level of professionalism).

You might be under-employed at the moment or not even have a job and most probably be seeing finance as a limitation. This excuse is understandable but it is left for every individual to decide if he/she wants to stay bound forever. Trainings do cost money and this money you must make available some way to get the necessary tools that’ll equip you in this industry. Credible web design companies charge between 30 – 50 thousand naira for a period of one-two months. This is a worthwhile venture. The trainings you will undergo will be a sure gateway for a brighter and self reliant future.

Like I will always say, STOP waiting for the government to provide you with a job, a lot of ideas and jobs are out there waiting for you to discover them. Start something on your own, Start it today.
If you haven’t been following this column, kindly visit my blog at www.ipageng.com/blog to see the archived articles and choose which business or profession that best works for you.
I will be very glad to provide you with supportive ideas and suggestions in every step of making the best choice of career in ICT.
Correspondence to:

Jude Anyanwu
08036885585
admin@ipageng.com

Regards,

Jude Anyanwu
+2348036885585