TOP 50 CAMEROONIANS TO WATCH IN 2010 BY DULCE CAMER

Getting up from bed this morning after a long holiday trip to limbe yesterday, I cant be more happy when the first thing I see is an article putting my name on the light along with other top 49 Cameroonian personalities worth emulating in 2010 by Ducle Camer .

This is encouraging but I cant talk more because I got some serious work todo on a private project ;)...dont blame me this is the only time I got to work on my personal projects. You call it holiday, I call it AfroVisioN Group holiday, personal full-job time ;).

check out the list below

TOP 50 CAMEROONIANS TO WATCH IN 2010 BY DULCE CAMER UK....here

http://dulcecamer.blogspot.com/2009/12/dulce-camers-top-50-list-2010.html

Introduction To KohanaPHP - Article for packtpub UK

Recently I was contacted by one of the editors at www.packtpub.com, to come up with an article on programming with Kohana PHP Framework www.kohanaphp.com. I was happy getting such an offer and also happy because I will get to see how good my technology writing skills are ;), to me its some sort of a test. I came up with the article after a couple of days and for my first time, I say I am impressed because my first draft was approved and was said to be ok for publishing.

Oh well personally I was thinking I will have to do a second and third draft before it gets approved.

below is a preview of the article followed by a link to packtpub.com where the article is published... check it out and tell me what you think....merci.

Overview

Kohana PHP Framework is an open source PHP software development framework that helps php developers to build web applications faster, and also, more effectively by providing them with a set of built-in objects/classes. It also enforces highly organized coding standards.

The Kohana PHP Framework is just like Ruby on Rails; it implements the well known software engineering design pattern—Model View Controller(MVC). The Model View Controller software design pattern guides engineers to design their software codes into three separate parts which includes:

• Models: The objects that manipulate data sources and data stores.
• Views: The html and css files with inline php codes that present the user interface and controls to the application users.
• Controllers: Objects in charge of the business logic, displaying the page(views), and routing the click actions from the views to the model and back to the views....

read more on http://www.packtpub.com/article/introduction-to-kohana-php-framework

MY PRESENTATION AT BARCAMP CAMEROON 2009

Last weekend I was at the first barcamp organised in Cameroon and I must say it was very very exciting...I wont talk much about it because you can get to know more about it on www.barcampcameroon.org http://africamp.com/cameroon/ and also follow the updates here http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23barcampcameroon not to forget the pictures here flickr.

On a personal level I had a talk about Active Record which is an implementation of ORM(Object Relational Mapping)

Below is my power point presentation and I hope you like it

My Meeting with Professor Monekosso Gottlieb Lobe

My blog has been missing me alot because of my love for AfroVisioN Group(www.afrovisiongroup.com) and my other projects that you can read on my birthday blog review on blackamphi.com . Ok enough with the excuses because they dont do the job lol. lets get back to the topic at hand....my meeting with Prof Monekosso Lobe, a top Star Cameroonian Elite who has served as African Regional President of WHO(World Health Organisation) and also served Cameroon as a Minister of public health and for the record he is the person that launched Cameroon foremost Medical Institution locally known as CUSS.

While I was in Yaounde at the Ministry of youths and Sports, talking with the national president of Athletic Federation in Cameroon about their need of a website, I had a call from a friend in Buea. The phone call was demanding me to meet with Prof Monekosso and coming back to buea I scheduled the meeting with him this morning.

I was at his place for an hour and we talked about a couple of things relating to empowering Cameroonians and not only making them depend on foreign Aid but also start working and ferning for themselves.

I was very very happy to be on the same table with this 80yr old Cameroonian who has alot of experience and archievements in his portfolio(thanks be to God).

The meeting was about his Global Health Dialogue Platform. www.globalhealthdialogue.org.

We are going to be working with villages and local councils, empowering them with health related information and needs along side supervising their activities.

Where I fit in is the IT department, I am going to define how a platform similar to what I did for Link UP www.villagediary.org (coming soon), but this one will be more geared towards health and the sub urban communities in Cameroon to start with then later spread into other parts of Africa(remember he has once served WHO and he innitiated the project of all District Hospitals we have in Cameroon and most parts of Africa). So the platform will work more with health and our people in the less previledged regions of Cameroon and later Africa.

I will end this blog post here and get to work, but I will keep you posted as things unfold. Dont forget to keep up with what I have been doing for the past three months on www.blackamphi.com and watch out www.naijaborn.com and www.villagediary.org, I built those platforms on this same laptop in this same office right here in Molyko, Buea, Cameroon.

thanks for your time

Cameroon GCE Results 2009 Released

Once more, the results have been released and still not legal for someone to host them online.
I wonder why, but I am still hopping that one day this will change. Last year I wrote a blog post here http://mambenanje.blogspot.com/2008/07/cameroon-gce-results-2008.html
detailing some of the advantages and disadvantages of having the results online.

Which included:

-Raising ICT awarness amongst youths

-Introducing a new source of revenue to the GCE Board by using licenses and paid subscriptions to the results access platform

-Introducing a new source of revenue to cyber cafe owners nationwide

-Increasing the ICT usage amongst youths in Cameroon

The project we had at AfroVisioN Group that involved hosting the Cameroon GCE results online has been canceled (www.passgce.com) and we have continued with www.ubstudents.com as a replacement project targeting the youths of Cameroon, while hoping that one day we will get an opportunity to publish the results using the internet.
Its still So So SAD

I Love Kohana PHP Framework – My New Found Love

Kohana is not only my new found love when building applications with php, its also rock solid MVC (Model View Controller) Object Oriented Framework for php developers.
Just like the .NET Framework and Java SDK, Kohana can be referred to as some sort of SDK for php developers, it brings a lot of order into php codes which have been referred to as spaghetti codes for years .
With Kohana php or other php frameworks like Codeigniter, you can build your application with objects just like in Java and any other developer who knows how to use the framework will easily follow your code without asking you questions. if you ever wanted to use php in a team environment, I will ask you to consider Kohana due to the following reasons:

True Object Oriented:
Everything in Kohana SDK is an object, the helpers are objects with static methods, the libraries are all objects and you can create your own classes/objects, the views are objects (which is strange but programming wise very interesting), and of course the controllers and Models are all objects.
In other frameworks, I had never wanted to create controllers and extend them but in Kohana I realized that sometimes I have to build some ABSTRACT CONTROLLERS (I feel am back in Java), and then extends these controllers in the various sections of my website. For instance there is a Template Controller that helps developers using Kohana easily create master templates for their pages.

Best ORM in PHP:
ORM or object relational mapping is a technology where in you can map your database tables and their relationships in objects (Models) and then instantiate those models and call functions to get the data without writing SQL. In Kohana, I find ORM very easy to use and fun. Before ORM in Kohana, I tried ORM in Cakephp and Codeigniter but they all proved to be buggy or were too difficult to comprehend.

Templating made easy:
Templating is something most web developers in Africa will have to consider, it makes your life easy as a developer and makes the life of designers you work with super easy. In Kohana you create a single template.php file which can constitute the site's logo, navigation, sidebar and footer. Then fit in some variables that will change from control function to control function. This way my web apps all have one master template and just small view files that I set as variables. It makes my life easy to edit and also to change the design of the whole site in minutes. Check out the templating in Kohana at www.kohanaphp.com and you will be amazed

I8n aka internationalization:
Before Kohana I had to figure out how to hack Codeigniter to do internationalization but with Kohana, everything that appears on the screen as text you can use the i8n folder found in application/i8n and make sure you have text in every language possible. Coming from Cameroon, just like Canada we have french and english as official languages which means most of my apps have to be internationalized from day one.

PHPDOC and Code Hints, Code Completion:
In Kohana, since everything is an object, it simple means using phpdoc very well and a good IDE like Netbeans 6.5, you will get code hints and completion for both in build Kohana libraries, helpers, other classes and your own built classes. I use Netbeans 6.5 and when I code, I get a lot of speed reading the code hints and getting code completion for the functions in every helper or object I want to use. It makes my life easy and I just feel I am coding using .NET C# or Java. But other than Visual Studio, and like Eclipse, Netbeans is free and its light weight (in terms of memory consumption) and easy to install and configure to coding with php.

Those are some of the reasons I think I will go with Kohana.
Another question is:
why use php at all?
Well php is cheap for me and the server I have bought runs only php and most of my clients don't care which technology we use so we go with php. Hey with php I get to train and employ talents in the space of 6months, something I cant do with .NET or Java.

What do you think about Kohana php ?

Where To Get Design Inspiration

Nowadays I am more of a developer than a designer though I love doing both. A few days back I tried coming up with some designs as required by clients but I was always stuck and not liking the things I did. I turned to the internet and I found this cool link that talks about 100 sites that can help you come up with just the best designs. Even if your brain is tired it will be inspired by simple looking at these sites.
check out the link and if you got a better way a designer like me can search for inspiration please post it as a comment.

http://designm.ag/inspiration/design-inspiration-toolbox/

Google Adsense is not working in Africa part 2

hello, my blog is kind of scanty with fewer posts coming up lately. Men AfroVisioN Group is on the fast lane and you know how it is. Anyway no room for excuses because they don't do the job.
Last year I wrote a very controversial blog post about Google Adsense Not Working In Africa. Now I decided to come with a follow up because I noticed some improvements(++ to Google Africa).
Check out this picture then we proceed.
The picture is a screen shot from www.ubstudents.com my Cameroonian youths network for students of university of buea. I have been seeing these ads lately and I was like: Is this MTN Africa using Ad words Network ?? if so men the ads are getting real in the sense that they will make more sense to my users.
My cry about Adsense - Adwords in Africa was the fact that most of the ads were not about things African internet users could relate to in their daily lives compared to the ads they see on TV or Magazines. Imagine an ad about hotels in California on ubstudents.com, can the students pay for a hotel in USA? Hence they don't click on such ads and we make nothing form our traffic. [ Seun Osewa do you see where I was coming from ].
But with Ads like the one in picture above, Google adsense begins to make more sense to my users and it begins to generate more money. If you own an African web portal and you are an adsense publisher, I guess you might have noticed these ads from MTN. I found them on ubstudents.com and on bushfalling.com . Gradually Google adsense is working in Africa but not yet up to 20%, we need more companies to start using adwords which I am currently advocating and slowly but surely, we will be making some money from our traffic.

THIS IS AN UNBELIEVABLE BLOG POST FROM FOUNDER OF PHP HIMSELF

reading this blog post I was totally shocked. How come Rasmus of php.net writes something like this to the public. If its for traffic generation then I am totally disappointed. read the post below

http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/38-The-no-framework-PHP-MVC-framework.html

My comments about his post:

How can he prefer his own framework to other frameworks that make the work easy for us. Its like me telling him I will never use php because it wraps everything together in one language rather I will build my own server scripting engine that will let me support .net, java and php where necessary. HOW DUMB IS THAT ??.

These frameworks might be bad but the overall success is the fact that they are documented for teams to work together and also ask questions to community on one common platform. For instance the codeigniter framework has documentation and if I am building my application and somewhere I get called for something else, I can outsource it to any php developer and tell him my code base is on codeigniter.com. This way any developer can update my codes by learning codeigniter and then working from where I stopped given the specifications and UML diagrams. But using his so called no framework framework. How is he going to explain things to other developers when he gets stuck along the way. THIS ONLY SHOWS HE IS NOT A TEAM PLAYER OR HE HAS A LOT OF TIME TO TRAIN GUYS TO UNDERSTAND HIS NO FRAMEWORK FRAMEWORK AND WORK ON PROJECTS WITH HIM.

Men Frameworks like the .NET framework is what php has been lacking for years and no true programmer will lean more to procedural and individualistic ways of doing things than a team way of doing things.

I don't have the time to create my own framework, before building my application, then spend time writing documentation for my team members to learn and then start developing. I want to use a framework that has done a lot of stuff for me and can also help me outsource work to others and still be able to modify their codes even if they are thousands of miles away from me. I don't need to send them mails or get conference calls with them just to ask what they use to validate codes or connect to the google api. I will just follow the programming principles in the framework and understand their codes and they too will understand mine.

Men Rasmus, that your toy post was a total mess and please try to upgrade and follow the current trend of things

GMAIL NEEDS BETTER MULTITHREADING

Have you ever wondered what will happen if your mail client could send mails in the BACKGROUND ? if so then we are very much alike.

MAGIC: I wish that the gmail team reads this and adds this feature so it can help me read and respond to my business mails faster.

Now you might be wandering what I mean by "multithreading in gmail", well I simple wish to be able to send more than one mail at the same time with my gmail account.

The idea is simple:
1) I compose a mail,
2) add some attachments,
3) hit send button,
4) gmail sends the mail in a background thread and shows me the "notification status"
5) I go back to my inbox, (mail is been sent in background)
6) read another mail (mail is still being sent, or if done notice appears)
7) reply to another mail which also quees in a background thread.
8) I go back to inbox and the cycle continues

This way, while a mail is been sent, gmail informs me, "mails sending in process" or "mail has been sent" but the sending process doesnt stop me from searching, reading or doing other stuffs in gmail. Currently when you sending a mail it blocks you from doing any other thing, if you try to click on inbox while mail sending in process, it gives you a modal notice "your mail has not been sent... discard...". but they could just do a background thread and I go on while the machine works and informs me assynchronously.

Why on earth are the smartest web geeks(Phds) not able to do this simple computing stuff for me ??
AJAX is assynchronous javascript and XML. if i can remember my AJAX lessons, Assynchronous means it runs in the background, and gmail is one of the leading AJAX apps on earth. So guys please add me some "send mail in background" feature so i can reply to 20 mails in 3-- mins.

Trip to Cocoa Farms in Matoh-Kumba, Cameroon - 21 feb to 22 feb 2009

Recently, myself and a partner in Switzerland( Sebastian Schmid), decided to do some market research in the farming, processing and exporting of cocoa from Cameroon. This initiative came upon me while I was on my way back to Buea from the ICTAfrica2008 conference (here). I was sitting in the bus and wondering why I export software codes(programs) from AfroVisioN Group to Europe while my classmates, brothers and sisters in my village work in Cocoa farms and I could help them export their produce and help improve their living standards.

Question was : Churchill you are exporting software (outsourcing), why don't you also export agricultural produce just like you do with software ???

Well Sebi is a great Swiss social entrepreneur, a friend and a partner. When I told him my plans he was interested and we planned a trip to visit the farms in my village and see how we could be a part of their farming process.

Well the pictures below will give you a glimpse of our trip:

Below is Sebi in a cocoa farm and my uncle in the background


Below am feeling like a great farmer


Below: At my uncle's place in Matoh - Kumba. preparing to visit the farms


Below: on the way from Kumba to Matoh (45mins drive ) - African car (a full blog post is required)


Below: on our way from Kumba to Matoh, we had to step down for car to climb

Below: on our way back from Kumba to Buea, I had "nose bleeding" too much noise I hit in Kumba at bus station


Below: Catholic Church Kosalla Kumba - while we were walking to get a taxi from the Theological Seminary

Below: Matoh is a realy nice village with students coming back from school ;)


Below: road to the farms - 20mins walk from the village

Below: At the Theological seminary where we lived with Christoph and his wife Cornelia(in pic below)


Below: buea before our departure

Below: At Christoph's place - Christoph hosted us in Kumba after we got back from Matoh. Realy cool guy and he is Pastor and lecturer at Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kumba. He also gave me some paino lessons that night. He is a geek on the paino ;)


Below: Sebi sharing some drinks with my uncles at a village bar, while we were expecting a car to pick us back to Kumba from Matoh


Below: Sebi with my two uncles


Below: This is where I grew up and spent most of my early holidays


Below: this is my background and I miss this life


Below: on the road to the farms, Sebi was tired but he says I was tired not him


Below: trying to be happy with a cocoa pod


Below: This is the source of the chocolate you eat, so respect it


Below: Sebi what are you searching for ??

Random Events Dec 2008 - March 2009

Well my blog is missing me because of the tones of work we have at AfroVisioN Group but sure I will always post one or two stuffs because the blogger in me wont rest till I do some blogging ;).
Today I want to take this time off to write about some random events , not much but just a glimpse will be revealed.

Here we go:

ICTAFRICA 18-21 December 2008, Yaounde Cameroon.

In December 2008, there was a conference in Cameroon organized by some African professors in universities around the world (mostly USA). for information about the conference visit http://icitd.com/ictafrica2008/. They launched a call for papers and I submitted a research paper about IT4UMagazine I did with Phebe. I can say the paper was rich enough for the juries to accept it as a good topic for the conference.

Below is my PowerPoint presentation:



below is my video presentation:



below are some pictures




for more pictures and information please visit the following links

http://banyangigirl.blogspot.com/2009/02/ict-conference-2008-yde-camer.html

http://banyangigirl.blogspot.com/2009/02/conference-videos.html

AfroVisioN's Offline Gorilla Ad Campaign

We have started posting posters all over the south west Region of Cameroon and this is to inform the general public about our "ONE WEBSITE FOR EVERY CAMEROONIAN SCHEME". check out the picture below and what you see there is actually what you will see all over buea, mile 17, mile 16, Muea and Ekona. Next we move on to Limbe, Mutengene, Tiko, Kumba and Mamfe. The picture is from Billzimmerman, he saw the posters all over the place and took a picture which he posted on twitter find his tweet here - impressive.

140+ Wordpress Themes

Nowadays, its nearly impossible for me to come up with blog posts. Well I dont blame myself because I am chocked up with business, a lot of projects and programming to handle.
Today, I stumbled upon this article posted on twitter by White African and I decided to blog about it.
Some how with this post, whenever I need to see the article and the blog themes I will search my blog and find it(blog bookmarking :D ).
Well check out the link below, it contains 140+ wordpress blog themes and if you need inspiration for your next design or you simply want to run your own blog like Bill 27months.com , go there and download the one you like for free.
http://www.instantshift.com/2009/02/22/140-brilliant-free-wordpress-themes-around/

40+ Useful & Handy Web Designer’s Web Services & Tools

Today I stumbled upon this link from a Nigerian friend and Entrepreneur - Tim Akinbo. Its a blog post he found and shared with me on facebook. The blog post is an amazing list of web tools that will help me and my team (AfroVisioN) rapidly design websites at 50,000FCFA and also track our websites availability online. These tools will also help us come up with Rapid Web Applications for our clients world wide. AfroVisioN needs to research on many ways to improve productivity and tools like this will push our productivity to another level ;)
check the link out
http://www.noupe.com/tools/40-useful-handy-web-designers-web-services-tools.html

MY 2008 DIGESTED IN ONE BLOG POST

January 2008
I was solidifying partnership with this Indian Tech guy

Febuary 2008
Started work on theinvestor.in and studentnetworks.in, and launched www.bushfalling.com [AfroVisioN's community of cameroonians ], met Enstine of njangihost.com , FEE of kerawa.com and Nino of 20mai.net thats when the marvelous connection started


March 2008
Launched cameroonfootballers.com as AfroVioN's community of professional football players

April 2008
Had this great interview about me and AfroVisioN on 20mai.net, and started partnership talks with Sebastian schmid of Ecorp www.ecorp.ch

May 2008
Launched AfroVisioN's " one website for every cameroonian" project which entails a full professional site at 50,000FCFA per year

June 2008
We started work on www.afrikeo.com, www.seekvice.com and met Judith Modjock of www.weboptimal.net and signed a partnership deal with weboptimal.

July 2008
We had the first version of afrikeo and started work on our partnership with panther media and Ecorp. Our main partnership for Business Process Outsourcing of web applications from switzerland to Cameroon. Also met Joel Nlepe from Microsoft who is currently working with us on alot of projects including www.coolmboa.com and we also launched his ww.africa2point0.com blog.

August 2008
We successfully implemented the www.executiveasset.com project for our client in Douala. Real estate site where you can search for houses to rent or buy in Douala. And we started work on www.spdmania.com for cheap and auction sales listing in Douala.

September 2008
Redeveloped our AfroVisioN new corporate website, with an administrative backend, CRM module and scalable codes running on an MVC design patern with HTML views.

October 2008
We added computers to our training hall and launched marketing for our AfroVisioN Training programs in Buea and online

November 2008
We releaseed the www.spdmania.com for our partner Weptomial.
I came in contact with this Cameroonian Msc student in UK who intends to do her internship with AfroVisioN.
my research paper got accepted for IctAfrica 2008 Conference.
I came in contact with Billzimmerman and had this great email interview with him posted on his blog 27months.com

December 2008
Attended the ICTAfrica conference along Phebe Etchu business student from USA.
Started revising our business plan at AfroVisioN for the year 2009.
Also came in contact with Anabi Epizitone of BigPiktures Group www.bigpiktures.com

That is the brief run down of my professional life in 2008, and some projects are not included due one or two things.

AfroVisioN 50000FCFA per year website promo

These days we have been working on banners for our 50 thousand FCFA / year website offer to all cameroonians home and abroad. below are some of the banners we have produced to do the online marketing. You can help us by placing any of them on your blog or website or ?? and link to our site www.afrovisiongroup.com to help spread the word.