Mylastkobo.com to Organise an intensive skill acquisition training exercise for students of the university of Benin.

In line with my commitment to enlightening young Nigerians on the benefits of gaining "sellable" skill before going out into the labour market in search of jobs which are not necessarily always available I will be hosting a one day intensive skill acquisition program in the university of Benin for members of the faculty of arts students association to help them acquire basic knowledge of certain skills that would help put them in a better position in the society when they graduate. 

        The program is taking place on the 14th of May this year and is being organised with the support of the office of the FASA president. Skills to be taught under this program are: 

* web design 

* Blogging

* Events management and interior decor

* Production of Cosmetic products

* Production of ice cream

* Production and design of Ankara products

* Pop corn making

* Make up artistry 

* Network marketing 

* Juice making( shappman) 

* Laundary

These packages will be taught by experts in these fields and it would also be a practical hands on training program where every participating student would be sure to gain the basic knowledge that he or she would need to set up on this fields.

Handouts are going to be available and each participating student is encouraged to take advantage of them as they will serve as a manual for future references.

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POPS'N'CHILLAS the success story of a small popcorn outlet in Abuja

Few people will choose opening a popcorn outlet as their

preferred choice of business in a large city like Abuja

where there are large eateries bakeries and cafe's all

around and the price of setting up business in Abuja is

among the highest in the whole country,

the questions one may want to ask are: how many people

dey chop popcorn?(how many people do buy popcorn?), how

much them dey even sell popcorn and how much gain i want

make inside?(how much do they sell popcorn and what

would be my gain for each sales?), shop money for Abuja

too cost shey na popcorn i want rent shop to sell?( the

cost of renting a shop in abuja is very high why should 
i rent a store and just sell popcorn?


are these the questions that come into your mind
whenever you think of going into such a business

venture?

Well mylastkobo.com bring to you the success story of

POPS'N'CHILLAS a small modern pop corn outlet based in

Abuja

On saturday i and a crew member of mylastkobo.com went

out to interview some small businesses and then we came

across one business that we couldnt afford to ignore,

from across the road, while we were exchanging contacts

with a young small business owner, we sighted a huge

popcorn cup atop the roof of a small cafe with disco

lights around it and we immediately decided that we will

go and see what was going on there that was how we were

able to get you this exclusive interview of a very

brilliant and innovative business venture in the heart

of Abuja







Mylastkobo.com: Hello we are from mylastkobo.com an

online magazine dedicated to telling the stories of

smallscale medium enterprises like your own to motivate

guide and encourage our young people to start up on

their own. We would like to ask you a few questions

about your business can we come in?


POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): you can come in, although my

Madam is not around now so i will just answer the

questions that i think i can answer.


Mylastkobo.com: No problem sir, what is your name?

POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): My name is Godwin.

Mylastkobo.com: how long have you been working here?

POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): Well it has not being long that
we started so i have been around since the startup.

Mylastkobo.com: so you would be able to give us some

details on how it all started?


POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): yes actually this popcorn is not

the nigerian kind of popcorn, my Boss must have come

across the idea from the internet, when we were about to

start she went for a training to learn how to make this
 
kind of pop corn, she had to go under training just to

have the experience and she put me through on how to

make it.

Mylastkobo.com: so how was it like when you initially

started, how was sales like for the business under your

management?


POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin):the issue of marketing, i think

that is one area that has been affecting us from the

start till now, although we have to give people fliers

and try to tell people about it but i think marketing is

one aspect of this business that we will continue to

focus on because some people are new to this kind of

popcorn so when you tell them the price they will say"

is it not just ordinary popcorn?" most people do not

fully appreciate the unique nature of our popcorn, but

those that are familiar with our product we usually do

not have any problem selling to them,

as you can see now we are preparing for an event, a

birthday party, and from there we also get the

opportunity to introduce our products to people most

especially the kids and young people.

Mylastkobo.com: So how affordable are your products?


POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): As you can see we have the one of #200, we have the one of #400 and so the price
ranges, although we also sell other products apart from
popcorn like soft drinks, ice cream and we also do chips
and cheese so we have other products apart from popcorn.

Mylastkobo.com: So what do you see for the future in

this business and what efforts are you putting into

making the business grow?


POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): well as for me i do a lot of

research, i try to find new ways to bring customers here

and make them interested in our products, i also

research on other products that we can add to our list

of products so they can bring more people here, for

example in the begining we were not selling anything

apart from popcorn but when i came i researched some

other products and talked to Her about it and She

agreed, thats why you see us selling Drinks and other

thing.

Mylastkobo.com: so you mean you were the one that

suggested those product to your Boss?


POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): Yes.

 
Mylastkobo.com: well Mr Godwin we have come to the end

of this interview, we would like to say a big thank you

to you and your Boss on the behalf of mylastkobo.com and

on the behalf of all the young prospective business

owners out there that you have helped by sharing this

success story.


POPS'N'CHILLAS(Godwin): Thank you

we exchanged handshake and we left, i and my crew member

remained quiet for sometime while we walked away from

the outlet we were still very much surprised that people

could be so innovative to think of such a small and

profitable business idea in a place like Abuja where the

cost of renting a shop could get to a Million naira,

with this success story of POPS'N'CHILLAS i think people

should stop giving escuses and start setting up

something.

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Mylastkobo's exclusive interview with The young CEO of BETA LOOK Laundaries Kubwa Abuja

Mr Femi, the proud CEO of Beta Looks Laundaries in front of his office

The success story of Beta Looks Laundary is one that should motivate any prospective Small
Medium Business owner out there to start working hard to achieve the best. The most remarkable thing about this young Small Medium enterprise owner who finished his National Diploma certificate program in Rufus Giwa Poly Ondo State. Is that he never once mentioned, while he was being interviewed, He never once mentioned any instances when He went out for any so called job Interview or screening test. Here is the interview.

Mylastkobo.com: sir could you please give us a brief introduction about yourself?

Mr Femi:  My name is Emmanuel Oluwafemi and i hail from Ondo state. I completed my National Diploma certificate program in the field of Estate Management from the Rufus Giwa Polytechnic Ondo State, after which i came to Abuja for my Industrial training. After my IT in Abuja i moved down to Maraba to meet my Brother, there was no work so i followed my Brothers friend who is a Painter, i followed him to sites just to learn how to paint then like that, like that i learned how to paint and in two months i was able to carry "roller"(paint brush). i started going for my own Jobs and was earning just enough to keep me going that was how i started developing myself.


Mr Femi attending to questions from mylastkobo.com

Mylastkobo.com: So you finished from what department in Polytechnic?

Mr Femi: Estate Management.

Mylastkobo.com: Wow! so knowing that you did estate management whta made you to go into setting up a aundary outfit?

Mr Femi: After my National Diploma i wanted to push forward but there was no power(money).

Mylastkobo.com: but one would have thought that as you already have a degree in estate managemnet and experience in painting, one may have expected you to develope on your career in the lines of estate Management but what made you to realy choose laundary and dry cleaning as your preferred choice of Business, what made you to really go into this laundary business?

Mr Femi: what made me go into laundary? i was working in a site at one time in Area 2 so i met one Man called Labaran He is was the site Engineer at that site and we also worked in other sites. but the work was not coming that regularly again sometimes we only work once in a month and before the end of the month you dun spend the whole money finish.

An Array of carefully laundered suits at Beta Looks Laundary

Mylastkobo.com: Oh i understand. you people were not getting regular jobs again.

Mr Femi: Yes, so he told me that there was one plan he wants to lay down. He told me that he want to set up a laundary, Barber shop, Women Saloon and Massage parlour that he would like me to manage a department there in short he sent me to train for Laundary.

" it was very hard at first coping with the heat and stress of starching and ironing someone's cloths, infact i just had to manage, After my training he started a new shop in Kubwa here i moved down to Kubwa from Maraba and i just forgot about my house i was working and sleeping in the shop, i was doing everything in the shop like it was my house",

Then after a year when i believed his laundary is already moving, atleast i have laid a solid foundation for his business, i trained some guys for him.

Mylastkobo.com: so you have trained people?

Mr Femi: yes i trained some guys for him he even trained and became very professional, then he oopened another shop and placed somebody to manage it for him, he opened another one for NYSC and put one of the boys i trained there then i managed the head office at Dutse.
after i have gathered some money i had to tell him that i want to leave, that i want to set up something for myself and he told me that i cant go empty like that so he just had to support me

Inside the laundary

Mylastkobo.com: When you started off on your own what was the major challenges you faced?

Mr Femi: Eh! i have faced some major challenges athough i am very good at marketing so i had little problem in that area.

Mylastkobo.com: You know in Nigeria when you want to set-up anything you have to make your own private arrangements for electricity so that the poor power distribution in the country would not affect you, especially a business like yours that is dependent on electricity, so what was your plan in that area?

Mr Femi: firstly before we came down i looked round and saw that electricity in this( Kubwa) is still good and i noticed that the light here is a little bit stable atleast we have up to 18-19 hours of daily electricity which is ok.

Mylastkobo.com: yes that is Ok compared to the statistics from other area.

Mr Femi: So the matter of getting a good customer that was a big challenge but i have learned a lot, we do share fiers, house to house adevertisement, i come to your house, i dont care if you insult me because i am a laundary man or not, some people say " i have a laundary man where do you want me to put him? but sometimes, especially when i came around here people just kept coming they want to check how i work i looked at what they want and how they looked so i decided that i had to improve myself to serve this people and i had to ay a very good standard that in this environment i want to be the best, which i was very successful in that. so i think the packaging and the "perfect ironing", cleanliness of the environment and my way of approaching customers those are the things that made me unique.

inside the aundary(laundary equipments)

Mylastkobo.com: so do you have any strong competition in this area? that you think would be able to challenge your standard?

Mr Femi: ( laughs) in this environment? i dont, only my boys that i trained that can even try to move close to my standard. they will try but the difference is still clear(smilling). only if i just decide to overlook some work.

Mylastkobo.com: so if you want to encourage young people that are wiling to move into your line of business what will you tell them?

Mr Femi: You see, they have to go for training and this work you must love it, you must have the passion because if there is no passion you will just get tired of it and you may not be able to continue.
Mylastkobo.com: so are there sometimes that you feel that way?

Mr Femi: yes sometimes casting of light ( power failure) that may last for up to five days and we will not be abe to work because sometimes to get fuel for the generating set is an issue. and you will have a of cloths to deliver.

Mylastkobo.com: so you get a of pressure from the customers?


inside the laundary( Boys at work)

Mr Femi: ( exclaims) Heh! it is always very difficult. some come here and raise their voices on us, and you know when a customer is shouting in your businesss premises you dont know who is watching, a prospective customer might be passing by, a new customer may want to come in and you are shouting, so those times i sometimes feel like which kind work i even they do self i sometimes feel like closing up the business and find another way.

Mylastkobo.com: so how do you overcome this challenge?

Mr Femi: when they come i address them, some say nothing should be an escuse and some understand. i apologise to them and urge both of my workers to be up and doing in their presence.

Mylastkobo.com: so are you still planning to further your Education?

Mr Femi: i am already pursuing my HND so most times i am no always available i leave the bulk of the work for my young workers and i always try to encourage them, sometimes when i am around i give them 500 naira to go out for lunch, one of them even came to me and told me he wanted to write Jamb and i gave him the enrolment money without deducting it from his pay because i know that if he is successful in the Jamb it is my joy.

Mylastkobo.com: so how do you manage your workers when you are not around?

Mr Femi: you see this( he points to a notification written " call this number for your complaints and suggestions" my customers can always complain of any poor service by my workers to me directly on my personal line. and i always have this ( raising some sheets of paper) customer complaints form that i encourage my customers to use for their complaints.

Mylastkobo.com: so sir what final thing do you have to say to viewers out there about your Buisness?

Mr Femi: this is not an easy job and if you know you can do it then you must go for the training and even after the training you must have passion for the job or you will get discouraged along the line, most especially when the challenges start coming in.
Then to start this kind of business you have to have the money to get a decent shop, paint it, let it look neat and get an electric iron and a good laundary table for ironing the cloths even if you dont have money yet for washing machine for a start in the next three months if you are very good the washing machine will come. and you have to learn to be very careful with money, dont spend anyhow or you will pack up quickly. but there is one thing.

Mylastkobo.com: What is that?

Mr Femi: for a start you have to get support, if not for the support from my former boss i would not have been able to establish something like this with my little savings. and it is a very tedious business sometimes i sleep only for 4hours a day because sometimes we have to work allnight.

Mylastkobo.com: Well the truth is that you are reaping and you will continue to reap the fruit of your labour. i am very happy you granted us this interview, it will go a long way in guiding and motivating prospective Small Medium enterprise onwers who plan on going into this your line of business. Thank you very Much Mr Femi.

Mr Femi: thank you too. weldone.


inside the laundary( Boys at work)

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Mylastkobo.com will start its exclusive interviews of young SME owners next month.

When i started this blog i started it with the hope that i would be able to encourage young graduates to think out of the box and set up something of their own instead of venturing on long and sometimes unproductive search for ready made jobs.
       So far i have been committed to that plan, and have granted exclusive interviews to several young successful SME owners, through this interviews i have uncovered the success secrets of some of the young small business owners that we interviewed, through their stories i hope you would find yourself, overcome your fears and be motivated towards success in your own enterprise.

 i will start posting the interviews from the second week of November. do not be impatient. this is what you have waited for, for a long time. so please stay with me as i bring you the survival stories of Young entrepreneurs  from some of Nigeria's Commercial cities.

come second week of October we will bring you this exclusive interviews than i hope would give you a better knowledge on been an SME onwer in Africa's most populous nation.

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Installing a new wordpress template on your wordpress site (for techpreneurs).

Installing a wordpress template:
 installing a wordpress template is easier than it is supposed to be,
of course those of you familiar with coding web pages with HTML and CSS would agree with me on this one.
 Installing a wordpress theme is so simple that you can try multiple wordpress theme on your site before choosing your preferable template,
 and the good thing is that all the wordpress template that you may need for building the site
 of your dreams are either free or goes for a little chicken change. now let get you to install a new wordpress template on your site.

 Visit the admin panel(dashboard)locate themes( under appearance) click on it and it will
 take you to a page with a list of your already installed themes and the option of adding new themes,
to install a new theme on your wordpress site click on the add new button at the upper left part of the page.

 It will take you to another page where you will find a lot of free but yet beautiful and professional wordpress templates
that you can use for your wordpress site, you can either choose to install them online or to download and upload later,
after clicking on install the installation wizard will take some time to load after which it will show you something like this

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how to create multiple blog sections on a single wordpress installation with categories(for techpreneurs)

using wordpress categories you can create multiple blogs on your wordpress blog, this would help you arrange your blog into different sections e.g for a news blog you can have a section for international news,local news or entertainment news. Now lets get right to showing you how to perform this wonderful wordpress trick brought to you exclusively by mylastkobo.com.

Open your admin panel(dashboard), go the categories page under posts,and create new categories for each new sections of your blog that you want to create.
After creating this categories, visit your admin dashboard and go to Menus—under appearance, when you get to menu you will see something like this(image 0.45)


1.    This area assists you in choosing the previously created menu  that you wish to work with, it also help you with the creation of a new menu.
2.    All the pages on your site are listed here(every page is added to your site menu automatically after creation)
3.    Wordpress presents you with the option of adding an internal or external page link to your menu.
4.    This contains a listing of all the categories on your site, as we move on in this part of the wordpress customization tutorial on categories i will show you what to do with the links on this list.
5.    You can toggle between different menu option that is if you have multiple menu on your site.
6.    This part contain a tabbed list of links to pages and categories already on your site menu.

To create sections on your website you will need to make some changes to your site menu, if you have been able to create new categories and if you have gotten to a page similar to the one shown in the image above then you are on the right track.
Now move to the category tab by the left side of the menus page. you will see a list of all the categories you have created, now click on any one of those categories that you want to feature on your sites frontpage menu. Drag the clicked category to the part labelled number 6 on the image and place it in a suitable position in your hierarchy of links. You could either place it squarely under another link to make it a secondary(child) category or just place it on its own to make it a primary(parent) category.
 

The above image is showing a list of categories according to their hierarchy from.
1a and b. These are parent categories: parent categories have child categories under them that often slide out when you hover above them with the pointer.
2. this is a child category under “our administrator in the image above”.
3. this is a child’s child category, i.e it would appear under a child’s category
Note:  a child category would normally drop down or slide out from a parent category. Depends on what template you are using.


Click on save menu to register the changes you have just made before leaving the menu page to preview your frontpage menu to see your changes.
 Now your site have different blog sections, you can blog on different topics and issues on various sections, by adding them to the related category.
When using categories ensure you clearly define the description of the category as this greatly affect the performance of that category and its contents on search engines.

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List of Top HTML tags that every blogger should know about.(for techpreneurs)

List of Top HTML tags that every blogger should know about.

 1.Meta tags. This tag should be the first thing you type on your post content field before writing      your post as this tags tells a search engine bot about the content of your post e.g
the meta description tag for this article should look like this:

<head>
<meta name=”description” content=”list of top html tags for bloggers”>
<meta name=”keyword” content=”html, blogging, seo, post formatting, editing posts,”>
<meta name=”author” content=”steve azuka”>
</head>
This way when a search engine sees the post it will find it easy to understand the content of my post and what it is all about. and with this you can also lay authorship claim on your unique content.

2.Bold/strong.  This is a basic way of emphasizing and emboldening your text and making it thicker than other text e.g a sub heading(if you do not want to use the <header> tag)  a text could be made emboldened by lacing it with this tag
<b> this text is bold</b>
or
<strong>this text is bold</strong>

3.links.

  (i) linking text:  there are two ways of adding a text link to a post:
                        1: just plainly writing the URL(uniform resource locator) e.g:  http://www.mylastkobo.com ( some sites demand that you use the href element to place any link)
                       Or
                        2: embedding it in a text: using the <a> (anchor ) tag and href element you can carefully embed your link inside a text < a href=http://www.mylastkobo.com></a>


(ii) linking an image: placing a link inside an image is not a very tricky thing to learn, you still have to use the <a> tag and href element but this time we will also be using the <img> tag and src element:
The image for this example is located here so we will have to copy it cus we will be needing it to complete the process.

<a href=http://www.mylastkobo.com> <img src=http://our image is located here.yipee /></a>.

Note: when linking people to other site ensure you put in target as blank, so that a new tab will be opened authomatically on their browser.

4.image. <img> as a blogger you will soon get used to typing and seeing this very  often. It is used for placing an image in a post either from your site or another site it is used alongside the element “src”
<img src=http://this is my image’s url.com/bighead.jpg width=” 550” height”400” border=”2px” /> the image tag is described as an empty tag in html so it does not need a closing tag but rather it closes itself.
The width and height element is used for deciding the dimension of the image.


6.blockquote. this is used for outputting a text as a quote it uses the HTML <blockquote> tag to output your text as quotes:
<blockquote> i want this text to be quoted because quoting is cool and i like it.</blockquote>

7.Underline. you use this HTMl tag to underine a text in a post;
<ul> i want this cool text to have a nice line under it</ul>

8.break. for those coding without a wordprocessor based text editor you will understand the need for this HTML feature <br /> it help you to break from one line to start writing in the other line it is an empty tag and it contain its ending slash inside the first tag.

9.italic.  you use the <i> tag to turn a text into the italic font style. This is usually used when you want to point a word out in a sentence. <i> italic is cool it makes the word wavy like elephant grass</i>

10. lists. The list tag is used to make a simple list of texts in a post. You will find that there are different ways of using the list tag, either by using the ordered list tag<ol>this output your list with numbers</ol> or by using the unordered list tag<ul> this outputs your list with bullets</li> you may also use the definition list<dl></dl> for making a list of definations like in a dictionary.
Using lists.

-Ordered lists:  <p>list of things i will buy</p>
     <ol>
            <li> tomato 50 naira</li>
            <li> bread 100 naira
<ul><li> agege bread</li>
        <li> tuntun bread</li><ul></li>
<li>macaroni 250 naira</li>
<li> bournvita 500 naira</li>
            <li>beans 300 naira</li></ol>

 -Unordered lists: <p> list of noise makers</p>
<ul>
<li>mayowa otularibo</li>
<li>Vincent ogunaiye</li>
<li>tomson otulei</li></ul>

This article was written for www.mylastkobo.com by the author steve azuka it is protected by copyright laws  to reuse this article you must abide by the authors term of retaining this copyright note along with the article or risk having your site or institution sued and reported to the appropriate authorities.

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Protect your online Business TRANSACTIONS from hackers and fraud with AVAST SAFE ZONE

 The avast! SafeZone is an additional security feature in avast! Pro Antivirus, avast! Internet Security and avast! Premier, which allows you to browse the web in a private, secure environment, invisible to the rest of your system. For example, if you do your banking or shopping online, or other security-sensitive transactions, you can be sure that your personal data cannot be monitored by spyware or
key-logging software.

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How to create pages on your wordpress site.(techpreneurs)

 How to create pages on your wordpress site.

how to create a page on wordpress:   Now we are going to learn how to create a page on wordpress. We are going to create an about us page. a page where your users can get to know about your site and the services you render. An about us page is one of the most important page in any site because it is the first stop for visitors who are interested in knowing what your website is all about. to create an about us page visit your admin dashboard click on the label “pages”

[image 1]
















then locate the add new button it is usually located at the top left corner of the page, click on it.

[image 2]

In the new window write the name of the new page you want to create in the field written enter title here 1
Write the content of the page in the bigger text box 2 and specify if the page is going to be a parent page 3 or a child page, you can go further down the window to specify a featured image(optional) for the page, then click on publish 4 to save all what you have just done.

[image 3]

Note: a parent page is different from a child page in the sense that, a parent page may have up to 5 “chilld pages” under it, take for example a page like “international news” for a news website can have child pages like “Africa, Asia, America, Europe and Australia”

this article was first written here. how to create a page on your wordpress site by steve azuka email= stevezuks@gmail.com for mylastkobo.com

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Factors to consider when choosing a host service provider.(techpreneurs)

Factors to consider when choosing a host service provider.

To be on the safer side when making a choice of where to host your website it is advisable to look for these basic requirements and features before going ahead  to purchase an hosting plan.

1. Cost

You get what you pay for! The hosting for your website is the foundation of your website and it goes a long way to determine the success or failure of your website even before hosting the choice of a bad host service could cripple a good web design project so. So before calculating the cost, try to calculate the value. You need to invest in good hosting. The cost of hosting is something that should be calculated into your entire website budget. Host service providers that offer “cheap” and “unlimited” accounts should be approached with caution. Because most of them do not last long in the business and when they pack up so also will your website.

Look to see what you are getting with the cheap host and what features are included in the cost. Do they charge for additional domains, support, backups, etc.. Call them. Ask questions. Tell them what you envision your site’s needs to be. Just don’t take it for granted that they take your site as seriously as you do.

2.  Compatibility

Take a moment to understand the technologies that are being used within your website. For example if you are building a WordPress site, your hosting provider should be familiar and compatible with WordPress(the same goes for every other CMS you may choose to use). Find out if it is a Linux or Windows based server. Also find out if they are running the most current version of PHP and databases such as MySQL.



3.TECH SUPPORT

One of the most important requirements that you should consider before choosing a host company is its tech support, how soon do they respond and how helpful are their response.

In my own opinion, this is most important issue to consider. When a site, for some unknown reason, goes down, can I call up and get a real, live person(not a computer program or an answering machine) on the phone? And, more than that, can they find out what’s wrong and fix it, or at least tell me what I need to do to get my site back online?

It is very dangerous and uncomfortable to host with a host company that does not have an effective and live tech support. when your site is down?

You are supposed to be able to reach your host company’s tech support or customer service within 30minutes and book your complaint.

Before purchasing any hosting plan, you are supposed to be able to reach the customer service of your host service provider to inquire about the pricing and billing procedure.



4.ADDED INCENTIVES(optional)  area of consideration comes down to the following question – What makes this hosting company special? What extra incentive do they provide to make hosting your site with them just a touch more attractive? Whether it’s multiple data centers, energy-saving practices, or additional features such as regular data backups or free domain privacy, hosting companies often offer more than just servers. If you see one that offers something you need or find important, that can be a good indicator that you should look into using that company.

I know some host service providers that give free custom emails and free domains.

5.Customers Reviews / Satisfaction / Reputation

This is one of those factors that you’ll have to get a little creative to get the real story on. Do a Google Blog search for a particular hosting company, or look them up on Twitter – whatever you have to do to see what their current (or former) customers are saying about them. Are they easy to contact for support? What’s the average time it takes to respond to a ticket? When they find a problem with a site, what’s their course of action?

This is one of the great things about social media – ask a question about a company, and you’re more likely than not to get a few answers.

6.Control Panel / User Interface

Even if you’re new to web design, there are some things like installing WordPress, setting up email, setting up FTP accounts  that you should be able to do without calling your hosting company’s support line. Does the provider use cPanel or Plesk to make updates and modifications easier, or do they use some clunky interface that no one can figure out? You’ll most likely be the one working with it, so if you can’t figure it out, then that’s going to be a problem.

7.Scalability / Room to Grow

Finally, an important thing to consider about your hosting provider (and the plan you choose) is whether or not they fit into your plans for the future. In other words, what you consider adequate hosting now might not meet your needs two years from now, once you start selling your products online and getting some good traffics to your site.

Any web-based enterprise should have its eye on growth, so if a hosting company might have difficulty accommodating that growth it could pose an issue. Will they be able to easily upgrade your account? Transferring from one host to another takes valuable time and effort which could be avoided if the company can scale their solutions for growth. As with all these factors, do some research, get some opinions, and make an informed decision.

8.Storage and Bandwidth
Unlimited bandwidth is a usual advertisement slogan of most host service. Many hosting providers that claim to offer unlimited bandwidth have restrictions outlined in the “fine print.”

Make sure you read the terms of service carefully to understand exactly what you are purchasing. Make sure the allotted space that comes with your purchased plan would be enough to accommodate your sites programs.

Unlimited bandwidth is a myth. Many hosting providers that claim to offer unlimited bandwidth have restrictions outlined in the “fine print.” Read the terms of service carefully to understand exactly what you are purchasing. Reputable hosting companies will often outline the costs for going over your allotted bandwidth and storage.



9.Uptime and downtime

Before choosing a web host company to use you must make sure it provides up to 99% uptime in reality and not just by its claim, search for complaints and issues being raised by its customers with google. Ask their customer support person to verify some of this complaints, ensure that you are guaranteed of your sites 99% uptime before going ahead to purchase a plan with any hosting company.



10. Quick Install(newbies)
For newbies it is always better to choose a web hosting platform that provides its customers with a very easy to operate hosting structure take for example a newbie with no knowledge on how the to upload and install wordpress on his hosting account might find it easy to use the quick install option provided by some host service providers e.g Godaddy and hostgator that provides users with a quick install option for some CMS like wordpress, drupal, joomla, woocommerce and phpbb right from the Cpanel, without having to go through the ardious process of first downloading the wordpress installer package and uploading it to your hosting account  after which you will have to create a mysql user.  So i think it would be easier for newbie who are “non tech inclined” to look for host service providers provide something like that.

Note: mylastkobo.com is not recommending any host provider listed in this article

This article was written for www.mylastkobo.com here. feel free to re-use it but please retain this ownership statement as credit to the author steve azuka @ mylastkobo.com

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Connecting your filezila FTP to a remote server(techpreneurs)

 
Although most web host(e.g godaddy,hostgator,sitegrounds) now supports an automatic direct online installation of wordpress into your host server through your Cpanel.
  there are still very many host service provider that will require you to download and upload your wordpress installation files to your host server and in this case it is recommended that you use an FTP client to upload this file and to do any future direct upload into your host server(e.g your sitemap file) this tutorial will show you how to connect an FTP client to your host server and make changes to files in your host directory.

download filezilla ftp client here

install the executable file you downloaded from the download link above. the file is supposed to look like this







[fig 1]

after installing the filezilla open it and you are supposed to see something like this:

[fig 2]

put in your accurate details where applicable.

Enter the hostname into the quickconnect bar's Host: field(1), the username into the Username: field(2) as well as the password into the Password: field(3). You may leave the Port: field empty unless your login information specifies a certain port to use. Now click on Quickconnect.


Note: If your login information specifies a protocol like SFTP or FTPS, enter the hostname as follows: sftp://yourhostname or ftps://yourhostname respectively.


FileZilla will now try to connect to the server. If all works well, you will notice that the right "column" switched from Not connected to any server to displaying a list of files and directories.

Navigating the Filezilla windows.
The next step is to get familiar with FileZilla's window layout.

[fig 3]

Here is a quick introduction: Below the toolbar (1) and quick connect bar (2), the message log (3) displays transfer and connection related messages. Below, you can find the file listings. The left column (local pane, 4) displays the local files and directories, i.e. the stuff on the PC you're using FileZilla on. The right column (server pane, 5) displays the files and directories on the server you are connected to. Both columns have a directory tree at the top and a detailed listing of the currently selected directory's contents at the bottom. You can easily navigate either of the trees and lists by clicking around like in any other file manager. At the bottom of the window, the transfer queue (6) lists the to-be-transferred and already transferred files.

Transferring files

 -uploading files.

First - in the local pane(the part labeled 4 in fig 3) - bring the directory into view which contains data to be uploaded (e.g. index.html and images/). Now, navigate to the desired target directory on the server (using the server pane's file listings). To upload the data, select the respective files/directories and drag them from the local(the part labeled 4 in fig 3) to the remote pane(the part labeled 5 in fig 3). You will notice that the files will be added to the transfer queue at the bottom of the window(the part labeled 6 in fig 3) and soon thereafter get removed again - since they were (hopefully, if nothing went wrong) just uploaded to the server. The uploaded files and directories should now be displayed in the server content listing at the right side of the window(the part labeled 5 in fig 3).


Note: If you don't like using drag-and-drop, you can also right click on files/directories (in the lower local pane) and select Upload to upload them - or simply double-click a file entry (this does not work for directories).

Note (advanced): If you enable filtering and upload a complete directory, only the not-filtered-out files and directories inside this directory will be transferred.

-Downloading

Downloading files, or complete directories, works essentially the same way as uploading - you just drag the files/directories from the remote pane(the part labeled 5 in fig 2) to the local pane(the part labeled 4 in fig 2) this time, instead of the other way round.

Note: In case you (accidentally) try to overwrite a file during upload or download, FileZilla will by default display a dialog asking what to do (overwrite, rename, skip...)

Using the site manager

Now that you are confident in transferring files (if not, practice a little bit), you might want to add the server information to the site manager to make it easy to reconnect to this server. To do this, select Copy current connection to Site Manager... in the File menu. The site manager will be opened and a new entry will be created with all the important information already filled in. You will notice that the entry's name is selected and highlighted - you can enter some descriptive name so you will later on find your server again (enter something like domain.com FTP server for example - you can rename it later if you wish).    Now close the dialog by clicking on OK.

The next time you want to connect to this server, you can simply select it in the site manager and click Connect.
this same process can be used to upload your wordpress installation files to your host server.

note: this post was posted as an aside for web design newbie's using the www.mylastkobo.com web design tutor ebook.

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MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGE FOR YOUNG UNEMPLOYED NIGERIAN GRADUATES

MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGE FOR YOUNG UNEMPLOYED NIGERIAN GRADUATES PT1

So today is another day in your life, another day to walk around town in search of vacancies,
another day to spend countless hours searching the internet for job openings, another day to expectantly scrutinize every sms on your mobile phone for job interviews notifications, another day to check your nairabet results and place new bets, another day to go on facebook, twitter and nairaland to complain about the Nigerian Economy, another day to weep helplessly to God for a Job, any job.

 Well, for those of you who chose to pray, God just answered your prayer, in fact he answered it long ago from the day you were born as a physically and mentally healthy human being.
 you only need to be in the shoes of an handicapped or disabled person to understand the amazing gift that you are enjoying being able to perform any physical task, but despite that. there are even some disabled and handicapped people that have put your idle legs and hands to shame by achieving goals you cannot achieve, by realising dreams that you may have thought would be humanly unachievable.

all i am trying to say is that while you are at home laying in bed using both hands to chat all day on watsapp, bbm and facebook there is an handicapped person with one hand somewhere using his only single hand to create things, lift things, repair things and contribute to Human development.
 while you are still on the Bed holding your phone with your two complete God given Hands typing “lol,yolo,lmfao,smh” there is an handicapped man out there without limb trying to use his legs to work to contribute his own quota,

while you are laying back in bed to continue sleeping in the morning there is a Blind man somewhere directing himself to work with just a stick.
The world around you is filled with so many problems that you were specifically created to solve, come closer a bit and look at Africa, Africa is filled with so many problems that even if 20million Graduates were to be getting employed every year, there will still be enough problem for another 120 more million Graduates to solve, ok lets come home to Nigeria.
Nigeria is like the capital of Africa in terms of Populations, we have so many people and problems in Nigeria that even if  500,000 Graduates get employed every year there will still be enough problem for others to solve, thereby creating Jobs for themselves and employing others.

Have you ever wondered why we wait in long lines in banks before getting attended to? Have you ever wondered why there are so many mechanic workshops in town but you will almost always have to wait when you bring in your car for service? You take your cloths to the Tailor and he tell you he has a lot of work to do.

this is because there can never be enough supermarkets, enough shops, enough mechanic workshops, enough Tailors. to serve a country this big and still yet in this same country many are still saying there is no job. How can there be no jobs?
There are Jobs all around you, but the truth is that you ve chosen not to see them. All you want to see is the Job opening of Big companies and government ministeries, The only picture that comes into your head when you hear the word job is the logo of Chevron,NNPC,TEXACO,SHELL.
Delete those pictures from your head and start planning on something realistic.

For more post about Starting off as a Nigerian Graduate visit www.mylastkobo.com

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SET UP YOUR LOCAL LIQUID SOAP PRODUCTION COMPANY WITH LESS THAN 5000 NAIRA( entrepreneurs)

How a liquid soap production company could be started from a tiny kitchen.

a staff at Shola's soap making factory

1The dream of most new graduates is to work in a profitable and reputable Company or institution, but that is not the case for Olushola Ogundamisi. A graduate of Agric from the University of Benin(uniben). For Olushola his dream was to set up a soap making company that would rival the big names in the production of soap in Nigeria, This Dream was what later saw the birth of "SHOLA" the name of his local soap making business which he started from the tiny kitchen of his little self contain apartment. He started off supplying unlabeled "SHOLA" liquid soap to his co-tenants and coursemates, he did this patiently for a better part of his days in the university just earning enough to keep the business going. but according to him the light shined on his way in his fourth year in school, when through some stroke of good luck his product got into the right hand and he was asked to supply the universities sanitation department with his product. at this point in time Shola needed to employ more hands in the production and distribution so he employed a part time staff( his landord's son) to help him with the production and distribution of the soap. with more income comes more responsibility so on 0ctober 20th 2013 Shola registered his company in the Nigerian coperate affairs commission, he got his NAFDAC registration that same year and became the CEO of a registered Nigerian Company just Two weeks after his Formal Graduation from the University.

In Our exclusive interview with Shola in His liquid soap making factory In The Ancient City of Benin Our main focus was how did you get here? We where able to collect enough information from Shola to hep you set up your make shift soap making company.

HOW TO PRODUCE LIQUID DETERGENT/SOAP LOCALLY.
Liquid soap as the name implies, is soap in liquid form. It is a cleansing agent and it is a multi-purpose cleanser.
Liquid soap is also known as liquid detergent. It has the ability to emulsify oils and hold dirt in suspension. Liquid detergents (Soap) share same properties with solid detergents. A detergent is expected to consist of the surface-active agents or ingredients which are the essential ingredients and subsidiary ingredients (supplementing ingredients).
In all detergents, the surface-active agent forms the most important part of the detergent. All the ingredients needed in the production of liquid soap (liquid detergents) will be listed here.

Note: in this lesson we hope to learn a multi-purpose liquid soap. That is, one that can be used for basic cleansing like: washing of plates, cars, laundry etc.

Equipments and Materials Needed for the Local production of Liquid Soap.
Materials (chemicals) Needed For The Production Of 20 Litres Of Liquid Detergent (soap)

Sulphonic acid..............1 litre

Soda ash...................1/2 tin milk cup

Texapon...........................5-6 teaspoonfuls

Formaline........................5-7 teaspoonfuls (optional)

Perfume(Fragrance)........as desired.

SLS. (Sodium laurate sulphate)..........................5-6 teaspoonfuls

S.T.P.P (sodium Tripolyphosphate).............5-6 teaspoonfuls,

Colorant.................as desired

Water........................19 litres

THE APPARATUS (TOOLS) NEEDED

Containers (Plastic bowls)

Hand gloves

Nose mask

Stirring rod (Turning Stick)

METHOD OF PREPARATION
-Dissolve the caustic soda with 1 litre of water and allow to stay for 30 minutes to 1hr or over night.

-Dissolve soda ash in 1 litre of water and allow to stay for 30min/hr or over night.

-Get your sulphonic acid, pour inside an empty bowl, and add your perfume (fragrance) to it and the texapoon, then add like 3-4 litres of water and stir very well for about 5 - 10 minutes.

-Dissolve the SLS with 2 tin milk cups of water

-Dissolve the STPP with 2 tin milk cups of water also

-Get the Nitrosol but if it is C.M.C you’re using, make sure it is dissolved 2 days to the preparation of the soap with 4-5 litres of water. If you are using Nitrosol, it's used instantly (as in, no need soaking it down).

PREPARATION
-Get the Nitrosol that has been dissolved in water or the C.MC. that has been dissolved 2 days to the preparation of the soap.

-Add the dissolved sulphonic acid, texapon and perfume to either the Nitrosol or C.MC depending on the one you are using and stir very well.

-Add the already dissolved caustic Soda and stir very well.
Add the already dissolved soda ash and stir properly.

-Add formalin to the content and stir properly.

-Add the dissolved S.T.P.P and stir.

-Add the dissolved SLS to the content.

stir thoroughly for smoothness and blend

-Dissolve your colourant in water and ensure that the colourant is completely dissolved, then add it to the solution and stir thoroughly.

-Add some quantity of water to the mixture, depending on the thickness of the mixture.
Leave the mixture for some hours or preferably till the following day and then package for use or for sale.








Packaging options(pics)

labeled pet bottles filled with liquid soaps for sale

bottled water cans filled with liquid soap for sale.

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YOUR PERSONALITY AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOUR CAREER(FOR NEW GRADUATES)

Many people have a misconception about the term follow your passion and most people see this to mean "start your own business" but this is very very wrong.

You can work in an established institution doing what you are passionate about and as long as your profession in that organization is en-sync with your passion,you will discover how very

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