I think there was a sense from those of us on this side of the pond that we also need a BarCamp Africa in the UK .

Of course there will never  be enough events that will bring together a group of talented entrepreneurs, technologist, charities, engineers, designers, bloggers, artists, with a passion for African development.

So a tweet , a retweet ,a couple of emails back and forth and an organizers meeting later we are on course for an inspiring and action oriented BarCampAfrica UK on the 7th of November 2009 .

Ps.  The Next Organisers meeting is in secondlife ooo! check us out we are making use of all technological avenues open to us .

Find out more about BarCampAfrica UK and register on http://barcampafrica.com/uk

Untill the Next Post see you later

I must reiterate that the aim of this article is to bring these issues to the attention of the web masters, developer and administrators and thereby helping to improve the usability of the site.
The issue are enumerated below:
1 .When the home page loads initially it runs what I assume is a flash intro of the site. This is in theory is nice concept can become a usability issue and an all round nuisance when the user is not given the option to stop the flash from running fully and be sent directly to the main content pages but has to wait until the whole flash runs to click a link .This is especially a nuisance when that user logs on multiple times or use his back button to get back to the home page.

Many information and corporate sites e.g.Accenture , www.zdnet.comand numerous other sites do because they are increasingly aware of the nuisance this becomes .

2. When the Flash intro loads up, an African map is displayed.When the user passes his mouse over the countries on the map the colour of these regions lighten and the mouse symbol changes to a hand giving the impression that they are links when they are clearly not. At the best I think what should have being done was to display a information on that country as a tool tip when the user passes a mouse over the countries on the map.
3. Lastly there is funny problem with the links provided after the flash intro loads. There are parts of that text link which the user cannot click on. I can only assume here that the problem is that the link area is not wide enough and should be changed to cover a wider area than just barely covering the text provided.
They are small niggling issues but they go long to improving the user experience on the site, decreasing site dropout rate and the perceived quality of the site.
I hope somebody this article comes to the attention of the administrators of thehttp://www.africa-union.org/site.

1.Fields to ‘include/Exclude’ why couldnt they just have 2 text areas 1 for includes and another for exclude – i get the impression that they just couldnt be bothered

2. The include/exclude drop down i was assuming would toggle to show in the ensuing text area   the fields that were include or excluded  unfortunately they just serve  to indicators for saving included or excluded files making it a a usabilty nightmare for anymore who want to rack which files are either included or excluded

I know its open source but guys seriously

In need of quick design for a website, if you are like me and you probably developing the website as a favour to a friend or family member but don’t have enough time for drudging out designs your best bet is a free online CSS templates that you can download and personalize for use:

http://www.freecsstemplates.org/

http://www.free-css-templates.com/

http://www.free-css.com/

Else if you need to put together a simple a quick and easy website which you give over to user to take control of the content then your easiest bet is using word press as a Content Management System Mark Kirby has an excellent tutorial on his website http://mark-kirby.co.uk/2008/wordpress-as-a-cms-talk-and-sample-code/

If you want to add an album to your website but don’t have the space or bandwidth I suggest use online photo social sites like and Flickr and use the API’s to retrieve images on demand Or just hotlink from your Facebook albums. A bit dodgy but it works!

I wrote a tutorial on how to use flickr API which I presented at Bar Camp Brighton 3 http://etheldcofie.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/flickr-api-how-to-perform-authenticating-using-php/

If you need to knock out your own custom social netwrok for your friends, family or people with similar interest( chocolate loving geeks perhaps !) then use Ning.com. It is great platform that allows you to create your own social network and even register a domain that points to your customized social network.

This section will be updated as often as i can with short cuts and life hacks… watch this space

My reaction: What! No building stuff, no development well at least not at work for the next two months *groan groan* I am going to die before I complete my time I just know [my melodramatic side showing]

So I started my stint praying time would go fast and I wouldn’t realize it. l also acknowledge above my melodramatics that it was probably a good learning experience which will make me a better developer in the long run .

I started out running manual scripts for an online financial system painful yes, by the end of the second week I was fast losing my will to live.

So to keep from going crazy I turned to reading materials on what testing was all about and what made a great tester. There had to be more to testing! Right?

Yes! Right, My perception of testing as developer changed dramatically when I moved to 2 relatively small size projects [less that 10 people ] working as the sole test analyst on the first and as an adjunct test analyst on the second .

So what changed for me?

Being the only test analyst on a project means I had to learn quickly what was required of me , what mentality I was to adopt to be effective in my role and of course how to work smart as opposed to laboriously , what tools would make my work better or not .

Fundamentally I believe I begun to thoroughly enjoy being a test analyst when I bought into the mentality and attitude of a tester.

No it’s not being sadistic it’s the fact that I am the last line of defense for the customer it’s my job to make sure that the customer gets the best product possible [or die trying J]

There will always be something wrong with the system and if it’s big enough to make the users experience or systems substandard then I will find it .oh yes I will ….

..And the love for breaking things especially software

Also automated testing appealed to the developer/programmer in me, I could write/program automated test s that could do a lot of the mundane repetitive tasks and User Acceptance Tests that needed to be done

What I learnt

I took away for my time as a test analyst:

Tact: saying to developer fix this! Fix this Now! Is hardly going to get you anywhere .When to push when to stop when to assert and to smile and let go.

A better eye for detail when I am developing :I have a sort of split personality now when I am working I look at the system through the eyes of a tester and a developer.[I still believe it not right for a developer to double as his/her own test analyst ]

…And a whole new respect for the testers I work with.

This Persistent stored module Process Processes Orders by reading the oldest unfulfilled Order and Flags it status as Fulfilled when there is enough stock to fulfil other or leaves to Unfulfilled or Awaiting Stock otherwise.

Database Structure

Stock control database

5.1 Pseudocode

START

Get oldest Unfufilled Order data

Get the catalogue data for that Order

For Each Catalogue Item

If Catalogue Item type is Stock

Then

if Catlogue Item available stock> Catalogue Order Quantity

Then

Set Order Status =Fufilled

Else

Set Order Status=Awaiting Stock

STOP

Else if Catalogue Item type is Non-Stock

Create supplier Order

If Error in then return transaction to former state

STOP

5.2 Actual code

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[ProcessOrder]

– Add the parameters for the stored procedure here

AS

BEGIN

– SET NOCOUNT ON added to prevent extra result sets from

– interfering with SELECT statements.

SET NOCOUNT ON;

declare @catId varchar(max)

declare @count int –count

declare @iRow int –showing number of rows

declare @itemtype varchar(50)

declare @available_stock int

declare @orderqty int

declare @Orderid varchar(max)

declare @checkAwaiting int

– Insert statements for procedure here

DECLARE @tbl TABLE(

RowID INT IDENTITY(1, 1),

CatlID VARCHAR(Max),

Qty INT,

OrderID VARCHAR(MAX))

INSERT @tbl

SELECT Catl_id,Quantity,Order_id from dbo.VwUnfufilledOrders where VwUnfufilledOrders.Order_date=(Select min(VwUnfufilledOrders.Order_date)

from dbo.VwUnfufilledOrders)

SET @count = @@ROWCOUNT

SET @iRow = 1

set @checkAwaiting=0

Select @count

Begin transaction– start transcation

–call function for availability

—start loop to check for availabilty of every catlogue item

WHILE @iRow <= @count

begin

Select @catId=CatlID,@orderqty=Qty,@Orderid=OrderID from @tbl where RowID=@iRow

select @itemtype=Item_Type, @available_stock=Available_stock from dbo.Catlogue_Item where Catl_id=@catId

if (@itemtype=‘Stock’)

begin

print ‘Order id is’+@Orderid+‘with number of rows=’+ convert(varchar,@count) +‘it is a stock item’

if(@available_stock>@orderqty)

begin

print ‘Oder id is’+@Orderid+‘ /with Qty=’+ convert(varchar(50),@orderqty) +‘and available stock=’+convert(varchar(50),@available_stock)

Update dbo.CustOrder set Status=‘Fufilled’ where Order_id=@Orderid

If @@error <> 0

goto ERR_HANDLER

end

else

begin

Update dbo.CustOrder set Status=‘UnFufilled’ where Order_id=@Orderid

print ‘Qty not enough’

set @checkAwaiting=1

goto ERR_HANDLER

– stock insufficient so Order status remains unfufilled

–call stock replenish function

end

end

if (@itemtype=‘NonStock’)

begin

– create supplier order

print ‘Its a supplier direct order’

end

SET @iRow = @iRow + 1

end

Commit Transaction

Return 0

ERR_HANDLER:

Select ‘Unexpected error occurred!’

Rollback transaction

if ( @checkAwaiting=1)Update dbo.CustOrder set Status=‘AwaitingStock’ where Order_id=@Orderid– to be removed

Return 1

END