Or should i say; What Nigerian Sites are out there? Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to find Nigerian web destinations. I was surprised to find a couple that i didn’t know about (and some sites that weren’t green). If you know other sites that weren’t mentioned, let us know in the comments & they’ll surely be featured.

Some criteria  that we considered include; site visits, good design, quality content, potential and so on.

This is NOT a design post. As more sites suggestions come up, I’ll keep updating them (or start a showcase series). This post does NOT include personal blogs. The sites are listed in no particular order.

www.nairaland.com

Nairaland in one word: “Nigeria”. This forum is like the on-line version of the country… With topics ranging from Programming, Graphics & Video, literature, Career, Money to Religion, Music & Video… In fact, everything.

www.sturvs.com

Sturvs is a Nigerian web 2.0 social bookmarking website where users can share music, videos, articles and also promote events and services. Users can also vote content. The sites also has great content. Check it out.

www.naijapals.com

Naijapals is a social network where members can watch Nigerian movies, Listen to music,  discuss issues & make new friends.

www.naijaborn.com

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Naijaborn is a social networking site where users can share/listen to music, share news items, meet & network with new friends. It is the place to find Nigerians and their creations. Despite it’s fast-growing user base, it’s still in it’s beta stage & has a lot of potentials for the future.

www.riranwo.com

RiRanWo! is a social utility that helps you to share bookmarks, articles, music, videos and more. It’s a really easy way to share, discover, talk about, and organize great bookmarks, notes, music, videos, photos and more.

www.notjustok.com

NotJustOk is all about entertainment. Music, Videos, Celebrity interviews, exclusives etc. If you love entertainment, then check it out.

…

mobile.ngbot.com

Ngbot  mobile is Nigeria’s mobile community. Though still in its beta stage, this fast-growing site offers free mobile downloads (ringtones, wallpapers, games, applications etc.) tools, tips & tricks, hacks, SMS. The sites also features a forum where members can share ideas.

www.mammaput.com

Though not officially launched, Mammaput is an application that indexes Nigerian eateries all over (and outside) the country. Users will be able to rate and comment on entries. A comprehensive set of APIs will be available for developers to build ‘location-aware’ mobile applications around available data.

www.mobilitynigeria.com

MobilityNigeria is all about everything mobile in Nigeria. Latest mobile news, mobile reviews, etc. The site also features a market place where you can buy phones. If you love mobile phone & mobility in general, you should add this site to your bookmarks.

www.naijalingo.com

Naija Lingo is an online Dictionary for all your Nigerian pidgin/broken English needs. It is a dictionary for people who want definitions to Nigerian words or slang, names and phrases and created by the people (you) who know them. Naija Lingo is an open dictionary where you the user are free to add and edit words as time changes, and as the meaning of words evolve and new words are formed.

www.naijapulse.com

NaijaPulse is a micro-blogging service that lets you post text updates (140 characters) about yourself and what is happening around you. The site is based on Laconi.ca open source platform. It is also helpful that you cross post to Twitter and Facebook.

www.ticabo.com

Ticabo is a blog that delves into search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, web design and development strategies.

www.werunthings.com

In their own words, Werunthings is dedicated entirely to celebrating, showcasing and trumpeting exceptional Nigerian creative people, lifestyles and culture alongside their international peers. You can get, exclusive music, celebrity interviews, juicy photos, downloads, New music videos & Celebrity gossip.

Final words:

This is probably just the first post of a series to come. I know there are a lot of Nigerian websites not featured here. I’ll keep surfing & updating for more sites. Hope you added them to your bookmarks?

If i wasn’t a web designer, i would probably be using Google chrome as my default browser. But my browser of choice any day is Firefox.  This is because of the wide range of add-ons available to extend the browser’s features.

In this post, I’ll show you a few add-ons that will make your design/development more productive.

Firebug

There is a reason why i put this first; It’s a must-have! Download it here

MeasureIt

MeasureIt is simply a ruler for Firefox. Use it to get the dimensions (width & height) of elements on the webpage.  Get it here

FireFTP

FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers. It’s like FileZilla. Download it here

Clear Cache Button

Adds a clear cache toolbar button. After installing the extension, find the clear cache button in the toolbar customization panel. Download it here

Web-developer toolbar

Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Download it here

YSlow

YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. YSlow is a Firefox add-on integrated with the Firebug web development tool. Download it here

ColorZilla

Advanced Eyedropper, Color Picker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies. With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. Download it here

CodeBurner (Firebug)

CodeBurner is a Firefox add-on that integrates with Firebug, to extend it with reference material for HTML and CSS. Download it here

Extended Status bar

This add-on adds speed, percentage, time and loaded size (similar to Opera’s status bar) to Firefox’s status bar. Download it here

Dust-me Selectors

This add-on help you find unused CSS selectors from your style sheet. Get it here

Mozilla Archive Format

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This add-on allows Firefox save & open .mht (internet explorer) archive format. Get it here

ShowIP

ShowIP shows the IP address of a website in the status bar. Get it here

If you have any other add-ons that has greatly increased your productivity, please share it in the comments.

ngBot is a portal of various applications specifically tailored (but not limited) to the Nigerian/African community [Powered by devedgelabs.com] has added yet another site to the portal. The fast-growing portal recently introduced ngBot answers.

Before i cover what ngBot answers entails, lets do a quick run-through of a few solutions from ngBot/devedgelabs.

ngBot mobile:

Nigeria’s mobile community. Though still in its beta stage, this fast-growing site offers free mobile downloads (ringtones, wallpapers, games, applications etc.) tools, tips & tricks, hacks, SMS, share and learn and much more to cater for Africa’s largest & fastest growing mobile market. Users also get to contribute to every section of the site. The site is also accessible through mobile devices here @ http://mobile.ngbot.com/m.

nairaMngr:

NairaMngr (Naira Manager) is a java (J2ME/MIDP 2.0) mobile application for day to day earnings and expenditure recording. It helps you keep tab of how much you earn and how much goes out. More info here: http://devedgelabs.com/mobile/nairamngr

download version 1.1 (free): http://mobile.ngbot.com/downloads/apps/10

nubley (public beta):

Nubley is a directory of micro-bloggers on various micro-blogging platforms including; Twitter, NaijaPulse, Identi.ca and so on. The service also features tools such as URL shortener, feed updater, auto-responders etc. Try it here: http://www.nubley.com/

ngBot Answers:

ngBot Answers is a site where users can ask questions and get answers on various areas of interests. Users can also follow questions asked by others and get email notifications when they are answered. The site is also strictly moderated. Sounds like a forum, huh? Well, not really.. This is strictly for questions and answers.

Thinks about it; let’s say you need to find out where a certain place is located in Lagos, and the ‘mighty’ Google can’t help? You simply ask a question on ngBot answers and other users offer suitable answers. Still not convinced? Find out more: http://answers.ngbot.com/about

…or just try it out: http://answers.ngbot.com/

Submit your web app: Do you want us to feature your web application, why don’t you tell us about it. Contact us.