2011

THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT

NNAEMEKA A. NWACHUKWU MCSE/MCITP COMPTIA A+/N+

DIGIMEX TECHNOLOGIES INC. 1/1/2011

THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT

About the Author

Nwachukwu A. Nnaemeka is a graduate of diploma and B.Sc in Computer Engineering from the University Of Benin. He has been in the Information technology industry for 8 yrs now, had a sound basic training in hardware/software systems management and later gained a Comptia A+, Comptia N+, and MCSE certification. He is an all-time IT professional who has worked professionally in so many areas such as network systems management and administration, programming for web applications, multimedia and computer graphics, and system maintenance. Contacts: appasino@yahoo.com, 08030938271

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR.2 INTRODUCTION.4 COMPUTING DEVICES NETWORKING.7 COMPUTING DEVICES HARDWARE/SOFTWARE..10 PROGRAMMING/SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT..13 PROJECT MANAGEMENT.16 INFORMATION SYSTEMS AUDITING.17 SECURITY.18 WEB CONTENT DEVELOPMENT..21 COMPUTER DATABASES25 COMPUTER GRAPHICS, ANIMATION AND MULTIMEDIA..28 CONCLUSION31 LIST OF ICT CERTIFICATIONS.32

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INTRODUCTION ICT. Quite an unpleasant profession. Leaves no room for you to unwind, always on the go writing exams and getting certifications, bothers little or not at all about your loved ones, creates a monster within yourself, alienates you from the world of socialization. Although it is not as harsh as advertised, but your attitude towards it might create the same effect. The most important question everyone has to ask himself before bargaining with this jealous mistress is, Do I really have to do this? This question is very necessary because the moment you start off, it will only amount to foolhardy to disembark. Depending on the scope of your business turf or empire you might find yourself in scenarios whereby you still earn while you are sleeping. It is of utmost importance for you to start off with brands you are affectionate with. Naturally in any area other than ICT, one specializes in a field that is most friendly to him. At times you work long hours without break, researching becomes enmeshed in your gene because newer cases must be understood first before resolution sets in, sheets of paper with scribbled writings litter your environment, your storage media becomes something to die for because at that stage it might be equated with the price of gold, life becomes boring when your partner finds you reading a help tip or article on Google on your mobile while you are on your first date. Ouch!!! That hurts, but its not your fault, you cant help it because you have issues to resolve. Always prepare to share your quality time with requests begging to be attended to. These are all constructs of money making. When the benjamins start rolling in you become compelled to make more and even geek the more. Like they say, money is the root of all evil but this one is a necessary evil.Just Kidding!!! Welcome to the world
FIG. 1.0 System Analysts at training

of the geeks. Survival in this field got married to humility because at times you have to give up some of your dignity by trading it with some item of value such as identifying yourself with people that have some experience in the field, no matter how or where you met them, and also no matter what they do, knowledge is knowledge. It does not discriminate who gets it, the most important thing is so quickly gain what you can at that moment. Some practical experiences you are looking for lies on their hands, you are like that Hollywood adventurer trying to pluck diamonds secured by pythons, but you have to make the python understand you just want to look at the diamonds and nothing more. That is to say that if you dont apply some sense youll end up paying them heavily for the exposure you are getting. This implies that you have to bring something to the table, life is always like that, its a gamble. You have to bring yourself down to the level of working with them even at the expense of ladies you admire 2011 DIGIMEX INC.
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perceiving you as a mere apprentice. You can equally spend some money learning some courses at some training schools which is very good, but it gets to a point whereby it amounts to a waste of financial resources because great amount of the time all you need is a solid foundation, from there you can expand your horizon because youve gotten a firsthand idea of how the industry feels like. Watch it, to be seen but not to be heard. Always be that junkie voraciously in search of knowledge, you dont have to disclose all you know to people you tap from their knowledge, it is a survival strategy. The world of Information and Communications Technology is an aggressively progressive and dynamic one. Its ever growing, ever
FIG. 1.1 SYSTEM ANALYSTS AT WORK

advancing. This sector of the worlds economy has yielded massive revenues for countries and has provided millions of employment opportunities for the worlds citizenry. Matter of factly, ICT, which happens to be an offshoot of Computer Science/Engineering is presently been considered as an independent field of study amongst some advanced overseas universities. An area of human endeavor which has one of the highest numbers of fields and sub-fields (if not the highest) compared to other areas. Like stated above, the growth witnessed in this area has been sporadic and revolutionary suggesting its ability of absorbing members of the unemployed cadre. Expertise in any area of ICT can make one a budding entrepreneur overnight most especially in a country like Nigeria where its a known fact that many were called but few were chosen. There are lots of people scattered everywhere with certifications but with little or no experience. Most of these professionals go after certifications which happen to harbor a large crowd of individuals scampering to get the same job thereby reducing the likelihood of them eventually securing a job slot. The deal here is that recruiters will now decipher a way of cutting down on this misty crowd by insisting on possession of some years working experience and also affirm that the said individual is well grounded in what his job stands for. The secret still remains that whether you are in possession of the most common certification in Nigeria, the fact that you remain a celebrity in what you do means that your hair will be pulled from east to west, north to south. As legend made it to be, ours is a country that worships any qualification in paper, but when it comes to hiring IT professionals, the rules change. Much as they would want you to have a certification, they will value it the more if you have more experience than having paper certifications. Most Firms, companies and establishments have little or no interest in hiring specialists/experts in each field or sub-field of ICT except for some wealthy multinational organizations that demand skilled experts in each area to fast track the rate of 2011 DIGIMEX INC.
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cash inflow. Some of them would rather employ that Mr. Know-It-All to cut down on costs incurred from Human Resources. Only consultancy firms who specialize in a particular field or area recruit qualified people in that area. Nigeria currently is not an ICT-charged environment which gives room for exploitation, development and innovation. If I were you I would be working towards taking the nation by surprise in way of introducing an ICT brand theyve not had the privilege or the intuition to create. So much money in the game but it all depends on your evaluation of your capability, your astuteness, your decision making instincts, sense of perception, foresight and determination. Its a wise mans game, not a strong mans game. First and foremost in the world of ICT, is the recurring factor of experience. No matter how you got it, this seems to be the item of bargain wherever you are seeking to be employed except in situations where you are not contending with a formidable opponent. The celebrated ICT expert happens to be the one ditching job offers and accepting the ones that interest him. These are all clauses or constructs of experience. The substance there is the experience, the certificate there is just to back up what youve had experience in. Like Ive stated above, it all depends on your wisdom and your evaluation of what you can do and how much what you have can fetch you. Under listed are the various fields and sub-fields that constitute the ICT Industry in Nigeria with an x-ray stating the pros and cons of each.

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COMPUTING SYSTEMS NETWORKING: This is an area that defines the technology behind linking of computers and computing devices such as printers, scanners, IP cameras (Video over IP implementation), and related devices for the purposes of information/data exchange. A computer network is a mystery on its own. The capabilities of well implemented networks can stun you, the user when you have exploited all the features it has to offer. Networks can make effective use of information, no sharing of files through flash drives which might populate network malicious programs. A simple active directory-based shared folder can facilitate data transmission from Russia to Nigeria for the fact that the network remains closed, private and particular to the owners. An expert can run an operating systems setup of over 200 systems by simply activating the RIS (Remote Installation Service) feature in his Windows Server to automate the installation process rather than visiting the workstations individually. Doesnt that sound like magic? E-mail and chatting facility can be implemented on the network too, so the need for calling or going to meet your colleagues for interaction is totally unnecessary. Very good network planning makes your work run smoothly with little or no user intervention. It is a known fact that in developed countries people dont use to visit banks anymore because computer networking automation has made everything easy and all transactions you need can be done on you computers or mobile devices. A worker can open the tray of the CDROM drive of his co-worker who might be miles away from him through the concept of RDC (Remote Desktop Connection) and you can connect to your servers if you are an expert from anywhere in the world through VPN on your system or mobile device and make any changes, create group policies, shut systems down, in fact you can do anything. All you have to do is visualize it and it happens. Networks are just about anything. If I have a problem with someone, I can deal with the person by visiting my program compilers, develop a logic bomb malicious code, log in remotely into your system, try finding means of going around authentication ( of which there are many), then give myself permissions of a shared resource on the system, then transmit the program, since its
FIG 2.0 COMPUTER NETWORKS

a logic bomb, it has a payload and a trigger, the payload decides the damage to be done, and the trigger initiates the damage on the scheduled date. Or I can simply log into your system remotely when you are off your desk, use your mailing client to send spam mails, at least 2011 DIGIMEX INC.
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something to discredit you, and log off immediately. This is known as a DOS (Denial Of Service) attack in security terms. With networks, meetings are held without the participants physically been in the meeting venue. With networks, I can shut your system down, deny you from accessing any program on your desktop, give you a disk usage quota, give you a time-frame to work with, give you internet usage rights whenever I want, do all sorts of things to you, just by defining and deploying a group policy that will affect your user account and any other user that falls within your situation. With networks, your data can immediately be posted on the database server, team work done harmoniously and devices like printers, scanners, etc. shared effectively. There are so many organizations in Nigeria who operate vast enterprise network setup that might span from continent to continent or still within the country. This area demands enough experience for individuals who desire to earn higher positions in those establishments or for individuals who desire to be identified with Consultancy, but for a beginner, all that is required of you is some ideas, some knowledge and a little skill that will bring you up to speed when you get employed. The Major Players in this area are CISCO SYSTEMS, MICROSOFT CORP., and PLANET3 WIRELESS trains CWNA & CWNP professionals and some minor players in Network and Networking devices certification like companies that train individuals on some LINUX distributions proficiency. For expert field engineers who install, manage, and maintain vast WAN setups, the choice

FIG. 2.1 NETWORK PROFESSIONALS

certifications are from the stables of CISCO SYSTEMS, which has a hierarchical certification structure, whereby the entry level or associate level certification is the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), and the professional level is the CCNP, then the highest level or the expert level is the CCIE which has three options or specialties, Routing and Switching, Wireless and VOIP (Voice Over IP).For CCNA, skill, ingenuity and professionalism is highly needed in this area because of the competition synonymous with it. Then for an individual that possesses the CCNP or the CCIE certification, all roads lead to Rome, because there are fewer people with the knowledge, skill and expertise. It is a known fact that CCIE happens to be the hardest certification in history. These experts are most of the time contracted from companies that offer consultancy services in the area. Consultants in all of the three certifications must have 2011 DIGIMEX INC.
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sound working experience, expertise and skilled personnel for them to remain in this high-rated contest. Then for professional Network Administrators who plan, implement and manage an organizations network, its users, resources on the network, create users with clearance levels, deny and assign permissions to users, groups or departments, make network policies, manage servers like MS Exchange messaging servers, ISA, SharePoint, MsSQL, resolve all the Domain mumbo jumbo, delegate duties and deploy domain controllers, enable remote login, classify users, their machines and their respective departments etc.the perfect certification comes from the stables of MICROSOFT CORP., whereby you earn certifications like MCSE (the old one, with 7 modules) or MCITP( the new one with Server 2008). There is a slight misconception surrounding MCSE and MCITP, I still advise people that have the advantage of studying MCSE to do so and upgrade to MCITP because MCSE Certification has more modules than MCITP Certification but operates on a lower server, MS Server 2003, MCITP was given birth to when the complexity in systems and networks administration grew whereby the Server level was upgraded to 2008 and individuals now specialize in areas rather than knowing it all, and all the areas of MCITP currently are so vast that it will take time for an individual to comprehend all, that brought the need for specialization.
FIG. 2.2 NETWORK CABLING

Having any of these certifications is a very good industry advantage and having experience too is a great plus, Consultancy in this area demands strict professionalism and experience depending on the complexity of the project at hand. For starters, all that is needed is ingenuity, innovative ability and prudence. Companies demand for dedicated network administrators to constantly manage the network framework, information security, and flow of information within the organisation. Then, there are other minute certifications in this area which make very fast money for individuals that earned exposure in them like the area of LINUX operating systems whereby it is a known fact that LINUX Servers are the best web-server implementations and highly secured kernel base ( O.S. core), any man with an RHCE certification is a big boy without knowing it, Red Hat is a variant or a distribution of LINUX which happens to equally have competitors like UBUNTU, FEDORA, openSUSE, DEBIAN and other hundreds of distributions. Certifications that emanate from LINUX can make one a hunted employee in Nigeria because in the area of networking, the most secured and efficient web servers run on LINUX, and the most secured networks at times use LINUX as a front-end server or firewall because of its hash secured cryptographic base.

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COMPUTING SYSTEMS HARDWARE/SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION This area defines the ways, means and strategy used in maintenance, troubleshooting, management, upgrading, and administration of the software and hardware components of computers and computing devices. This area is quite complex in nature because of the variety of computers and computing devices. Skilled experts & professionals get to work with computers of differing brands, sizes, characteristics and a wide range of computing devices like printers, scanners, cameras etc. which equally has variety as a result of different manufacturers.

FIG. 3.0 SCHEDULING A SYSTEM SHUTDOWN WITH THE DOS COMMAND PROMPT

Experience plays a serious vital role here because as cases roll in, you bank on your previous experiences to trash them, at times hardware devices behave extraordinarily, as if they were not manufactured by we humans, the common reasons that has been identified for a particular problem might not solve the problem on some other devices, at this point you might work with theory because things youve not done before or had experience in, the theory behind it tells you what to do immediately. This is why one will never cease to stop reading and researching. The moment you become so good in this area, jobs start flying in from Jerusalem and Jericho because you will be the only visible expert that knows the crux of ailments that ravage hardware machines. Hard drives crash, but for an expert data can still be recovered even in severe conditions. Yes, when you know how to use command prompts very well mapped out with safe mode, you can give them a run for their money. Just like I learnt recently how to view and extract those files with Linux after using windows command utilities to recover them with a friend and a colleague I recently worked with. There seems to be solutions for every problem if you know how, you can beat viruses at their own game by laying in wait for them with your system processes dialogue box, disable them, use good search mechanism to scout for them (

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you can use Google desktop or windows 7 search tool, or normal search on Win XP defining size, date, and other parameters, or use the attribute command on DOS prompt to locate them, anyone that applies to you), find the file they attached themselves to, they are normally smart but not so smart, hahahahaha, We are smarter!!! These alien creatures think they can just come attach themselves to a file I created with WinWord, and then form an executable of it, that is an .exe extension if you know what I mean and then self run. I caught it, it was located in the System32 folder under windows, within the C:\ root. It was Raila Odinga!!!! A Kenyan politician turned computer virus. Hahahahaha. System failure during startup can go to hell if you can be able to use a recovery or start up disk, to replace the missing file stalling start-up. Like in the past, we used to do little tricks like use a 3.5 inch floppy to copy NTLDR file from the windows folder and delete it from windows, then reboot the system only to see the POST message, NTLDR MISSING, hahahaha simply put in the diskette and restart the system, it boots from the diskette immediately and restores your system. These days you can make USB start-up disks if you know how. If you are an expert, no ones data gets lost. Your data integrity is assured. After making up your experience you can proceed with work easily, it becomes so good, it gets done as quickly as possible. It feels good!! The big ones here are COMPTIA, who have certification courses tailored for the various levels of the hardware/software field. Certifications like COMPTIA A+ which has a major focus on computers and computing devices

FIG. 3.1 COMPTIA EXPERTS

like the aforementioned ones forms the foundation for one to advance to other levels like getting certified in complex machines like Giant IBM Servers and mighty dot matrix printers which A+ covers the miniature ones. Companies, most especially consultants, are the largest recruiters of COMPTIA experts because most other companies other than consultants prefer outsourcing, which is referring most of their trouble to consultants rather than employing individuals because the machines in question cant be replaced by a single individual in the event of mishandling or mismanagement.

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Proficiency in operating systems knowledge like UNIX and Solaris can fetch very good income for individuals in Nigeria, because most companies presently use UNIX as the operating system core for their high-end database server racks such as the IBM-AIX operating systems which runs on monster IBM Server racks. UNIX is quite an old operating system which gave windows its command structure and gave LINUX its O.S. Kernel. Solaris is an O.S. coming from the stables of SUN Microsystems, the same vendors of JAVA, it is fast gaining ground in Nigeria but Windows still overshadows it overwhelmingly. Consultancy in this area soars because hundreds of cases abound each day as a result of the numerous causes of system failure, if not power surges, it might be mechanical, or firmware corruption, or program incompatibility. There are hundreds of cases.

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PROGRAMMING/SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT Oops!!! This is one complicated field which ought to be carefully disambiguated. A programmer is different from a software developer. DEAL??? Nigerians dont love programmers but love software developers. DEAL??? Here is the deal, if you ever want to be successful in Nigeria becoming a programmer; I really mean the geeks that run codes like nuts might be a step in the wrong direction. What Nigerians and Nigerian companies want is someone that can quickly develop and deploy fast smooth applications that will solve their problems immediately; they are never patient for that programmer that has to write hundreds of pages of codes to achieve their objective. Not that a software developer is not a programmer but theirs is controlled. In fact, I assure anybody that reads this article and ventures into software development of becoming a millionaire overnight here in Nigeria because application software is of the highest demand by companies, firms, institutes, industries, organizations, government agencies and establishment here in Nigeria. Programming and software development is for anybody because of its platform independence in that all spheres of human endeavor needs programs to automate processes. In the medical field, special applications are been used to monitor and view the health condition of a patient, in the military, its been used to guide surface to air missile and often times used to calculate the velocity and 3D pathway of a counter missile that is been sent to neutralize enemy missile, in the crime and investigations department, application programs are used to test and measure the hormone levels that induce deception and misinformation by suspects, used in microcontrollers extensively to achieve a common goal such as biometric authentication modules like iris, thumbprint, & DNA scanners which allow or deny individuals in the event of accessing protected materials or objects.
FIG. 4.0 PROGRAMMED WORD PROCESSOR IN A TABLET PC

In the petroleum engineering field, they are used to monitor the flow of crude and pressure in pipes, in the structural and civil engineering area they are used for making computer aided designs of structures like buildings, bridges, stadia, airports, etc., they are still adversely used by individuals with harmful intent to write malicious codes for harmful purposes. As you can see from this minor analogy how a software developer or programmer can never go hungry. But in Nigeria, as once stated above, the job gets done by software developers who rather than 2011 DIGIMEX INC.
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coding use specialized utility tools and equally use applications to develop applications. That is quite a ridiculous matrix. The big people in the software development industry happen to be Microsoft and JAVA. But what is the problem with Microsoft? They seem to be everywhere!!! Well, Oki Doki, never mind. Microsoft has had an age-long history with programming and software development, been the pioneers of the most successful operating systems both client and network, the company appears to be a force to reckon with in this field. Having developed an O.S. the first time for the old IBM ALTAIR system which was as a result of assuming a responsibility that wasnt theirs because as of then, they never had the idea of what to do, they just took a swoop by claiming they have an O.S. for the new machine, and when they got the contract to program it, they knew they were in tight corner which made them to work so hard to produce one. Thats how a success story starts. There are a host of programming languages which work on their platform that can deploy fast and swift applications like C, C++, Visual Basic, and C# (C Sharp). The .NET framework which was exhibited and launched some years ago became the programming platform of the next generation for Microsoft. It supports a host of languages aforementioned, and still supports codes from other platforms like JAVA, JavaScript, etc. Microsoft is a monopolistic organisation; they always want to dominate any area they are found in. Theyve been sued many times in the past by so many firms and software giants JAVA for been anti-competitive, that is hiding source codes for no other vendor to build upon or modify, they are always after making their money. Since they were paying the makers of JavaScript for using their scripting base, the JavaScript, they were so unhappy that after the impasse they developed a strong and more robust programming language with its scripting base, the c# script, which in fact annulled or reduced the effect of the JavaScript, which they Microsoft publicly declared anyone can use any scripting technology he wants be it JavaScript, VBScript, script# or C# script on their .NET framework. That was a pinch of salt for JavaScript developers. JAVA is a strongly typed compiled programming language developed by SUN Microsystems and JavaScript is a lightweight interpreted
FIG. 4.1 COMPUTER SOFTWARE

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programming language developed originally by NETSCAPE. It was formally called LiveScript. The two languages are not the same in any way. Microsoft has certifications like MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer) which encompasses software development on windows with customized tools like Visual Studio which can compile codes that is synonymous with Microsoft. Microsoft has lots of certifications. Then Sun Java has certifications like SCJP (Sun Certified Java Programmer) which is primarily based on their sole certification JAVA programming language. JAVA is a code intensive programming language; its not a programming language for kids (although none was meant for childs play). It is used for large scale design projects which must need a team that will have to collaborate to achieve their common goal. Nigeria doesnt present a friendly turf for this variant because all they need is people who can develop apps for them, not programmers that will have to work extensively for months and years to come up with something. Although software developers must have some proficiency in coding and program writing, but this knowledge will be to enhance their skill in the final development of applications. Java has development tools like NETBEANS which is an IDE powerfully enhanced which can create a host of applications ranging from application software to web content development. JAVA is platform independent. Microsoft Visual Studio development tool is platform dependent that is it can only deploy applications that can be used on windows only. The trouble in Nigeria presently is the undying quest for skilled software developers. This area is an area that is paramount and of high demand in the history of ICT in Nigeria. If you are a very good software developer in Nigeria, all you need do is relax, meet the necessary people and count your millions.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT This is a general area that cant be associated with ICT only. In fact, the origin of this course of study can be traced to every other field of human endeavor because project management surfaces in everything you do. Just as projects are been developed in each area and managed same goes for ICT whereby projects are carried out on a daily basis, and where large projects abound, development teams has to prepare disaster containment plans which can be directly compared to risk management. Risk management can be an integral part of project management or can be considered independently if the project is massive in scale. Here in Nigeria and abroad, project management remains one of the highest paying ICT career and its training is nearly or almost unavailable in Nigeria. Upon getting this certification, companies will not hesitate to hire you because of the near unavailability of skilled individuals. There is a body abroad in charge of granting certifications to qualified individuals and its name is PMI (Project Management Institute), and they award you certification in project management such as PMP.

FIG. PROJECT MANAGERS STRATEGISING

The certificate assures its holders of employment opportunities from organizations and institutions that handle large quantities of ICT projects. Skill and intuitive ability is highly needed here to make a mouth-watering project come true. The risks involved are been immediately assessed and ascertained. Therefore project managers are at the top of their game.

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Information Systems Auditing This is a brand newbie in the market. This is the area that has to do with auditing of Information Systems which happens to be a routine carried out for the purposes of ascertaining the quality assurance level obtainable in organizations with a scalable IT department. It tends to find out the preparedness of a firm in meeting with all the necessary requirements it needs in other to float a business. Most companies in Nigeria appoint Info Sys. Auditors to help audit their IT departments in other to unmask loopholes and inconsistencies existing within these networks, and some other third-party Institution created for quality assurance by the Govt. still go around and audit IT departments of companies. The only visible player in this area is a company that goes by the name ISACA which certifies individuals in CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor). The course and the exams are very user-friendly. Experts will only have not much detailed knowledge on all sectors of information and communications technology. They will cut across all sectors and fields for the purposes of the audit. Work terrain includes close observation of the state of things. Always inquisitive trying to see mistakes, been able to conduct some psychological manipulation while on the job. Sweep all areas and leave no stones unturned. Create large quantities of paper work, deduct from your observations, stay long hours trying to make links between information you were given orally and the ones in hard copy. Finally submit your findings with the verdict boldly made by you. But watch it. Dont take someones job because you are trying to get relevance, here in Nigeria anything goes. They might use tools on you. Figure it out!!! There are centres in the country where you can get materials and training for this newbie. Just go get it!!!

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SECURITY The field of security in Information Technology is a very wide and broad one. This area of ICT is one of the most crucial because it has to do with loss of some valuables be it money or information. That is the more reason why individuals that professionalize in this area are been paid handsomely for their expertise and experience. Aha, Aha, our eyes hath seen it, Hahaha, thats what these guinea pigs youll be trying to prevent from poking into your network will say after they have searched fervently and found your secretly hidden SSID in your wireless network which you set not to broadcast. The fact is that once you are a security expert protecting a companys valuable assets, you will be dealing with people that seem to come from a different planet, all they want to do is exploit that vulnerability in your network and subsequently cause harm. Maybe it makes them feel better or because they might earn from their effort. It is like a cat-dog affair whereby you fix, they damage. It continues like that, they dont get tired so far that company is
FIG 6.0 INFORMATION SECURITY

relevant and makes very good revenue. At a point it will look like you the professional is quite unprofessional because after implementing all the numerous strategies you are conversant with and beating your chest confidently saying Yes, I finally dealt with these people from Mars, they might still find a re-route or a backdoor to further continue their damage. In hacking methodology, the routine is find vulnerabilities, exploit them, hide tracks and expand access. I bet you anyone working with this means is bound to succeed if you dont have any formidable means of checking him. Here in Nigeria, so many companies, banks and organizations have been under serious attack from these cold blooded individuals, not because Nigerians are the best of hackers, but because Nigerians are the best when it comes to crime no matter the version of crime. If it is a criminal act, look very well, a Nigerian signature must be there. Nigerians were recently adjudged to be one of the best in code breaking and acts related to coding not because that they are so intelligent but because they dont see things the normal way again, they see it the criminal way. The DOD (Department Of Defense), which according to some people and also going by my own opinion remains the most secure network in the whole

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world, but Alas! One cool dude from U.K hacked it sometime two years back, he was extradited from U.K. to U.S. to answer for the offense, and in U.S. he was charged, found guilty and convicted. If someone was able to hack the DOD successfully, which might be an act of war if it was found that he is been sponsored by another country, because DOD servers have information bothering on the defense strategy of United States, then which other establishment is above a successful hack. Hmmm! This is very hard to swallow. I can see that. That is why the defender of any network must equally be the bad guy, which is the hacker himself too. Information and Network Security are two broad interwoven terms that form the bulk of the security certification. They closely complement each other because of their strong relationship. You must protect the network and information flowing through that network. For one to penetrate your network is not still a formidable reason that he will be able to get information from that network. The information available might be unusable, encrypted (scrambled with codes) or secured through biometric means. Network security has to do with protection of an establishments network by means of implementing various technologies that prevent intrusion, scanning or reconnaissance, and the others by means of using technologies like advanced firewalls, malicious code/program detectors (because a dissident might use one of the malicious programs like Trojans, worms , logic bombs, zombies or viruses to penetrate, which is an automated process), good network encryption to beat protocol analyzers that assemble data in transit, good authentication mechanism with encrypted password technology. Information Security has to do with the means information residing on information systems are secured and protected from malicious individuals that got access into these information systems. So many technologies are implemented like user rights policy, encryption with a good hashing mechanism, certification authority, biometrics authentication like fingerprints authentication, DNA check and iris scanners. You must think and behave like a hacker before you can protect your company. The best way to catch a lying thief is if youve been there and done that just like him. It is a known fact that in the world of hacking the white hat hacker represents the nice guy (defending), and the black hat hacker represents the mean guy (attacking). These black hat hackers are well paid by some individuals and companies to cause harm on other rival companies network in order to cause a

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disruption in their activities so as to benefit them. Im talking about people that dont sleep until their damage gets confirmed. Presently in Nigeria, there is a high demand for security professionals, not just certificatebearing security professionals but experienced people. One can gather his own experience if he decides to be prudent, that is if he knows how he can represent real life imagery by gathering fewer equipment and devices he can afford and represent a complex scenario. It is a real-time experience. In this way you can marry theory and the little experience you gathered together to predict or know what a complex scenario will yield to. There are so many authorities in charge of certifying security experts and so many security certifications one can get hold of in other to boost his expertise in the field. For starters a course from the stables of COMPTIA like COMPTIA SECURITY + is quite a prerequisite for going into other advanced security certifications. COMPTIA SECURITY + is a very good course that exposes one into the rudiments of Information and Network Security. Other courses are Microsoft Security that comes bundled in certifications like MCSE and MCITP but can still be written alone. Some good security courses come bundled in CISCO certifications. Then the big ones in security are courses like Ethical Hacking and CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) from International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium , the last requires 2-3 years experience as a security professional. Security is a good money spinner in Nigeria.

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WEB CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Wow!!! This is one big area that has a great bond with programming, applications development, multimedia and database technologies. It is one of the biggest money spinners in the country. This field is so versatile and wide that not one single individual can specialize in all the areas. Professionals are always sought for on a regular basis because there is so much information to be managed and updated regularly on web servers. As dynamic as a company is, so is the information the company deals with. So many things can be done on websites starting from information acquisition, blogging, social networking, purchases, net meeting, and resources surfing and downloads, in fact, the list is inexhaustible. In this age all businesses are marketed electronically, goods sold and returns made, there cant be any other means than to represent these in a format accessible by whomever that will have interest in them. That is how the idea of websites came into reality. Websites are applications that showcase contents of an information system in a way that anybody can be able to view and access such information from anywhere. A website may include
text, images, sounds and other content, and may be interactive. It can be accessed from anywhere

through the logical connection of these information systems by a term referred to as the internet which is maintained and regulated by so many bodies like the ISOC (Internet Society), the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group), the IERG (Internet Engineering Research Group), the ICANN (Internet Corporation for assigned Names and Numbers). The later been the body that gives out domain names and live IP addresses to individuals and companies that want to register their sites and services on the internet. That is where the concept of web hosting comes in, whereby before you can go on the internet after developing your site, you must pay for a slot on the internet from this organization which will provide you with a valid public or live IP address and endorse your domain name (e.g. www.microsoft.com) to operate with. So with these, you can host your web servers on your machines and link them to the internet for people across the world to be able to access it.

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Web content development is a broad term which contains other sub terms like web design, web programming, web graphics design, web authoring, database engineering, content development etc. First of all in the job of web content development, there are experts that specialize in producing the skeletal form of the site, that is designing the way contents will be placed on the web pages, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), xHTML (Extended Hypertext Markup Language), XML (Extensible Markup Language) form the background platform on which other codes are built on top of. Rather than using ghostly HTML tables and tags, CSS (Cascaded Style Sheets) and XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) is extensively used these days to determine the way contents of a website are positioned. These CSS or XSL codes are embedded on HTML, xHTML or XML. After this skeletal system has been developed, the contents is been worked on, other experts will design graphics, images, or other multimedia like macromedia flash which is used to animate web pages and add some level of dynamism to the site. In the graphics development, professionals use so many tools like Core Photopaint, Adobe Photoshop, Ulead Photo Express, Roxio Photo Suite, and Illustrator, macromedia flash designer, Maya Graphics and Animation and other tools and utilities to develop cutting-edge graphics for sites. These graphics form part of the liveliness experienced in recent dynamic web pages unlike the ghostly static pages HTML used to exhibit in the past. Then from there, other contents like texts, adverts, links, and the like are added. Scripting is another way of adding dynamism to web pages. It makes the web pages have this crisp and dynamic look and feel that is so appealing to the eyes. This is where much of the coding and programming comes in. In fact, it is the real deal. There are two types of scripting platforms, client-side scripting and server-side scripting. Client-server scripting which resides on the site and directly interacts with the end-user of the site; this tends to add good flexibility of the site while a visitor is using it. They are mostly Java Scripts, Jscripts, Action Scripts, VBScripts, and AJAX (Advanced JavaScript). They are mostly used to automate processes on sites like JavaScript will make sure a site user fills all the required forms on the site before submitting if not it will not submit and prompts the user to complete it and AJAX will take away that time overhead it will take a clicked link to open by quickly dashing into the servers, fetching your information and returning it back. These scripts are written by professionals in script writing who know when and where it is necessary to apply it during a site development.

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Server-side scripting makes up the other better and bigger part of web page dynamism. This is where web programming rests its oars with code writing expertise and professionalism at its peak. These technologies are implemented by servers which store data and feed the end-user by means of high powered scripts which automates the process. They are the real deal. The level of dynamism they bring to fore is so crisp and real that youll feel you can touch it. With smooth scrolling tabs, light-shaded and clear pop-ups, strong database engine that stores and manages user data effectively, neatly organized way of presenting information, and little time overhead in getting what you want. An example of a sophisticated site that contains all of these features remains the popular social networking site FACEBOOK which has so much dynamism, robust database structure and effective data representation. There are so many programming languages that can be used to implement server-side scripting, languages like PHP (Personal Home Page), ASP & ASPX (Active Server Pages from Microsoft), and JSP (Java Server Pages), ColdFusion, PERL, PYTHON, CGI (Common Gateway Interface), C #. All these languages are used in combination with one another, but all cant be implemented at the same time. Then comes the databases where technologies like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and APACHE web server come into play. These database engines are used to store the data for these websites which those serverside scripting work with. A simple analogy is the AMP trilogy, AMP stands for APACHE, MySQL and PHP where PHP is the middle man who brings requests and passes it unto APACHE who in turn goes into the store MySQL to fetch the data needed by the user. Its like an electronic sales outlet whereby the customer sends his order to the salesman who in turn passes the order to the inventory people that will go into the store to bring the product ordered. Here the customer is the site user, the salesman is the PHP language, the inventory guy is APACHE, and then the store is MySQL. Wow!!! What a moonlight tale. Sites can be developed depending on what one wants, targeted audience and the available technologies to be used. A site can contain a maze of codes, scripts, multimedia, and all sorts of enhancements which makes it practically impossible for one person to develop a standard site project. The wireframe development is the starting point whereby experts look at what the demand at hand is and decide on the best technology to use to design the skeletal image of the site, whereby theyll will torn between using XHTML or XML coupled with either CSS or XSL, then the graphics developers start working on the graphics elements of the site, the images, videos, animations and the rest, after which script and content writers start developing scripts and contents of the individual pages, then dynamism will be added by server side scripting which will be done by experts in that area. Then for a more data intensive site, for instance sites that have an electronic sales and inventory system, products overview and advertisement, secured payment infrastructure, provision for research work submission from individuals, and all that crap will require very good robust server side scripting with either PHP, ASP or ASPX, JSP, PERL, and the rest of them with either MySQL or PostgreSQL database. At the end a single site will be containing so many programs, elements and scripts.

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After all the designing, the next thing to do is the deployment which will have to do with making yourself a host or getting some third-party hosting firm to help you out. Hosting has to do with registering and making the site available on the internet for users. If you cant host it yourself then youll have to meet those third-party people who already have hosting rights or have been registered by ICANN and other internet societies to do it for you for a particular annual fee which is payable every year. There are so many cheap site hosting companies in Nigeria. All you have to do is make proper inquiry. In Nigeria, there is a great demand for skilled web content developers who can design, deploy and manage a site. The jobs come by the day and it pays handsomely all the time because of so much expertise required of individuals in that area. Less sophisticated sites can be developed by single individuals where as the more complex ones are done by a team. All you have to do is become very good in a part but youll try and be able to develop a normal site, get yourself a team that you will work with all the time, then you are good to go.

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Computer Databases A database is a logical storeroom resident on a system or systems which can store large volumes and quantities of an organizations data or information. This area is quite complex but not so confusing because its solely on its own. Not many coinages to confuse one. Its strictly a data storage affair. Have you wondered how an organisation manages the information of its employees, its products both sold and unsold, the designs, information on all sorts of data. A database can be a very huge and massively confusing affair if you, the database administrator (DBA) has huge data to manage. As a company or an establishment expands, the data they manage increases too. Maybe the increase will be astronomical or gradual depending on the rate of development within the company. It is of utmost importance that database administrators be positioned at strategic points of the establishments business to contain and manage data at those points.
NAME-ADDRESS TABLE OF CMT WORKERS Harold Percival Jerry Appel Adrian Hansen John Baker Michael Pens Bob Michimoto Linda Smith Robert Funnell Bill Checkal Jed Style 26262 S. Howards Mill Rd Westminster CA92683 32323 S. River Lane Rd Santa Ana CA92705 232 Glenwood Court Anaheim CA92640 2222 Lafayette St Garden GroveCA92643 77730 S. New Era Rd Irvine CA92715 25252 S. Kelmsley Dr Stanton CA92610 444 S.E. Seventh St Costa Mesa CA92635 2424 Sheri Court Anaheim CA92640 9595 Curry Dr Stanton CA92610 3535 Randall St Santa Ana CA9270

FIG 8.0. A FLAT FILE DATABASE

Basically the work terrain bothers about building up a database structure for an establishment with the latest technologies available, some actually programme databases, that is create their own custom made database designs other than the ones that are available today in the markets like MySQL, MsSQL, and Oracle. After the design, they build the database. These databases are of the form known as relational database management systems (RDBMS). They are relational in the sense that in the past data objects dont possess dynamism, that is been linked with one another, they are static in the sense that once data has been entered, they remain as they were, before you can get information you must be specific about the location of the data, this brings up the concept of flat files where data is entered on static pages that dont possess any link with other tables, information entered on these flat files can only be retrieved from them it doesnt refer you if it finds out that the data you are looking for is somewhere, that is it is not relational. But relational databases are dynamic, whenever a data object value changes it immediately and automatically updates itself within the database; the whole entire database adjusts itself. 2011 DIGIMEX INC.
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SQL (Structured Query Language) is the industry standard language used to query DBMS (Database Management Systems). It arranges data in tables that define a particular event. It has a similar structure or syntax like a normal programming language. Generic SQL is used to query all databases generally except that for most database engines especially ORACLE have a slight modification of the generic SQL to suit their own implementation. MySQL is a very good database system which is best implemented with web applications and its very good as a stand-alone RDBMS. MsSQL from Microsoft is a very good and robust database engine, it is used everywhere, most especially within Windows environment or Microsoft networks, alongside with servers like ISA, Exchange, SharePoint, RAS and the rest. ORACLE is a platform independent scalable and excellent RDBMS, it is the most preferred and the best so far. It can be deployed on any platform, whether Microsoft windows, Linux, or UNIX. It works very well. These days, the ORACLE co-operation prefers Linux operating systems, which is much more secure and robust.

FIG. 8.1

A RELATIONAL DATABASE

Database experts are most of the time on-site. That is they are mostly employed to manage the databases they work on, it is not much of a field job where you will do work remotely for an establishment and get back to them. But experts can be contracted to design a database for a company depending on their needs, but the database builder will manage the database and has to be conversant with the design before he can proceed. Building a database is populating the database, which is adding data to it. Here in Nigeria, their always exists the need for experienced database experts, there are three areas of database specialization; Systems DBAs (also referred to as Physical DBAs, Operations DBAs or Production Support DBAs) focus on the physical aspects of database administration such as DBMS installation,

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configuration, patching, upgrades, backups, restores, refreshes, performance optimization, and maintenance and disaster recovery. Development DBAs focus on the logical and development aspects of database administration such as data model design and maintenance, DDL (data definition language) generation, SQL writing and tuning, coding stored procedures, collaborating with developers to help choose the most appropriate DBMS feature/functionality and other pre-production activities. Application DBAs usually found in organizations that have purchased 3rd party application software such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) systems. Examples of such application software include Oracle Applications, Siebel and PeopleSoft (both now part of Oracle Corp.) and SAP. Application DBAs straddle the fence between the DBMS and the application software and are responsible for ensuring that the application is fully optimized for the database and vice versa. They usually manage all the application components that interact with the database and carry out activities such as application installation and patching, application upgrades, database cloning, building and running data cleanup routines, data load process management, etc.

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Computer Graphics, Animation and Multimedia. This is a branch of programming which better be left alone because of its broad scope. It is the latest area of ICT to get into the top money spinners of this generation. Graphics has to do with representing images, videos or animations (moving images or multimedia). It is a known fact that images on the screen can be represented by knowing the various colour identities that make up each pixel value that constitutes such an image. Everything you see on your computer monitor screen, your pictures, videos, writings, just about anything are made of pixels which are tiny dots that line up on your monitor screen. Try and use the magnifier application bundled with your windows O.S. to see what I mean, you can go to Start Button on your Taskbar, point to All Programs, then Accessories, then Ease of Access, click on Magnifier. Then use it to zoom your own picture on your monitor screen, zoom it to a greater percentage until dots like squares appear and the image appears distorted. These dots you are presently viewing on your screen make up the various colors that constitute your picture. Your picture is composed of these dots, and these dots or squares are known as pixels. Each of these pixels (Picture Elements) has a color number or a color identity, which can either be in RGB format or any other colour convention. The RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) format from kindergarten lessons can be mixed to get any colour one wants. You can get all sorts of colors when you mix the three colors in varying degrees of intensity. So if for instance, the monitor and graphics specification supports 24-bit colour mode, then each of the three colors are 8 bits each, when you do the math, i.e. for 8-bits red, you can get up to 28 = 256 values of red in varying degrees, if other colors in the RGB triplet is varied in the same way, then we will be getting 256 reds, 256 greens, and 256 blues, which when mixed together we will be getting 16,000,000 colors which is displayable by our monitor. If we all know the various values of the RGB triplet that make up the pixels in our picture (because each pixel has 3 phosphors for the RGB triplet), then we will be able to produce that same picture or image of ours by feeding the information to the frame buffer of our graphics controller without getting the picture or copying it to the system. Are you feeling me!!! This is the basics of graphics and animation programming. Designers have to know the various color identities that constitute what the image they want to render before doing mapping or drawing it on the screen. This analogy also goes for video and animation. A video which you created with your cam-coder can be viewed on the screen without copying it to the system by creating the various elements in the video, the background, and the people by pixel transformations like multiplication, rotation and translation of the pixels. Video are sometimes called moving pictures, of course they are, because for Obi to be static on the computer screen means that all the colour identities that constitute his image are stationary in the frame buffer memory locations. If you want him to move, the color identities in the frame buffer starts changing location within that same frame buffer. This is the idea behind animation and videos.

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The audio is later rendered. So from this basic analogy, you will be able to deduce that a very good graphics artist can fake a video where you are been blackmailed for what you never did or got involved in. That sounds inconveniencing!!! I get it. But it is not as easy as it seems, great animation products like the popular Tom and Jerry were done by lots of people, if not hundreds. It is so tedious that not one single person can achieve all. The person might go down with nervous breakdown while not meeting up to 10% of the work. All hands must be on deck for the work to flow. This still applies to Game development, whether computer games or console games, Gaming has got its fair share of the graphics mumbo jumbo. Computer games are user-defined stories that have a structural and logical pattern of flow. It first of all has a storyline that can be modified by the player through decision points in the game where the player either concludes the original storyline or modifies it depending on how he wants it. All possible occurrences to be encountered while playing a game has been provided for. For instance if you were meant to kill an Army General in the game and you were not able to do that, the next option has been set if you didnt achieve that objective, that is you will die by getting killed by the Army general. So from this, we understood that games are a tree, storyboard, or flowchart of options and decision points which if this doesnt happen, then that will happen. This is a very serious issue!!! It is never an easy affair.
FIG. 9.0 COMPUTER ANIMATOR AT WORK

There are lots of people involved day to day in the business of computer animation and Graphics. It is quite lucrative but challenging. You have to work long hours and you must fine tune your design before you come up with a working one. The process of fine tuning is continuous and it takes long periods. Presently in Nigeria, there exists the need for developers of Graphics and Animation. Many organizations presently use graphics and animation for their product advertisement because it is more appealing and attractive to the eyes. They make their impact at first sight. There isnt much need for games development in a country like Nigeria because the ones made by experts abroad always get cracked whenever they find their way to Nigeria. Basically any person or individual that creates games here in Nigeria will not find it so income-friendly because the original masterpieces of expert games made from abroad always get pirated and

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sold at a cheaper price. And going by the way I feel, it will take some serious level of ingenuity to beat the quality of games brought from abroad. So, I really do believe that animation sounds more lucrative than games in Nigeria, unless the games are not meant for the audience that plays console games like PlayStation or computer games played on the PC. Some other form of graphics are done by editing and modification of existing graphics like already made pictures and videos, where tools are used to enhance, distort, or recreate multimedia objects. This is quite a lucrative sub-field because the ingenuity

FIG. 9.1 Images like this can be used to deceive

displayed can still fetch huge revenues for an individual. There are Consultancy firms that employ people very good in multimedia editing. Pictures get transformed, enhanced and recreated like cutting people out from an original image and placing them in different backgrounds, changing the colour and design patterns of their clothing, creating other effects like including natural occurrences like rain or fog to make it more real and convincing. Tools like Adobe Photoshop, Ulead Photo Express, Roxio Photo Suite, Corel Photo Paint and the rest of them are used immensely for image editing. Videos can be manipulated in so many ways like cutting and merging segments of videos, enhancing it and improving sound, using graphics programming to fake a scene within the video. In fact multimedia is very wide if you start looking at all it entails, audio files can be converted from one form to the other, combined in some way, re-edit them, create so many effects like surround, voice conversion which still takes us into the world of sound engineering where studio engineers use special applications and other higher applications to make decent sound. This is still a fast growing money spinner as so many entertainment studios are springing up from all corners in the country and looking for qualified.

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Conclusion Ours is a world of opportunities. So much energy to create and make very good inventions. Most especially now the country is in need of experts that stayed behind, not the ones that absconded. We should try and see where we fit into the world of ICT and creativity, the world of endless possibilities and unending income and revenue. Help generate revenue for our country. Create a very strong ICT environment for posterity to sustain. Solve crime and other related puzzle with modern ICT techniques, create e-classrooms for lectures to easily flow, make our own national citizens database. In fact our destiny is in our hands.!!!!

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LIST OF ICT CERTIFICATIONS

3Com

Master of Network Science(MNS) Ascend Certified Technical Expert (ACTE) Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) Adobe Certified Training Provider (ACTP) Adaptec Certified Engineer Software Quality Engineer Certificated Project Manager (CPM) Certified Web Designer (CWD) Certified Web Manager (CWM) Certified Web Technician (CWT) Baan ERP Certification Baan IV Certification Baan Supply Chains Solutions (SCS) Certification Certified Banyan Specialist (CBS) Certified Banyan Expert (CBE) Certified Banyan Instructor (CBI) BIGHelpDesk.com Certified Developer Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) Cabletron Specialist (CS) Cabletron Systems Engineer (CSE) Spectrum Engineer (SE) Spectrum Solutions Engineer (SSE) Certified Network Telephony Engineer (CNTE))

Ascend

Adobe

Adaptec

American Society for Quality

Association For Project Management

Association of Web Professionals (AWP)

Baan Company

Banyan

BIGHelpDesk.com

BICSI

Building Industry Consulting Service International

Cabletron Systems

Callware Technologies

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Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS)

Information Systems Professional of Canada (ISP) Centura DBA Certification Centura Developer Certification Associate Technology Specialist Certified Technical Trainer (CTT) Check Point Certified Network Traffic Engineer (CCAE) Check Point Certified Security Administrator (CCSA) Check Point Certified Security Engineer (CCSE) Check Point Certified Quality of Service Engineerr (CCQE) Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) - ISP Dial Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) - Routing and Switching Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA) Cisco Certified Design Professional (CCDP) Certified Cisco Systems Instructor (CCSI) Cisco Learning Partner Connection Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator (CCEA) Citrix Certified Instructor (CCI) Certified Internet Webmaster Certified Network Expert (CNX) Cognos Certified Professional Program (CCPP) Compaq Associate Accredited Systems Engineer (Associate ASE) Compaq Accredited Systems Engineer(ASE) Compaq Master Accredited Systems Engineer (Master ASE) Accredited Compaq Technician Program (ACT) A+ Service Technician Certification Certified Document Imaging Architech (CDIA)

Centura Software/Gupta

Chauncey Group

Check Point Software

Cisco Systems

Citrix

CIW

CNX Consortium

Cognos, Inc.

Compaq

CompTIA Computing Technology Industry Association

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THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT Network+ i-Net+ Find Training Resources for CompTIA Certified Unicenter Engineer (CUE) Certified Opal Developer (COD) Certified Unicenter Administrator (CUA) Certified Professional Desktop Specialist (CACP-Desktop Specialist) Certified Professional Help Desk Specialist (CACP-Help Desk Specialist) Certified Professional Network Specialist (CACP-Network Specialist) Certified Professional Security Specialist (CACP Security Specialist) Certified Professional Storage Specialist (CACP Storage Specialist) Computer Telephony Engineer (CTE) Corel Certified Proficient User Corel Certified Expert User Corel Certified Instructor (CCI) CyberTech Certified (various applications) CyberTech Linux Certification CT Professional/Solutions Developer DIGITAL-Certified Digital Metrics Certified Linux Administrator Associate Business Continuity Planner (ABCP) Certified Business Continuity Planner (CBCP) Master Business Continuity Planner (MBCP) Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) Enterprise Certified Administrator Enterprise Certified Architek Enterprise Certified Professional

Computer Associates International

Computer Telephony Institute, Inc.

Corel Corporation

CyberTech Institute, Inc.

Dialogic

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)

Digital Metrics

Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRI)

DSDM Secretariat

Enterprise Certified Corp.

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FileNET

FileNET Certified Professional (FCP) FORE Systems LAN Certified Engineer FORE Systems WAN Certified Engineer Gartner Certified Associate in Project Management TCP/IP Network Analyst Certification Certified Field Support Technician (CFST) Certified Help Desk Director (CHDD) Certified Help Desk Manager (CHDM) Certified Help Desk Professional (CHDP) Help Desk 2000 Certified Instructor HP Certified IT Professional - HP-UX System Administration HP Certified IT Professional - MPE/iX System Administration HP Certified IT Professional - OpenView Network Management HP Certified IT Professional - OpenView Unix Server & Applications Management HP Certified IT Professional - OpenView Unix/NT Integration HP Certified IT Professional - OpenView Windows NT Server & Applications Management HP OpenView Certified Consultant HP STAR - Certified Cluster Installer (CLU) HP STAR - NetServer Technology Professional (NTP) HP STAR - Digital Workplace Professional (DWP) HP STAR - Information Storage Professional (ISP) HP STAR - Network Connectivity Professional (NCP) HyCurve Administration Specialist HyCurve Applications Specialist HyCurve Security Specialist HyCurve Web Design Specialist AIX Professional Certification Object Technology Certifications Professional Certification Program

FORE Systems

Gartner Institute

Global Knowledge

HelpDesk 2000

Hewlett Packard

HyCurve Inc.

IBM Corporation

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iGeneration Certified Professional Program Information Systems Audit and Control Association Informix Software, Inc.

All Internet Certifications Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) Informix Certified Professional Certified Inprise Consultant (CIC) Certified Inprise Instructor Associate Computing Professional (ACP) Certified Computing Professional (CCP) Configuration Management II Certification (CMII) IPC PWB Designer Intel Certified Integration Specialist Intel Certified Solutions Consultant Intel Training Center Locator Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS) Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Certified Programmer Certified Electronics Technician (CET) IWA Certified Web (CWP) IWA Certified Corporate Webmaster (CCW) IWA Certified Web Developer (CWD) Learning Tree Int. Certifications (various) Legato Certified Administrator (LCA) Legato Certified Operator (LCO) Legato Certified Specialist (LCS) Linux Professional Institute Certified Level 1 (LPIC1) Linux Professional Institute Certified Level 2 (LPIC2)

Inprise Corporation

Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals

Institute for Configuration Management(ICM) Institute for Interconnecting & Packaging Electronic Circuits (IPC)

Intel Corporation

International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG)

International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium

International Programmers Guild (IPG) International Society of Certified Electronics Technicians (ISCET)

International Webmasters Association

Learning Tree International

Legato Systems (acquired Vinca)

Linux Professional Institute

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THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT Linux Professional Institute Certified Level 3 (LPIC3) Certified Lotus Professional (CLP) Certified Lotus Specialist (CLS) Certified Lotus End-User Instructor (CLEI) Certified Lotus Instructor (CLI) Lucent Certified Solutions Expert (LCSE) Lucent Certified Technical Expert (LCTE) - ATM Lucent Certified Technical Expert (LCTE) - Frame Relay Lucent Certified Technical Expert (LCTE) - Remote Access Lucent Certified Technical Expert (LCTE) - VPRN Certified Castanet Developer Merant Certified Professional in PVCS Certified Product Specialist (CPS) Certified Product Instructor (CPI) Microsoft Training & Services Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) Microsoft Certified Professional + Internet (MCP+I) Microsoft Certified Professional + Site Builder (MCP+SB) Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer + Internet (MCSE+I) Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA) Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) Certification Find Microsoft Training and Testing Centers ISG Certifications Network Certifications Certified Network Expert (CNX) Newbridge Remote Access Specialist Newbridge Wise for Broadband Network Administrator Newbridge Wise for Broadband WAN Newbridge Wise for Narrowband Network Administrator

Lotus

Lucent InterNetworking Systems (was Ascend Communications Inc)

Marimba

MERANT

Mercury Interactive

Microsoft

Motorola National Association of Communications Systems Engineers (NACSE) Network Associates, Inc.

Newbridge Networks

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THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT Newbridge Wise for Narrowband WAN Newbridge Wise for Switched Routing Nortel Networks Certified Design Expert (NNCDE) Nortel Networks Certified Design Specialist (NNCDS) Nortel Networks Certified Network Architect (NNCNA) Nortel Networks Certified Support Expert (NNCSE) Nortel Networks Certified Support Specialist (NNCSS) Certified Internet Professional (CIP) Certified Novell Administrator (CNA) Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) Certified Novell Instructor (CNI) Certified Novell Salesperson (CNS) Master CNE (MCNE) Master CNI (MCNI) Novell Education Authorized Training Locator Oracle Certified Enterprise Developer - Oracle Internet Platform Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) - Application Developer Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) - Database Operator (DBO) Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) - DBA (Oracle 8 or 7.3) Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) - Financial Apps Consultant Oracle Certified Solution Developer - Jdeveloper WAN Applications Certified Expert (WAN A.C.E.) FrameSaver Certification Hotwire Certification Certified Smalltalk Developer (CSD) Certified Senior Smalltalk Developer (CSSD) Certified DOCS Professional PeopleSoft Business Analyst Pro PeopleSoft Database Administrator Pro PeopleSoft Programmer/Analyst Pro

Nortel Networks

Novell

Oracle

Paradyne

ParcPlace-Digitalk

PC DOCS, Inc.

PeopleSoft

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THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT PeopleSoft Project Lead Pro PeopleSoft Quality Assurance Pro PeopleSoft System Administrator Pro PeopleSoft System Architect Pro PeopleSoft Technical Pro Certified NetAnalyst - Architect Certified NetAnalyst - Cross Technology Certified NetAnalyst - Internet Project Management Professional Certified Qualty Analsyt (CQA) Certified SPICE Assessor Certified Software Test Engineer (CSTE) Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) Red Hat Certified Engineer II (RHCEII) Red Hat Certified Examiner (RHCX) Training Certification Linux Certified Professional (LCP) Linux/GNU Certified Administrator (LCA) Linux/GNU Certified Engineer (LCE) Linux/GNU Certified Trainer Master Linux/GNU Certified Engineer (MLCE) SCO Advanced System Engineer (ACE) SCO Certified UNIX System Administrator (CUSA) SAP Certified Application Consultant SAP Certified Technical Consultant SAS Certified Professional - Application Development SAS Certified Professional - Business Intelligence SAS Certified Professional - Data Management V6 SAS Certified Professional V6 Shiva Certified Professional Siebel Certified Consultant

Pine Mountain Group, Inc.

Project Management Institute(PMI)

Quality Assurance Institute(QAI)

Red Hat Software

Rockwell Software

SAIR

Santa Cruz Operation (SCO)

SAP Partner Academy

SAS Institute Inc.

Shiva Siebel Systems

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THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT Siebel Certified Instructor

Silicon Graphics

Certified IRIX System Administrator Certified Software Manager (CSM) Solomon Certified Trainer Solomon IV Certified Application Developer (SCAD) Solomon IV Certified Systems Engineer (SCSE) Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform Sun Certified Developer for the Java Platform Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java 2 Platform Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris, Part 1 & 2 Sun Certified Network Administrator for Solaris Sun Educational Services Training Centers Sybase Certified Professional Program Sybase Certification Exams Sybase Certification Exam Information Sybase Certified Adaptive Server Administrator Sybase Certified SQL Anywhere Certified PowerBuilder Developer 7.0 Certified PowerBuilder Developer 6.0 Sybase Certified Professional Program Study Guidelines ACT! Certified Consultant(ACC) Sysoft Certified Advanced Webmaster & EBusiness Architect Sysoft Certified Internet Developer Sysoft Certified Webmaster & E-Commerce Architect Certified Composer Professional (CCP) Tivoli Certified Consultant Tivoli Certified Enterprise Consultant Tivoli Certified Instructor Tivoli Certified Solutions Expert Vinca Certified Engineer (VCE)

Software Publishers Association (SPA)

Solomon Software

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sybase

Symantec Corp

Sysoft

Texas Instruments

Tivoli Systems, Inc.

Vinca

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THE ICT PROFESSIONAL: THE NIGERIAN VIEWPOINT

Xplor

Electronic Document & Printing Professional (EDPP) Alcatel Certified Switch Expert (ACSE) Alcatel Certified Switch Specialist (ACSS)

Xylan

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