This Friday, I’ll be joining leading thinkers and doers who are devoted to the converging fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design at TEDx in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Are you coming?

A lot of people know and call me by my first name, ‘Loy’, although there have been several written and pronounced variations of that name — Aloy, Loi, Leo, Law, (insert whatever suits you here) — which is a subject of another post.

Even though I prefer being called ‘Loy’, I also like my surname ‘Okezie’, which apparently has had its mutilated variations too — Okozie, Okezi, Okeze, Okiezie (insert yours here) — which again is the topic of another post.

Interestingly, unlike ‘Loy’, ‘Okezie’ has a more appealing meaning. It’s an Igbo name or word that literally means He creates well. The name has further been described as meaning: “God has completed this”.

So essentially, ‘Okezie’ could act as a verb: to create or complete, e.g. It was Rachel who okezied that beautiful dress or as a noun to describe someone who creates, e.g. He is an Okezie.

When used as an adjective suffix, it could mean “-like”, that is, “having qualities of”, thus when something or someone is ‘Okeziely’, it is Okezie-like, that is, having the qualities of a creator e.g The young boy became Okeziely after that training.

So you’re still reading? You must be a very patient English student. By now, you’re connecting the dots, I suppose.

But if you skipped that grammar class, I’m sure you’ll find it difficult to understand why I’m now @okeziely on Twitter. So here’s a crash course — I chose to change my Twitter handle to @okeziely because I’m Okezie-like, having the qualities of a creator. After all, I’m created in God’s image

As per those who mutilate the name, I believe it would be a good way for them to learn how to spell and pronounce the word ‘Okezie’ properly, as someone like Seiyie seriously needs to learn faster.

Oh, my bad…I too need to learn how to spell Seyi.

When someone I don’t know, never met before, and never spoken to before creates an app for my blog, then I know I’m gradually becoming a web celeb

No, it’s not a birthday gift. It’s a display of fanboism by an app developer named Olumadunwa Olusanya who I’m guessing reads my blog and thought it’d be nice for it to have a Blackberry app. Thanks, man!

By the way, Olusanya has created similar Blackberry apps for Linda Ikeji, Bella Naija and 360Nobs and I’m guessing that he won’t stop. Last week, I tweeted that app developers should start building unofficial apps for brands, celebs, etc as info apps for fans and possibly monetise via advertisements. [You can tweet me, if you need ideas to make this happen].

The app available on the Blackberry App World is a light-weight content app (643KB in size) built using a Blackberry App Generator that keeps you updated with articles once they’re posted on the blog via an instant notification feature.

The app also has an offline storage feature that allows you to access the blog’s content even when there’s no data service on your Blackberry device, which I find so cool, unlike other apps that requires data service to access its content.

However it lacks a commenting system and only shows the last 20 posts on the blog at a given time.

While its definitely not the best of apps out there, its remarkable that someone thinks the blog deserves an app, even though I’ve been on a long hiatus and haven’t written a post here in the past one month, since I’ve been managing other web properties.

Who knows, I just might become a daily gossip blogger soon following the likes of Linda Ikeji  So if you want to keep up with gists about life on the digital lane, why not download the Blackberry app.

And make sure to share the app via Email, Facebook, Twitter or BBM

From wearing jeans and t-shirt at tech events to Zuckerberg-inspired hoodies to meetings, it seems that Nigerian entrepreneurs would soon be dumping their starched shirts as Oo Nwoye is inspiring a new cadre of hip-hop styled Internet entrepreneurs.

Dressed in a faded blue jean and pink-coloured checkered long-sleeved untucked shirt and wearing a blue and white coloured flip-flop at Tuesday’s DrinkUp with EchoVC at the high-class open-air bar on the rooftop of the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel, Oo could easily have passed for an Alaba market trader.

The last time I met him at the Piccadilly Suite in Lekki, he was dressed in a jean and shirt with a headphone around his neck, but this time, he had a tablet on his left arm and was holding a glass of star beer on his right hand.

So I ask: Is Oo’s new dress culture the new cool? Would clients/customers or users adopt products if entrepreneurs start dressing this way? More importantly, would investors even listen to what you have to say?

The SMS reads:

“Dear Customer, Enjoy unlimited access on all our electronic channels-ATMs /POS, Cards and Intra bank transfers on accessonline for just N100 monthly.”

Granted, banks charge between N50-N100, when customers are making withdrawals from ATM machines other than their banks’.

My concern is why banks such as Access Bank should be charging its own customers to use its own electronic channels.

Isn’t the cashless policy a way to generate more cash for these financial institutions?

In my opinion, the banks are benefiting more from this policy than its customers.

What are your thoughts?

A few weeks ago, I was looking for freelance photographers to cover upcoming Techloy events, so I decided to test drive their talents at the just concluded Mobile Web West Africa 2012 event.

So one day, I saw a guy named Seun Oyeleke tag a friend’s Facebook profile page with photos he shot at the Google+ Hangout with celebs. Those photos were the most artistic and creative photos I’ve seen in a long time.

I immediately contacted Seun and offered him a deal to cover the Mobile Web West Africa 2012, he accepted and the rest is history.

Seun photographs at events and weddings for hire, and also creates breathtaking scenic photos (like the one up there), that leaves you spell-bound.

His website has got some spectacular photos from scenic to conceptual photography. The one above is a captivating pennisula view by dusk taken from the swimming pool area at the Lagos Oriental Hotel on the Lekki Road, Victoria Island.

You can contact Seun at EmmanuelOyeleke.com or via his Facebook page if you want to hire him for an event.

He’s the best in the world!

Last night, Paul Carr made an inflammatory and ridiculous statement about Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that undermines her ability and capability of becoming the President of the World Bank, while suggesting that she may have applied for the post via email just like scammers would…

Beyond that, it was an insult to every single Nigerian and I think the proper thing to do *is* to call Paul Carr to order. Of course, Sarah Lacy didn’t as expected and little does she realise that the worst troll on the Interwebs is her darling friend, Paul Carr.

If only she knew.

Check out these two logo design samples below and your opinion would be appreciated

Logo 1

Logo 2

What are your thoughts?

Yeah, it's me...pounding cocoa-yam Image by iRach

A few weeks ago, my wife returned home with some Oha soup bought from a local restaurant close to where she works which we used for dinner on one Friday night.

By the way, Oha (or Ora) soup is a traditional soup similar to the bitterleaf soup but cooked with Ora (or Oha) leaves. It is native to the South Eastern Nigeria.

So the soup she bought that day prepared with Oha leaves and assorted meat, fish and kpomo (my favourite) was very delicious and much to my delight, so I requested that she makes the same someday.

She told me that Oha soup could be stressful to make, especially with pounding cocoa-yam, which should be hot when pounded and could have lumps if not pounded properly.

I obliged and volunteered to pound it, even if that was my only contribution.

As the saying goes: “Better soup na money kill am”, so my craving for Oha soup made me pound cocoa-yam this afternoon.

Before now, I had never pounded anything like it before, but enjoyed the soup whenever I had the opportunity.

When I started, it seemed easy as the already soft cocoa-yams where mashed in a mortar with the help of a pistol without complaining, but it became tough when my wife told me that I needed to apply more pressure on the pounding to avoid the mashed cocoa-yam having lumps.

It's me again...by this time, with intense sweating! Image by iRach

The pounding went on…for several minutes…and as my sweating became intense, I kept asking myself: Isn’t there a way that technology can mash this thing in seconds?

After about 30 minutes or so, she was finally satisfied with the smoothness of the mashed cocoa-yam and at last, I was finally free. Sigh.

Will I pound it again? Not sure, but I sure won’t mind eating the whole pot of that soup when it’s ready.

So my question is: Is there some product of technology that can mash yam, cocoa-yam, etc?