Nollywood is the film industry of Nigeria. The name is derived from the Hollywood. It dates back to 1960's. It is the third largest film industry in the world after America and India.

Ola Balogun and Hubert Ogunde made first film of Nigeria in 1960 but the cost of production was very high. Earlier there was not any broadcasting station in Nigeria but from 1980 every state has its own broadcasting station. Many videos were circulated to these broadcasting stations. Nigerian film industry is also known as 'home videos'.

The first blockbuster of Nollywood was the movie named 'living in Bondage'.  Movies are based on different themes of daily life like Corruption, AIDS, and Women Rights and so on. Some of the movies of Nollywood are based on the Christian and Islamic faith like popular movie 'Not without My Daughter'. The movie is based on the obstacles in marrying inter-religion. In a movie a Muslim man who wants to marry a Christian woman but faced many obstacles.  Mercy Johnson, Lillian Bach,  Hassant Akinwande, Jide Kosoko, Oge Okoye, Regina Askia and Rita Dominic are some of the famous artists of Nollywood.

The film industry is on its developing path. The reason of its success is the use of English language rather than local language Hausa. The movies are famous all over the world. Good number of movies are released every year. The first movie which reached the international level was 'Osuofia in London'. The comedic actor Nkem Owoh, acted in the movie. The African filmmakers won many awards for making serious movies. The Nigerian movie industry produces about 400 movies in a year. The movies are produced in a very short period and does not take much time and money.

Earlier the movies of Nollywood were made with traditional technologies. Now Nigerian directors adopted the new technology of digital video which is affordable. All the work of post production of the movie and its music is being edited by computer based system.

Most of the critics criticize Nollywood movies for poor production and dialogues. But in last 13 years Nollywood industry has grown into a big industry and it employs large number of people. The cinema of Nigeria is developing day by day.

Nollywood movies are produced in 'Studio Tinapa', Calabar. But all the movies are not produced in same studio some of them are produced in the natural locations of Nigeria . Nigerian movies are available in almost all the areas of the continent. Currently the Nigerian films are distributed on large scale.

Remember the Smelly Car episode from Seinfeld?  It went like this… The strong body odor of a valet is left in Jerry’s BMW 5 Series.  Jerry is forced to try to sell the car, because the odor has taken a life of its own and permeated everything.  When the car can’t be sold, Jerry winds up leaving it and the keys out on the street.

Well, art sometimes imitates life, or vise-a-versa, as illustrated by a recent Massachusetts lemon law decision coming out of the Appeals Court . The plaintiff bought a Jeep in August 2003.  Thereafter, at least five times, she reported a foul odor like rotten eggs in the car each time she started it up. Four times, she reported a rattle noise in the car of undetected origin.  Each time, the car dealership repair center examined the car but could not detect either problem.  

The Plaintiff sued for breach of warranties, breach of contract, and violations of G.L. c. 93A, the Massachusetts automobile lemon law and the Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.  The plaintiff also made a claim seeking to revoke acceptance of vehicle under the Uniform Commercial Code.  The Plaintiff lost, both at the trial court level and on appeal.  Both courts ruled that none of her claims could be sustained because the defects of which she complained were not ‘substantial’ - thus no breach of Mass Lemon Law or Chrysler’s warranty occurred.  The court bought the manufacturer’s argument that the despite the ‘alleged’ foul odor and rattle noise in a vehicle, the vehicle provided safe and reliable transportation.

I can see both sides of the argument. If a dealer cannot duplicate a problem, it is very difficult to blame him for failing to fix it. Plus smell and noise issues don’t really affect the drivability or safety of a vehicle. On the other hand, I’m concerned that decisions like this reward dealers for shirking responsibility for fixing intractable or intermittent problems of the type the plaintiff complained of.   As a result my advice is this: if something is wrong with your car and the dealer doesn’t seem to find the problem, make sure you have friends or family (Elaine, Kramer??) witness the problem.

Of course, if it gets unbearable, you can always just leave the car on the street….

Sergei Lemberg, Esq. is a national expert on auto laws and the founding partner of Lemberg & Associates L.L.C., a law firm focusing on automobile lemon laws and auto fraud. To read more of Sergei's blogs, please visit http://www.lemonjustice.com/blog/ .

"New York's Opera Society" is finally out on paperback which those who have been following the story and those who have not can get on www.iuniverse.com by searching for it by its

title "New York's Opera Society" or under books writen by me Gianni Truvianni. Of course for those who prefer to look for it on Amazon they may also find it there and the prize is 6 USD as E-book and 13.95 in its paperback form.

Everyone lately has been telling me that SMS is a nice common denominator that helps bring functionality and less silo applications to mobile devices. This is amazing for me to hear! Thus far in North America we have met with hostility from some quarters as we push intelligent Email to SMS. Ironically, I spoke to four analyst firms recently and they all think we are doing the right thing! The view is that intelligent Email to SMS where you filter as much as possible so you get 20 relevant/critical emails instead of 200 on your mobile phone and you intelligently summarize so you can maximize the use of the 15 words that an SMS packet allows is actually a good approach! Who knew??


The most encouraging news for smart Email to SMS vendors like Amika Mobile is the openness of a number of players to SMS despite the big lag in North America in SMS compared with India and Europe. Remember that India is selling 100,000 phones a day and mostly for SMS! The good thing here is that users are forcing the carriers and device manufacturers that do not want to embrace SMS to do so. It reminds me of the ancient ATM versus IP debate and we all know how that story played out with carriers initially missing the Internet wave altogether! Hopefully, history will not repeat itself in this situation and the North America carriers will open their minds to more than Smart Phone messaging and embrace SMS as the 2.5 Billion mobile phones in use in the world today eclipse the 30 Million Smart Phones (PDAs) of today by a long shot!

Over the decade I have been using mobile phones to view email, I have noticed how users get completely addicted to their devices. I recall walking around with a Nokia flip phone - circa 2000 that I finally gave up for a Motorola phone circa 2004! I still think both vendors offer great phones. Today, I walk around with a Pearl from Blackberry. 2007 marks the first time in a decade that I have accepted a Blackberry as a phone and an email device. Before I carried both. I get the critical email content from various sources (personal and enterprise) sent to me through www.amikamobile.net . I don’t bother synching my Blackberry since I don’t want the 200 or so messages I get a day to come to me mobile. I am finding this is a good way to separate what I have to absolutely address while away from my Inbox. Essentially, Amika Mobile creates a personalized mobile phone through its white/black lists and filtering options. I am definitely an addict of mobile email and am very fussy about my mobile device. I know people who have steadfastly refused to give up their devices until the keys start to fail. The reason for this besides the form factor, look and feel is the information that these devices have onboard in terms of contacts and now pictures.
The use of filtering words during the sign-on at www.amikamobile.net creates a highly personalized mobile phone, thereby increasing the efficacy of the forwarding of critical email alerts and their relevance to every user. Filtering can be amended later by returning to the sign-on page and making changes, additions and/or deletions as necessary.

Had an interesting experience recently upgrading mobile phones and adding a second mobile line! In order to pick between services, you need to decide what is important:
· Do you want everything to the desktop on the phone as you get with Blackberry?
· Do you just want the critical messages?
· Do you just want the headers?
· Do you just want messages from certain people?
Do you just want key points? Here are a few pointers:
1) Read the fine print very carefully! Unlimited SMS or text messaging does not mean infinite! With some carriers, it means monthly 100 SMS, others 500 SMS and others 2500 SMS. If you pick 100 SMS for $5/month, then every other one after that may cost 0 to 15 cents! Thus, 100 more may cost nothing or $15; 200-more $30 and 300-more $40 and so on!
2) Not all carrier plans are created equal! Many carriers are trying to get as many subscribers onboard as possible. As such, they are giving you the hardware free - Blackberry, Nokia phone, you name it (!) - as long as you subscribe to a 3 year service plan that is $30 for voice and $15 for ‘unlimited’ Email/Texting. That amounts to $540 a year for 3 years or $1620 lock in contract that if broken has to be paid out! There may be nothing wrong with this if you plan to love your carrier enough to not want to switch for 3 yrs! Your other choice is to go for no contract but pay the $300 to $600 for the phone and the higher monthly fees!
3) So, the bottom line is be very aware of what plan you sign up to and make sure you review your bill occasionally as you never know when that ‘unlimited’ email or text plan becomes very limited!
In addition, I am often asked how someone can get enterprise email on a mobile phone. There are a number of ways to do this. You could buy a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and Blackberries for everyone. This may be a bit expensive at $200 plus/device, a $70/month service and the price of the BES. Other users actually forward their enterprise email to personal accounts like Gmail, Yahoo!, etc. This is a very bad idea and defeats the whole purpose of enterprise security and the compliance efforts of your CIO.
The other option is to look for a mobile email enterprise server for mobile phones, which would turn most common mobile phones into a low cost Blackberry. A number of products could fit this bill. Amika Mobile is one such company whose products convert the ubiquitous SMS-enabled mobile device into a low cost Blackberry cell phone by delivering the essential message from the desktop email into a simple SMS message designed to ideally fit the wireless micro screen.

I believe that today’s mobile users need wireless access to email, phone and other critical content, especially when community safety is involved. When emergencies occur, such as shootings and lockdowns on campus and in buildings, there is an urgent need for the broadcast and delivery of emergency alerts through SMS to community members within minutes, if not seconds. Such emergency notification requires urgent broadcasts of point-to-multipoint messages.
Our Amika Mobility Server (AMS) provides a text message-based alert broadcasting system for campus, city, or geographically distributed areas, sending critical public safety information to communities within seconds or minutes. Alerts are transmitted via SMS (TXT), to any SMS-enabled mobile device. Reach anyone or everyone, regardless of their mobile device preference.
With the Amika Mobility Server delivering critical emergency alerts, mobile users can make timely decisions based on the best information available, ensuring their safety, increasing their productivity, and boosting business performance.
Feature Resulting Benefits Broadcast Emergency Alerts
Deliver via email or SMS
Supports ALL mobile devices
No client installation required
Monitors multiple mailboxes for user
New email are summarized to SMS
Leverage low cost carrier services
Simple installation (ANY hardware)
Linux OS
Ø 24 hour emergency connectivity Ø Target users’ preferred mobile devices Ø Full coverage of community Ø No technology barrier Ø Users motivated to maintain accounts Ø Optimizes display for mobile screen Ø Lowest cost solution Ø Low Total Cost of Ownership Ø Stable, low risk platform

The killer application for the mobile phone has always been messaging whether it is email or texting. It is messaging! There are 215 Billion emails and 500 Billion SMS messages circumnavigating the globe daily. Surely, there is a good reason why things like shopping using the mobile phone, watching movies or getting updates from LOLcats are not killer apps. It is email and texting and it is about getting the critical email content through SMS onto the mobile phone.

It is interesting that the approach that vendors and carriers continue to tout to users is that they need ALL their emails on the mobile phones. Users can either register for a push email for mobile phones service such as the Blackberry and receive every annoying desktop email they get in its full glory with its hundreds of lines and threads. Or they can sign-up to other vendor offerings such as Google or Yahoo! with their “pull” offerings for Smart Phones which download your desktop email view to your 2×2 inch micro screen! Both types of services force you into expensive plans of $50-100 per month and you have to buy a Smart Phone. This is even the model for the more innovative devices such as the iPhone from Apple. So, what is a poor overwhelmed user to do?

Choose an application like ours that allows the Service Providers and Enterprise to deliver the killer app to any of the 3.3 Billion SMS phones not just the 60 Million SmartPhones that only make up 2% of the mobile phone penetration! Enough said, don’t you think?

I strongly believe that wireless access to email, phone and other corporate content is not an extravagance today — it is a necessity. Mobility is clearly a strategic business advantage. Daily 214+ billion emails are exchanged worldwide and the demand for enterprise-based mobile messaging is growing at 108% annually. Wireless Intelligence published that 2.5 Billion mobile phones are currently in use and the majority of these are SMS or text messaging devices rather than the more expensive Smartphone alternatives such as the iPhone and Blackberry. Our company, Amika Mobile, seeks to level the playing field for those users who want to enjoy the benefits of better targeted messaging without the hefty premiums.

The idea behind Email to SMS is for these users to get the critical key content behind a message very quickly and text back a response or make a quick call. Our Amika Mobility Server provides mobile users with access to email, phone, data, applications and the Internet from any SMS-enabled device. This real-time solution is a fully scalable server that can be customized to meet the needs of any size enterprise. It greatly simplifies Email-to-SMS use by enabling automated and intelligent forwarding of critical information from email accounts to SMS mobile devices anywhere in the world. Key Benefits of Amika Mobile’s Email to SMS Solution include:
· Lowest cost per user
· Email-to-SMS easy to set up
· Email “Push” to any mobile phone
· Seamless enterprise integration
· Content optimized for mobile screen
· Linux Software Server runs on any Hardware

The importance of e-learning and e-learning solutions in India cannot be ignored with the growing pool of highly qualified individuals. People across the world have saved time and money and students have managed to get easy accessibility irrespective of their place of residence. With e-learning solutions, businesses have trained their people online and students have gained higher education degrees at respectable universities and colleges without any expenses on traveling, accommodation, food and high fees for tutors. With easy access, e-learning programs have become more complex. New trends like the expansion of applications are developing that require constant training. Blended e-learning is also becoming the latest trend. To facilitate such programs, companies are providing effective e-learning solutions. They develop your custom-made integrated e-learning content solutions in many languages and multi-interactive formats. The demand and the scope of e-learning solutions in India has increased drastically. Consultants at e-learning companies with their expertise will understand your requirement, lay down a proper plan accordingly and will use the right resources which will in turn provide a productive output. With their expertise in e-learning solutions, companies communicate the messages you want to be delivered, in the best way for learners thus creating an engaging, unique and highly interactive user experience. They make use of the latest and the best technology and ensure that the solution you get it up to the mark keeping in mind your preferences and making it user-friendly.