So today I went to the US embassy for the second time for a Student F1 visa application interview and I have been refused a visa for entry into the United States. Last time I was denied it was laid on the bases that I did not provide any compelling evidence at the time of my interview to compel me to return home after completing my studies.  I understood and they were completely right for doing so but this time around all the evidence was there, I was so convinced that finally I will be granted a Student visa to pursue a computer science education in the United States…… but once again the sweet consular woman said “… I am sorry to inform you that the law has not change and that I still find you to be ineligible for a US visa...” Coming think of it, I think what it comes down to is that she doesn’t like me for some reason… I mean what I have done to deserve that. Last time she only interviewed me for barely a minute and this time around I can swear it was less than 30 seconds.

All she asked me was that “... has anything changed in your application from the last time that you applied…” I replied yes and I pointed to her that there is a letter from my sponsor emphasizing my ties to the Gambia and original documents showing evidence that my family owns a home and land in the Gambia and also a brief talk in writing about my career goals upon returning to The Gambia. Then she asked me why do I want to go to the particular school and I said “… I have found out that it's a good school which lays strong emphasis on technology and it suits me financially...” but oh no that was not enough to convince her.

I was not even given the chance to defend my self and no suggestions where made to me on how to overcome the refusal just in-case I choose to reapply in the future. The most hurtful part of the whole thing just like in my first time is that, as it was clearly stated in their rejection letter that I cannot appeal their decision. It’s like being convicted of a crime that you did not commit and the justice system won’t allow you to make an appeal. Where is the sense of justice and equal rights for all that the United States is so outspoken for? To me that is clearly missing here. I have nothing against the United States, in-fact I am a great admirer of its people for they are in the forefront of creating innovative ways, research and technologies that make the life of everyone one earth productive and may I say worth/interesting living. Anyways, it all cones down to one thing, if you are from my race and my continent you’d probably gotten used to the double standards everyone else applies to you. I am talking about poor Gambians here including my self who have lost $131 or more just like that without the chance to appeal the consulate’s decision and not forgetting to mention a refund of at-least some of their money. They will tell you that, that the money goes in to the Visa processing but wait I filled in the form and I printed it from their website then I went to the bank, paid $131 in to their account and stood before the consular on my interview day and I was asked 1 question and then refused a visa without a chance of an appeal or refund and you tell me that is Visa processing.

There has to be a stop to this reign of Visa Terror by the US Embassy because to me it certainly is if you, like me lost so much money and resources and not to mention precious thinking time you devote to the whole process. It’s time someone takes the lead and put an end to this injustice. I am going to report this to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the United States Embassy in The Gambia (they can just ignore it like my last email if they like) and I am going to find ways to report this to all major international new media providers like CNN and BBC including our local media, the US and Gambia governments. Also to publicize this on social media buzz websites I will…. You know just a little something to create awareness of what’s happening.  Even if I will never benefit from a compensation or money refund once the whole thing is resolved, I know my fellow citizens certainly will.

So, that is $262 the US government owes me for the two F1 student visa applications I’ve applied for. I know that they say the visa application fee is non refundable but I don’t care because that is money I worked hard for and I want it BACK. Somehow they are just going to have to pay me back and I mean it.

I will probably never apply for a US student visa again because it is a very humiliating experience when you get rejected and your chances of getting one after two earlier rejections is very slim. With that goes all me hopes and dreams and my chances of getting a computer science education of my choice all shattered in-front of my eyes. I have a compulsive urge to pursue education in the field of what love and i have to admit that it is extremely painful and difficult and it hurts getting denied of that. Right now I feel like just sitting here and cry out loud like a little child… no kidding.  I wont WHY? Because I am a grown up and I believe when one door closes another one opens and who knows, everything happens for a reason and this one of those things part of my destiny…. Perhaps this is what is best for me right now. I think that i have the whole thing figured out. I know exactly what I want and what I am capable of doing, going to school was one way of  getting there. I have known that without going to school it will be a long and difficult road but I guess now it is time to take the trek head on. I suppose It's time to bust my head out of the my egg shell and start to life my life.

I am a very defiant and an extremely rebellious person by nature but still very law abiding (more that normal) and peaceful (I suppose it all has do with my religion). They can’t hold me down, now more than ever I am more determined than I have ever been my entire life. We are all meant for a purpose and I will certainly server mine.

God willing next time I apply for a US visa, it will be to attend a Microsoft developer conference or something and I will be the owner and CEO of Gambia largest software development firm. I think it’s time to realize the BarrowBros. dream but it’s a  long and difficult road and OH boy where do I start?

 Anyway, till then, but right now I need to relax. I had a terrible ordeal today.
 Cheers!!!!

From the beginning of my web development career after high school in the summer of 2006. I have frequently used certain web browser tools or add-ons if you like to aid me in my every day web development. Through the course of time I have learn to use these tools to become a better web developer. In this post, I will make a list of all the web browser tools or add-ons I find most useful to the professional web developer.


Firebug

In my own opinion Firebug is the most useful out of the crowd of web browser add-ons for the web developer. It has helped me finish task quickly which will otherwise take me hours to finish. It's functionality spans from the ability to inspect page elements and there HTML, edit CSS values and preview results instantly and even set breakpoints in your JavaScript code to aid you in the debugging process.

Firebug is available only to the Firefox browser. Download Firebug here.

IE Developer Toolbar

This internet explorer add-on is similar to Firebug in use and functionality. Although it has some extra functionality such as a ruler and one of my favorite, the eyedropper tool (allows you to aye drop the color use on n image, text etc. on your web page), the only thing I feel it is lacks is a syntax highlighter which makes in look inferior to Firebug (I hate to say this because I like stuff from Microsoft). It’s quite a handy tool just when you get to know it.

Download IE developer tool bar from here.

Fiddler

Fiddler is a tool developed by Microsoft for inspecting and debugging web request(s). It runs from your machine and it could be used to debug and inspect internet traffic from virtually any application, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and a whole lot more. It includes functionality that enable you to run simulated test on the web request and tools that can emulate tweaking it. Hands down fiddler is great for examining what’s under the hood of the web request(http/https). Fiddler is an extremely powerful and feature rich application and it’s not for the faint of heart.

NOTE: In order to run fiddler, you must have at least Microsoft .Net framework 2.0 installed on your computer
Download the .Net runtime frame 2.0 from here.

IETAB

The life of a web developer is not at all easy in the world of multiple web browsers. Backward compatibly is a must if your web application is hosted and it is available for use online. That is why I still use IE 6 for testing purposes just to make sure that everything renders properly.

That’s were the Firefox add-on IEtab comes to use. It gives you an option to open a link in a Firefox tab which uses the internet explorer rendering engine to do the actually rendering of the page in Firefox.

I like IEtab because it saves me space on my windows task bar. Instead on lunching many internet explorer windows … I could load them in multiple Firefox tabs which is nice.

Note: IE-Tab is only available to the Firefox web browser.
Download IE-Tab from here.

HTML Validator
This add-on is available to the Firefox web browser only. It inspects a web page’s HTML/XHTML markup and validates it against a validation engine you specify and then it reports any errors it finds. It’s just the perfect tool you need when you want 100% W3C compliant HTML/XHTML.

Download HTNL validator from here.

Yslow
If you are a web performance freak like me then you will probably want to squeeze all the performance out of your web application. Then you will find the Firefox add-on Yslow to be your ally in your quest to design and build better scaling web apps.

If you put a lot of care into work , Yslow will force you to write server side code depending on the framework you use(AP.NET, PHP, Ruby on Rails, JSP etc) to handle and produce better browser output code .Yslow is developed by Yahoo! and it’s an extension to the already popular Firebug extension.

Sometimes i use Yslow to check on the big guys to see who is implementing the best practices and who's not just for fun and most of the times i just laugh at what i see.

Download Yslow from here.

This list is by no means an exhaustive list of essential web browser tools for the web developer but merely a representation from my own point of view. If you have any other suggestions please list them in your comments.

I know it has been more than a month since i last blogged about anything. It's a very hard responsibility to keep a blog going and most of you know that. Over the past month several events have happened in my life for example i now do website related consulting work and client support from home for the company i use to work for Rhythm Ltd and Geographical Media because they are in the process of relocating their office outside of the Gambia.

Working from home has a lot of fun involved in it which is a good thing but one of the most challenging things is the motivation factor. It's very hard to find anything to stimulate your motivation to do work at all and then you begin to feel it - less productivity. I have been trying to find something that will keep me moving on and this morning i thought perhaps if i should start blogging on a regular bases that should help.

I have been experimenting with a lot of new technology for a while now and over the coming days i shall be writing about some of those exciting things I've learnt.
So there you have it.... am starting the blogging engine. Stay tuned.