Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

On mission. 17 Reasons

I was having a splendiferous day, as usual and got a nice email questionnaire from the ever-jolly, social and pulchritudinous @ndinda_ last week.

There were 10 questions in there, but question ONE got me thinking deep and hard. [Ofcourse, knowing me, knowing me... I like doing my things deep and hard].

So, thence, cometh the questions.

Q1 – Why do you blog?

I remember in 2009 before I started my blog. There was so much going wrong and someone needed to talk about it.  I am talking about the IT sector. So, the NEED was there. Like I mentioned in my Nitwits/Idiot’s guide to blogging, registering a domain and setting up wordpress is just a mundane task. My cat can do it. Also, getting people to your website is not a problem. There are hundreds of thousands of Kenyans idle and looking for content to pass time.

These mindless types will go for anything sensational, re-tweet it and look for the facts later.

Actually, at first, I wanted to start a blog just for insulting people. I wanted to call it TM, [TekeMangumi.com]. Of course, In such a blog, all you need is just 3560 people to insult per year and you got yourself 10 posts per day. Ohh, what traffic!! Throw in some GoogleAds and Kaching!! You got yourself a ka 50k per month. Doing nothing. Being Nothing.

Baaah! Too easy. Any idiot could do that. Actually, idiots do that already. So that blog-space was already taken. And it is protected by Mbwa Kali. #estateDog.

Then another Idea came in. Why not blog about HIV/AIDS or the prostitutes in Majengo and Kibera. Hmmmn.. Interesting. How about pretend to be a prostitute/gay and make an online diary speaking about ‘my life’? Surely, the media and the world will die/kill to come interview me. YES!!!

But no. That is boring. It would be more interesting to talk about the color of the Thika Road Tarmac. Next idea please!

So, you difficult-to-impress-Salim, how about something that will intellectually challenge the readers. Write about spirituality, success, philosophy, hacking and coding. Write about your life. The lessons the hardships and the good-times. Something that will make you RELEVANT to the current space. Something that will make Bob, Rimbui, Too, Afro, Banks etc read AND comment on your blog with a warm feeling in their heart. YESS!!

And so the journey began. Those were my reasons. The need to relate with like-minded people. The need to challenge and hopefully change/discourage simple-minded thinkers. The need to show people that since we were not handed stuff on a silver platter, we need to GO and TAKE that platter. The need to talk about events and people with REAL facts. Not manufactured fucts.

Back to code…

Wazi.

Samsung Ch@t Duos

I was privileged to get my hands on a Samsung Ch@t Duos, the Punch, last month and I thought I should share my experience with this cute little phone.

The first thing that impressed me about the phone is the lightness. It is a perfect phone for light clothing because it weight half as heavy as most phones. Then comes the punch [No pun intended], the phone is the FIRST ever Qwerty phone with a Dual SIM support. The dual-mode for the SIM card is not asynchronous. Meaning it saves on your battery life.

I traveled to Uganda last week and the phone was a savior. With my MTN and Airtel Uganda SIM Cards in the phone, AutoSwitching the networks was a breeze. The phone comes with a home-screen image listing for your commonly called numbers.

The phone comes with a One-touch Network Switch Key to switch the networks quickly. In one second. Also, there is an inbuilt scheduler that enables you to take advantage of local tarriffs. You can set the phone to e.g. Be on Zain from 10am to 10PM and on Safaricom between 10:01pm to 9:59am to take advantage of cheap calling and SMS rates.

The phone comes with inbuilt Facebook, Twitter, MSN and Yahoo messengers. No need to install these apps. They come inbuilt.

With a 2GB MicroSD Card [Expandable to 8GB] and 3.5mm Jack Pin you can connect any HeadPhones and/or earphones to the phone and carry your music along with you.

Duos comes at a good price and is locally available in any phone shop.

It is a phone I would recommend anytime to someone with :

• The need to stay always connected to the social space
• The need to use 2 SIM Cards.
• The need to listen to music on the go.

Back to code

I was all smiles yesterday when I checked the comments some people had posted on my blog from a certain employee of Temenos [Is that a Dentist Firm?? Sincerely, Sijui]. I was saddened by the fact that someone who can use a computer, in 2011, could reason like the Flintstones.

Here I am with a few REAL coders like AfroWave, SoyFactor and Muniu and real entrepreneurs like Mbugua and Majani. Hustling daily to bring out some true KENYAN SUCCESS STORY. Stories of people who started from NOTHING and became THE_THING.

If you ignore the wonderful Ushahidi and the bloated ELMA [Plus a few Cool Apps like AroundMe, MedKenya, Tuvitu, NikoHapa, c_360, m-Order], there are not many apps that we can talk about as Kenyan Apps out there turning heads. Of course, we wish to add to this in  September when my crew and I will finish some euberApps that we are working on.

The comment was something to the effect that : “If you were that Good, the the CEO of CS would hire you immediately.”. I was first offended. Me? Hired? Are you on drugs? But then it all came back to me. These people are in a small-thinkers circle. Go to school, cram and get good results, finish, get a job, climb the corporate ladder [Horizontally or Diagonally], die.

To these sad group, there is no room for real inventors. All of us must be employed and slaving for some boss somewhere to be seen as successful. If your question to “Where do you work?” is something close to, “Self-employed, IT Consultant or Startup”, If you ain’t hired, then you ain’t any good. It is this thinking, common among the mediocre, that always leaves one with a lot of month at the end of the money.

I started reminiscing on the fact that the reason that I am not working at ANY company doing anything close to telco and IT is by choice. The need to be free. The knowledge that I can go to work at 10am and leave at 9PM and no one asks me questions. It comes with discipline and sacrifice.

No wonder my CV has not been updated since 2009. What for?

Trust me, I am better off working for myself at a USD 4k project a month and bag ALL the money, that get involved in a BIG USD 2000000 project and take home a pathetic USD 2000-4000 paycheck per month. Sure, you will buy your vitz, when the real coders are still on ShoeBaru, but in time, the END justifies the MEANS.

But then again, not all of us were meant to be free thinkers. Some of us are comfortable sitting behind a computer screen and insulting all the hustlers out here. Yeah, Until you get fired.

Back to code

Wazi.

Salim Hatupendi

Well, we have all seen it. Kenyans love that word. Beef. Greet someone on Twitter and the fail to respond and some loser will post something like ‘#tweef’ or ‘#tweefAlert’. Whistle-blowers for something with no need for an alarm. People so sad, they wish everyone was as sad as them so as to feel important.

I say something in 2009 about the way the OLD but, now beloved, Safaricom was treating developers and giving access [like USSD etc] to only a few and ‘Salim has Beef with Safaricom’. Beef, Beef, Beef.

Is this the case of people talking about things they cannot afford? Beef?

Wait, Now IddSalim is beefing about these people with beef with him. Beef. Right?

You begin to wonder. Don’t these losers have a life? No wonder some gutter-press blogs get so much traffic. People always focusing on the negative and seeing/making trouble where there should be none. It is a habit. An annoying habit.

The difference between this blog and the gutter-press we know of is that these are things I can PROVE. Not CLAIM to be able to prove. But actually be able to.

Step In CS

I blog about the problems I have seen at Banking Websites done by CS and try to ‘tell them to style up and secure these sites before the russians come in’. But NOOO! This is an attack to their manhood.

People start following me on twitter asking me to ‘Hack to prove’. As if I was born yesterday.

Setting the record straight, I have no issues with CS. Even the fact that ELMA seems to be 72-apps-in-one does not bother me. Of course, with their m/billions, they can afford to give all the local developers a big ‘F Y’. It is like our own little China in Kenya. Come up with an Idea, and it will be part of the humongous ELMA tomorrow. To me, it is a local Snaptu on steroids. This is something about whose negative effects on the local dev scene I could blog about for a week.

But I choose to address real issues. Real Financial Risks. Real Insecure websites. Risks to innocent Kenyans.

I am not envious about their awards and BBC articles. Everyone has their 13 seconds of fame. What I fear for is the example they are setting to the Kenyan Kids. Someone once asked me, “But CS websites are insecure. Does that not show that you don’t REALLY need security yet in Africa for your solutions to sell?”. I was saddened.

I will be very happy to blog about the security revamps on the affected sites if CS can fix this. Until then, it is only fair to talk about the pregnant elephant in the room. Or, like most of us, we can ignore it and act as if everything is OK.

What do you think?

Back to code…

Wazi.