Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

You think you know me

It is about time.

In my times and travels, I have met alot of people, under different circumstances. Most people have drawn impressions about me from one or 2 posts in this blog and stuck to it. After I sit down with some, most always say : ‘Wow! You are more than your blog made me think.’

Thus is the negative aspect of the concept of blink.

For example, without analysis or a chance to explain myself, a section of Safaricom thinks I am a vicious hacker after Mpesa and I know alot of secrets about the hackability of the Mpesa system. Unfortunately, this is the section that makes some key decisions. And thus, IddSalim and ANYONE affiliated to IddSalim is not allowed to have/access/operate or own a Safaricom Mpesa PayBill Account.

Another more un-paranoid section of Safaricom see me as a thinker and a resource; albeit what one described as ‘Strongly Opinionated and Employable’.

Most Jamaas describe me as just a coder, a hacker, a vbHater, a gunner, anti-windows, a crazy techie, a Plain-clothes CID Officer (My Pool Cuestick is always confused with a Gun), a pool addict, a member of the NSIS, a loaded jamaa, a blogger, a PIMP, a player, a kadinyaa, a USD-500-per-hour code-machine. All wrongly; because of perception. Some I don’t mind. Some don’t help at all.

And thus, the time cometh

So comes the separation. I have considered various options and decided to follow the cummulative advise of Kachwanya, Too, Buju, Afrowave and Inkalimeva.

For the open-minded, light-hearted and not-easily-offended audience (I get over 5000 blog read per day – 150+ unique locations), I will maintain the /blog/ section. This section you are reading now. To access this section, you will need to pass a sijamishwangi-haraka test. Lest a paranoid stock-broker reads about Salim speaking about all the security vulnerabilities of the new Stock Brokerage system.

For the ‘serious’ people, I will create a /blog2/ section. Here we will talk about tech pekee. Technology, concepts, trends etc. No nipple-talk here. No sick puns or ‘innocent’ jests/jokes. Mambo serious pekee.

Then the site. I have hired one of the best upcoming photographers in town to handle this. Pictures, editing and layout. Step in Abdul. Then we have the combination of beauty, booty and brains from Sprint-Interactive to do the new iddsalim.com site.

Finaly, an OOS (Object Oriented Salim). Bambo Mzuka.

Back to code…

Wazi.

Think small. Alot

Yes. I know. We are always being told. ‘Be all you can become’. ‘The sky is the limit’. ‘You are the only obstacle to what you can become in life.’. ‘Aim at the sun/moon and you might fall among the stars’. Alot of crap.

How about we, just for once, look at these concepts from another angle. A REALISTIC angle. Putting everything into consideration. Depending on acumen. Not luck.

The true measure of success and achievement lies in self-discovery. Finding out what YOU can do, and doing it the best way possible.

In thinking ‘big’, alot of people find out what CAN BE DONE, and try to do it, ignoring their own limitation. Allow me to indulge your mind and step on your ego for 5 minutes (hoping it is not as fragile and plastic as many Kenyan egos are). Look at life in a different angle. For 5 minutes.

I have met and read about alot of people who are ‘creating their own facebook’, who ‘have a better mPesa’, who ‘are the next BIG thing’, who ‘are the African Google’, who ‘will become the paypal of Africa’. Etc. The list is endless. Good stuff. Positive stuff. But is it REAL? Are these people/we thinking way above our cut? Are we attempting to do 100 MPH, using a Vitz?

Face it. Not everyone is destined to be great. I have met a lot of foot-soldiers who think they are generals. A lot of born-to-sweep people who will tell you, ‘this sweeping job is just temporary’.

‘Salim stop discouraging people! Let people dream!’, I hear you. Actually, the purpose of this post is to encourage you to CHANGE your tactic, to achieve your end. The Kompressing Coder end. So read along. There is a REAL confusion between the noble concept of ‘thinking big’ and the vice of ‘thinking greedy’. People look at the DESIRED END and totally ignore the ‘little boring’ nitty-gritty in the MEANS.

When I listen to alot of people talk about what they want to achieve, I sometimes engage them on a technical analysis to see if they really understand what it takes to do that. Sadly, most, when weighed and measured, are found wanting. Thinking beyond their knowledge and ability, just because they read about it somewhere or on a Twit.

Take an example 1: Creating your own Gmail.

The general thinking is simplistic. Get a Unix box, setup an SMTP Server (Exim/Postfix/qMail), some POP3/IMAP server (Courier/Cyrus), Throw in Procmail and Spamassassin. A  few 4TB Nas drives. Server Done. Get a python/php Mail system + a good MySQL/Postgres Db and register a domain. KenyaFreeMail.com. Done.

The REAL picture, is a little more daunting. Very many SMALL details come to play. How will attachments be stored and hashed? Are we avoiding duplicates by ensuring the SAME attachment batch is saved-onces and multi-referenced across forwards and reply-with-attachment convos? Is the Unix Kernel optimized to ensure maximum performance per node? Are you using a semblance of the Google SRE Standards to make sure you are ALWAYS online? What happens when you reach your 1, 089, 666th user?

Take an example 2: Creating your own Facebook.

Again. Thinking beyond the product. The user experience and user-fatigue management is King. Alot of people I have met have concepts on how Facebook can be monetized. But, trust me, FB would not be where it was if it was taken as an Ad Space. Think about the photos. The videos. User data and messages.

You wan to build your own Facebook. Have you tested your DB with just 10M users each uploading just 10 photos a week. A remote zombified simulation of actual events? That is just WRITE. How about READ? Each photo has 4 thumbnails. Make that 10*4. Think storage. What gives you more optimization? Storing the Images as real files or DB data. Are you going to use BLOB or a Base64 encoding of the Image if DB? have you considered CDNs?

Take an example 3: Creating your own Mxit/2Go/Mig33/eBuddy.

One of the most interesting and VIRGIN areas in Africa is the Mobile. People are still touching themselves over MMT, but the real goldmine is, as I blogged last week, is on Mobile Data. I will prove this in the coming weeks.

So, want to create your own Mxit? Wonderful! What server will you run? How will you handle conversations? Default XML Stanzas or Custom WBXML? Are you going to create your own content channel-bots (reliable but static) or hire humans (dynamic and updated but unreliable, needy and emotional). What about device fragmentation? Is the system ubiquitous (access-mode independent)?

From personal experience and in conclusion, my point is: don’t think ‘alphabet’, if you haven’t grasped the shape, sound and feel of letter ‘A’ and letter ‘a’. The human mind is a very powerful tool. Control it before it controls you. The school of thought that ‘you can do anything’ often renders one actionless. You end up doing NOTHING. Better think SMALL and do SOMETHING. Then build up from your small victories.

Your end might be Big. But looking at the FINAL picture is really overwhelming. In Concept and resource.

Think small. Now. Time is on your side. Small + Small = BIG. And that, boys and girls, is what I call the Erection Model. the ripple model.

Back to code…

Wazi

The astute rule the world

Being a Thursday night, today I decided to take a break from coding my ProjectX4 and decided to take a walk around my neighborhood to go buy food at 7:13pm. As has been the practice over the last 4 weeks, I buy enough food (high fibre and high-protein) for 3 days. The next time I am leaving my bedroom is now, officially, Sunday. #2011Lazima.

After buying the munchables, I dashed home because Churchill Live was about to start. (Chirchir live for the Kales or Sharshir Rife if you are from Kirinyaga/Kiambu).

Then came the guest speaker. Pepe Minambo.

Pepe talked about his book, Be inspired before you expire. A good version of my favorite, Perspire and Conspire to Aspire to Inspire before you expire. Haya! On faya mpaka nagwaya! He gave a very moving example.

A simple village woman converts a big tree into mere firewood. But a gifted carpenter, given the same tree, will convert it into a masterpiece. A work of Art.

My daily reading hour for this week was dedicated to James Allen‘s AudioBook, As a man Thinketh, from learnoutloud.com (lol!). Download the book from his site for Free. It will change your life. Trust me.

Lesson learnt : You are what you allow yourself to become. Like that tree, you can become ANYTHING. But whether you will become ashes and charcoal visa-vis becoming the best work of art known to mankind is determined by the company you keep. Who you allow to advice you. Mentor you. Mould you. Accept mediocrity, and you will be mediocre. Life is FAIR like that. Ask, and it shall be given. In full. Plus a bag of chips.

The fourth kind of mind

As he needed to get off stage ndio tuchekeshwe, he concluded:

There are 3 kinds of minds. Simple  minds discuss people. Always inundated in the banal. Normal minds discuss events and the past. Great minds, discuss ideas and the future.

Wow! I know. Catchy. But the problem is that that is where Kenyans stop. All talk. Discussing ideas daily. The doing ZILCH about it.

Thence cometh the 4th Mind. The perspicacious mind. Ignores the first kind. Laughs at the second kind. Listens to the third kind. The ACTS. Leaves the third kind with their dicks in their hands saying, ‘That was my idea. These people stole it!’

What are you?

Back to code.

Wazi.

Beware - Jokers. All over.

In your life as a coder, as you grow in code and start churning out solution, getting traction and your products start getting a respectable user-base you will definitely attract interest.

Fellow coders will congratulate you, gurus like Jamo and Marto will advice you on how to optimize. These are your best friends.

On the other hand,  programmers (read: wannabes) and kiddies will try to replicate your concepts. Just like Man Urinals fans do, they will try to ride on your success so as to satisfy their own ego and ignore the reality. ‘Nilikuwa na yeye aki-debug na nikamsaidia’, they will say. These, my friend, are your pest friends.

In my time and space, I have met so many talkers, jokers, time-wasters that sometimes, we run the risk of meeting one serious person, and just take them to be jokers. They are so many.

The Kenyan tech community is small and known and it takes one just a simple Google search to list them all, plan a meeting and siphon ideas, time and hope.

I remember, once, we wasted a whole week doing demos, meetings to an investor from europe, only to be given a once-in-a-lifetime take-it-or-leave-it offer to sell 25% shares of Symbiotic for USD 10, 000. Ohh how stupid and needy we are perceived as being!

Then comes the worst breed of them all. Phony investors. They come from all over, far and wide. Promising heaven and telling you that your struggles are over. Ohhhh… the sweet words!

In the last 4 years, I have met all of their types. My experience has taught me, ultimately, to only trust the 4th type. The others will waste your time in endless demos and meetings (some costly and exhaustive), endless documentation, talk, talk, talk, talk, excuses, shortcuts, talk, and annoyingly.. MORE TALK.

Type 1 – Najuana Investors

These are the kinds of fellas who were in school with everyone. They play golf with the some and have a meeting next week with the rest of the movers and shakers of the Industry. They are always ANNOYING with their phone habits and would interrupt your demo or concept talk and talk for 30 mins on the phone as if you are not there, before hanging up and saying : “Ahhh, that was Raila. he can’t stay for a day without calling me”.

Any company you mention, they know, are related to, have been to school with or have lunch the following week with the MD/GM/CEO/Sweeper.

I won’t deny, there are people who are, thus, connected. But that is as far as the story goes.

Type 2 – Bait Investors

This is the dangerous kind.

These are the types who are ready to ‘put-in-something-small’ in your company to ‘show-their-belief-in-your-product’. A programmer barely knows the value of their software but a coder has an idea of the ‘value’. So, if you show the investor a projected ARPU of e.g. KSHS 13 per month for 350, 000 users. They will table a 20% shares for IMMEDIATE KSHS 10M infusion offer.

Then your broke head starts spinning. Then s/he offers, “Here is a 450k check, I will pay the rest in a month or 2. Meanwhile I need the company documents. We need to work on the directorship and change the company ownership.”.

Most coders would fall for this. Liko taught me this trick and how to get around it. “If someone is not putting in HARD cash and in the FULL AMOUNT agreed, then don’t waste your time. Don’t take promises or be fooled or soothed and cajoled with marupurupus. RUN for the hills!”, was part of his advise.

Type 3 – Next-Week Investors

These are the postponers in every commitment. That meeting they were to hook-up between you and MJ himself. That demo they have already spoken to Bitange about. The Kalonzo hook-up that they are just waiting for a confirmation on so that you can discuss election monitoring in Kanzalu using your J2ME app. Total time-wasters. Eventually, they will get you to a meeting that you COULD have gotten yourself into, sooner.

By then, the chance to sell is gone.

Type 4 – Yourself

This is the BEST kind of investor. Mostly broke/naive and vulnerable, but they are the think-tank. The conceptualizers. The implementors. The coder. The hacker. The backbone. This type will never let you down.

TBC…

Ehh! Enough blogging.

Back to code…

Wazi.