Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Persistence: No matter what!

Word of the day: ‘Persistence‘. And you will eventually get there. One thing will eventually lead to another.

I got the right model to talk to a BIG corporate without seaming weak and needy, while AT THE SAME TIME, not insulting people and seeming confrontational, from Books like The 33 Strategies of War, The 48 Laws of Power and my personal best: As a Man Thinketh.

As James Allen says :

“A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”

This is a story of a coder’s journey through the mashes. Misunderstood and denied of a business opportunity, but choosing the right channels to air your reason for grievancies.

Being mature about conflicts and resolving them amicably. Sometimes, writing a blog post and looking for a mbugua, too, muendo, kachwanya, linnet or linda to read through before posting. Listening to one telling you : “Hii ni personal insult that will lead to nothing. Toa. Phrase it like this.”. Not hoarding blog traffic by hurling insults to people you WILL need in your life; and making your miserable life even more miserable. Making big enemies in a small town.

My journey with Safaricom Mpesa and my alleged ‘Hacker’ tag has been a torrid one. The details are public. I won’t dwell on them. But finally, the issue is being resolved. Call it finally getting the attention of the right people. Call it banging the door politely until it opens or breaks. Call it respecting the fact that you are dealing with humans with emotions (and not robots) on the other end and NOT insulting people. Not making everything a personal personal attack and bitching online like a menstruating prostitute. Not using your blog to castigate and slander upon people trying hard to make a change in the society, whilst you have done NOTHING of note, to-date. The internet is a MEANS not an END.

If you use the Internet to make enemies, to start a one-man army, To report baseless facts and numbers based on pure Sicilian vendetta and conjecture, then surely, yours is a path of doom. You find yourself alone. You find yourself now needing to create multiple-email accounts and commenting on your own blog so as to make your posts credible and seem to be getting traffic. A sad little, lonely, impactless meaningless life. All your efforts, even good and genuine ones will ‘fichiwa white’.

Allen Tells us:

“If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy, disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, pride.

I know a woman of ninety-six who has the bright, innocent face of a girl. I know a man well under middle age whose face is drawn into inharmonious contours. The one is the result of a sweet and sunny disposition; the other is the outcome of passion and discontent.

As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and good will and serenity.”

Coming soon to an Internet near you:

• A final and conclusive Free Mpesa Paybill API for everyone.
• Moca – Reloaded.
• More value add for developers and content owners.

All because of mature, responsible, persistent BUT non-pussy blogging.

Tafakari hayo.

PS: Yes, I heard the usual estate dog barking yesterday. But I will hurl no stones at it. It’s life is hard enough already. Thus adviseth my learned crew.

Back to code…

Wazi

Mpesa API - Finally!

I was discussing with some Banking Jamaas on the money-cycle. Take for example, I want to pay fees via my mobile phone.

Currently, I need to get money from Bank-to-mPesa (KSHS 60 charge, 45 to 78 Mins if using NIC Bank), Mpesa-to-the-school-Paybill (Kshs 30 Charge), then it is paid. Simple.

But what if we eliminated Mpesa. Bank to Bank. 10-30 bob. Immediate. Via Secure Web, MobileWeb or Java. An Open inter-bank API to kill the middleman. No. Not to kill the middleman. To SAVE money for the Kenyan. MobileMoney is still too expensive. Food for thought.

But that is not the topic for today. I was honored to be at iHub leo and saw Mike Pedersen’s Pesa API [https://github.com/pluspeople/pesaPi] and I have had the opportunity to test the code line-for-line.

I thought I should write about this.

As you all know, Symbiotic was developing this API over a year ago, but our development hit a snag when Safaricom blocked our PayBill Account and Revoked our merchant licenses because we seemed to know ‘too much’ about how mPesa works.

And that was the death of www.moca.co.ke. Shame really. One-two-maybe-three people’s insecurities and flawed RAV judgement meant the death of a life-changing technology.

But today I witnessed something from heaven. Something I have been praying daily to see. SOMEONE ELSE developing code that saw my dream come to life. A publicaly available, working, object-oriented, open-source Mpesa API. And this is not just a quick-hack ‘HelloWorld’ code. It is well written code.

Get your copy today from the link above.

Have fun.

Back to code.

Wazi.

One API to rule them all...

Great day today for Kenyan coders. Ok, let us say, EastAfrican Community coders, for political correctness. I don’t even know how to break this news, so I will just do it my plain no-beating-around-her-bushes method. No, the Octopus has not predicted that Safaricom, MTN and Zain will start supporting local innovations. No. The octopus would rather die than err. To err is to human; not to octopus.So, the hustle continues.

As a CSR, being  head of a team of very gifted coders at Symbiotic, I had committed to head the Pay.Zunguka Gateway and API development team and see to it that the Pay.Zunguka API was out before Mid May 2010. But one thing did not lead to another, and we had to inevitable delay the launch.

Well, here it is now. The API. The EuberAPI. One API to rule them all.

Download the API NOW!!

So first things first. What is an API, you would ask? Huh? You are having a larf if you expect me to answer that!! The API has been developed in PHP, jQuery and MySQL and the documentation provided with it makes it totally idiot-proof. Anyone and everyone can use the API and start earning from their hustle, Immediately! All transactions from Mpesa/Zap/yuCash will hit your system, via the API in 5 seconds. Anyone who can copy-paste, can use the API.

Safaricom have indirectly played ball this time round, so flawless end-to-end mPesa support is the first feature of the API. I hope this will not make them Mad. My QA team is still testing the ZAP and yuCash modules, but jump to it. Play with the fully working mPesa support and share your thought on the approach, the model, the logic and the illogic.

If you are a ‘BIG’ fish (read a big corporate with a lot of sensitive transactions) and don’t want to use our API as a payment aggregator, we can license the actual product. This would apply to guys like DSTV and KPLC. So instead of waiting for 48 hours for the transactions to hit their backend system, we can guarantee KPLC customers that their bills paid via Mpesa/Zap/yuCash will be reflected in their account within 5-7 seconds. Cute huh!

Like all my friends will tell you (real friends, not facebook jokers), I believe in seeing, showing and action. Si mdomo mob. So dive right into it! Visit http://pay.zunguka.com/ NOW and have a blast !!

Wazi.

-Salim, Idd