Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Sema YES tena uone!!

Well, as always, I speak about my life here. My experiences. My lessons. My big losses. My small victories. My unrelenting spirit.

Kuitwa guru na maboyz. The zeal. the Zest. Kuwa impressed. Kuwa humbled. Kuwa inspired.

Falling down. Dusting myself and asking life, “Is that the BEST you’ve got?”. Kuitwa daddy na madem. Kuchapwa kiboko na Safaricom.

Kukujiwa na heavily armed hired flying squad jamaaz. Kugongwa doo mob na my boy-hood friend from Isiolo because of one of my stupid attributes/weaknesses called trust/gentleman’s agreement.

But still I rise. Kama erection. Start small. Grow big. Mpaka the trouser can’t ficha you anymore. Throbbing with pure-blood. Pulsating with ambition and psyche and dreams. All in the quest for self-betterment..

You are as good as you want to be. As bad as you let yourself be. As rich as your hunger pushes you to be. As broke as your lethargy and stupid laziness makes you. The better you get in code. The better your apps become. There are no two ways about it. Code ni kama mti. Experience breeds prowess. Practice teaches you new styles. New models. In March, you become totally embarrassed to admit that the code you are reading was made by you last November. “Ni mjinga yupi aliandika hii code?”, you wonder.

Apart from unoma, balls of steel and better management of time and resources (money etc), life has taught this thugs a few NO lessons:

No to code-change

Change from you and the client. The client rarely orders code-change. Unless you befriend them. Never befriend the client to a level that mtazoena. Ni client. Si mamako. Akanje, mpe service na system poa, na hiyo stori iishe hapo. If you find yourself picking calls and code-changes from a client every 6 hours, then the relationship is messed up. Unless they pay for EACH change. And pay well. Si lunch. Si ngata. Doo.

The second type of change is the worst. As a ‘progressive coder’ I look at better ways of writing a certain function better. Make it faster. Make it use less memory and IOs. This, and I am ashamed to admit, is another problem I have. Personally. Code iliisha Dec, but Jan bado naicheki. The client is happy and the project has been signed off as delivered and OK, but bado napeana updates.

Bad habit. Client si mamako.

No to new projects

Project one itachukua 6 weeks. You are in it like an unborn baby inside the womb.  You are 2 weeks in the project. You have already finished the tasks/milestones for week 4. Then an email/phonecall comes. “Kuna ka-job kanatakikana. Utalipwa 300k”. You gauge and see itachukua 4 weeks. Good pay, sio? 75k per week baba!! You take the project, inakuchukua 6 weeks juu ya changes mbili tatu. But imeisha. Bado tu documentation na reports kiasi tu. Kazi ya siku nne.

The client one calls. Job niaje? Phuuck!! Hata ile code thought-process ulikuwa nayo ya project one imeisha. Unaanza tena. Deadlines are not met. Client amejam. Anatuma flying squad wakukamie since they are for hire. Una-refund project 1. Lost contact. In the time taken, client 2 pia anageuka dame. Documentation na reports kadhaa bado. Na kuna vitu nne anataka zi-change. Ana PMS. See where this is going?

Uta-do what? Acha ku-play clients. Acha ku-play projects. Respect the code.

No to procrastination

“Ahhhh! Hii nitaifanya next week.” So this week ni just ku-chill. Kucheki madem na ku-tweet all day as if uko employed.

‘Next week’ inafika. Man Urinals wanalimwa sita. You can’t work juu ya stress. Your only source of joy in this life imelimwa. Time flies all week. Hauna psyche ya code. Client anajam.

Job ya leo mzee, fanya leo. Acha stori mob.

No to money from clients

I have seen this trick being used alot. I call it the kudanganya-poko trick. A client knows you are GOOD and wants to make you his/her bioatch. So anakupa doo na envelope. Kama 150k. Ndio ufanye project. Hata hamja-discuss scope etc. Unahepi. Finally umeget the dream client. Anakanja utadhani dame wa campo akigawa.

Then comes the master-stroke. Project ni demanding na ni BIGI utadhani ni ninii ya nanii. 6 months later, umeunda system unge-quote 4M for 200k per month for 6 months. Tu-handouts twa 50k per week. Si hiyo ni doo mob? Client sells your system for 10m+. “We paid you millions.” They tell you ukizusha.

Na hawajadanyanya. Wewe ndiye fala.

No to client’s dreams / partnerships

Ok. Kamoja tu basi kabla niambiwe nimetukanana.

“Manze we cannot afford to pay you the 1.2 M for 2 months that will take you to do the system, but wee unda hii system for 400k, then tutakupa 10% shares. Manze hii system itasell kama hot-cakes. Your 10% shares will be worth millions in 12 months”. Yeah. We have all heard that before. “Go phuck a tree”, is always my response.

I would rather get paid 200k leo, than 10M next week.

Unless they commit to that amount on paper. Mdomo ni ya BJ. Si ya contracts.

Ok. Sawa.

Back to code.

Wazi.

Crayfish Babbbaaayy!!

Distract any self-respecting coder/designer/animator from their work by suggesting that you go for lunch, play foosball or by coming to their desk to ask silly/stupid and irrelevant questions like ‘How are you?’ or ‘How was your night?’,  at iHub and you have made an enemy.

Tell a coder that you have some gig that requires they stay away from their computer for more than 6 hours, and they will cringe. Such is the life of a digerati.

But once in a long while, comes something tempting enough. Take for example, WordCamp. WordPress-Camp. An open-invitation for Kenyan e-Writers of all shapes, sizes and colors.

A meetup with Kenya’s finest bloggers, poets, writers, troll-commentors, habitual re-tweeters and gutter-press. Well, speaking of the gutter-press crew, there are rumours that they finally bought new shoes and could not afford the USD 40 fee for the WordCamp, but we are launching a Kenyans4Gutter campaign in a hour on twitter, that will make sure all our various sections of bloggers are present. We love everyone equally. More on this in the last paragraph.

I am still mulling over whether to take the public means (WordCamp bus) that everyone will be taking (more fun, social, Free wi-fi c/o Safaricom etc) or whether to drive our Mint Symbiotic’s Kompressor E-240 up to the camp.

The Lou-pean part of me tells me, this is a good chance to show these doubters in our midst that coders can actually make it in life and own the best toys that money can buy. Utatumiaje Bus na una Kompressor? And the gals will LOVE it.

The other saner part of me tells me, #justToConfuseYourEnemies, vaa kawaida and move with the crowd. Be one with your peers and also, keep the haters and doubters thinking that you are as broke as they are. That this code manenos is all talk. It keeps them going. Gives them a reason to live.

The bus leaves at 9:15 and I know it is going to be fun. I was at Crayfish on the new-year eve. It was a nice place to be. Apart from the 4-k-club mosquitoes the size of a USB-port and the hippos that maraud past midnight (far from the camping area), the place is heavenly. Cool breeze, nice swimming pool, Boats to go fishing into lake Naivasha in, BIG in-camp club with nice music, 2 pool-tables, option of tents or ‘vans’ of cottages, nice food, friendly servants (waiters etc).

Then my good buddies will be there. Mugo and his beginner-skills in pool, Wamathai the gal-gaster, the ever-smiling Savvy, My small brother Kachwanya, Bwana PKukubo, Ninja Anto and 6 other people I will not mention. What better selection of friends can a coder ask for?

This is also an opportunity for me to meet people I have been dying to meet outside the office. Content people. Safaricom has given us a challenge. Show us the traffic, and we will give you the Keys to Mkwanjaville. If you do content and/data, look for me or Timo. Kuna mazuri.

Ofcourse, I will be the un-defeated guy at the pool table with a black-chalk beating up everyone. I don’t have swagger.. I have twanga. No mercy.

On the menu, ofcourse, are the BLOODY CRAYFISH. Yep. Make sure you sample some.

With that said, tupatane huko and let us do biz and have some little fun.

Back to code.

Wazi

Cloud. Yes. Tuko juu.

Well, I could easily have had the title of this blog as ‘Safaricom launches Cloud Service’. But that would be an insult to those who know this already and those who know how to use google. More insulted would be the 3000+ people who were at KICC last night. The lack of originality and literary profundity on the blog-scene always leaves me cacchinnating.

I believe you have come here to read about the intricacies of this new service and get an abstruse insight. You are seeking the answer to : “How does it work for my business” and, more importantly, the answer to eternal question business people ask, “How do I make money off it?”.

Today, I also wanted to talk about “8 ways local developers could harness the Safaricom cloud”. But then I realized two things. 1 – No body gives a fck. 2 – No body gives a damn. So I will keep that to my self.

Step in, Safaricom Cloud

Well, I could NOT wait for the launch to start. I was getting bored of being surrounded by loud talking, thunderously laughing, suit-wearing (yikes!!) people. How fast can I get to iHub, home. Where people are simple, free and real?

Then started the presentations. QnA from RamahNyang to Bob, Macharia, Hamdan and a ‘Mr Smith’. The presentation from Mike and Bob was, as expected, idiot-proof. Even my cat would have understood what cloud computing is and why we needed it by just listening. More here.

The service offers Storage-As-a-service, Backup, Archiving and Software-as-a-service. Google those if you don’t know what they mean. They are below the context of this short post.

Then came the PS. Described by Bob as the Kenyan IT Sector Demi-god. And finally, someone was talking to ME.

In the last paragraph of this blog post, I recommended that Google should NOT host Kenya government data and suggested we setup a local setup to manage that. Google would shut down their cloud in a blink and years of our history would be lost. I made some few enemies at google, ofcourse. I mean who is this 3rd World blogger that thinks Kenyans can setup a world-class cloud? We are google. We know how to do all that stuff. Well, 3rd world country, A1 1st world brains. End of. Moving on.

Ndemo spoke of the need for the cloud. The government was spending SO much on hardware and storage and labor to sustain a core business necessity that was NOT their core business. IT infrastructure. That money could be used to empower other IT needs. Safaricom and SST were now heaven-sent. The government will be the first customer for the cloud. I smiled. Kenyan critical government data hosted HERE. By us. Another big FU to those who said it could not be done in Africa.

Ndemo spoke about something everyone was, until this time, ignoring. IaaS. Or as I love to call it, Computing Power as a service. He spoke about  once talking to Rabaa of homeboyz and hearing him speak of having a handicap in terms of computing power. I talked about this earlier. We need to create a monster of a computer and call her I.S.I.O.L.O. [Immanently SuperCharged Infinitely Omnipotent Limitless Operationator]. A computer that can render HD+ videos for homeboyz in seconds, serve all government data in real-time, perform complex maths in micro-seconds. We have the knowledge and skills to develop one. And we will be showcasing one at @iHub in 3 months, if everything goes to plan.

All in all, I see the stars aligning.

I await to see what they will offer developers and innovation hubs.

I hope top techies will be consulted on this, as the potential is limitless, if harnessed properly.

Back to code…

Wazi.

I just reached 1, 069 followers on twitter today. One thousand and Sixty nine. Yes. 69. My favorite number. Even my last seasons Arsenal Jersey is number 69. And that’s what’s up!

After being on twitter for 8 months now, I can see the demarcations.

Ofcourse, I joined in April 2009, just to reserve the IddSalim name. Branding storoz.

When @Safaricom_Care invited what they called the ‘Top Bloggers in Kenya‘ last week to the ‘Safaricom Bloggers and GutterPress CockTail‘, there was a discussion on twirra about this. What makes one a top blogger in Kenya? Is it undeniable literary proficiency that captivates the audience? Is it talking about things that affect all of us in a mature subtle manner? Is it sticking to the truth and NEVER manipulating it to suit your cause? Or is it being discordant, peevish and querulous all the time.

My take was that someone in Safcom PR either did NOT know the big divide in the Kenyan  blogoshpere and hence invited everyone … Or knows the divide ohh, so, well and feared kutukanwa na gutter-press. Bado Hamjazoea kutukanwa?

So I called and DM’ed some buddies there and my question was : ‘Is this a bloggers cocktail or a gutter-press cocktail?’. I made it very clear that my time, morals and target audience does not allow me to mingle with people with literary malfeasance and irresponsible writing.

But on chat, a friend got online and started to ‘try to make me see the point’. ‘Salim, it is all about traffic and followers’, He said. ‘These guys might be gutter-press, but collectively 2 of them have over 10, 000 followers in twitter. That is not a mean feat’.

What? I beg your pardon? Twitter followers is a mark of being an eCeleb in Kenya? I saw someone rake in 3500 new followers in ONE NIGHT just by insulting a Minister in the Kenyan Government. Is that how low we have stooped? Anything for fame? Are the followers all lost sheep in search for a shepherd in any shape, size of IQ?

I will happily sleep at night with 200 twitter followers, a following consisting of top journalists, news anchors, CEOs, Managers, Coders and Hacker in Kenya, than 8, 000 watchmen, shoe-shiners and halfwits.

Wait… Traffic also matters? Well, yeah, I know it does. But do you consider things like IQ and purchasing power of the readers? You are what you read and eat. Read negative and hormonal complaints every morning, and you become negative and dull. Birds of a feather flock together. Also, Javascript and CSS hits are not really a show of traffic. I would challenge everyone who wants to talk about traffic to publish a public and real-time url for their site visitors like I have done.

I think, fundamentally, it is a question is respecting yourself and your time.

But then again, we can’t all be equally busy and focused. There are alot of cooks, watchmen and shoe-shiners who add up to twitter-followers and site readers. The “Watcha tukasome tuone leo ametukana nani. Last week ilikuwa Kahenya.” crew. Adding up to stats and ‘reach’.

You would be surprised how many people would participate in a “Chagua Mtu Tumtusi This week ukwachu Nangos” promotion where you send the name of a prominent person and he gets slandered on a blog for kicks.

Hence the question. Who do you subscribe to? How much is your 5 mins to read a blog post worth? Ama you are idle all day?

Back to code…

Wazi.