Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

From Humble Beginnings; Making waves

It is Exactly 6 days and 3 hours since I last posted something here. I think. I could not believe my eyes when emails started flowing from guys asking me why I am not blogging any more. Asking if I was OK. Asking ‘kama ni Safaricom’. etc. Relax!! I am all good. Just busy trying to change my 4 Digit USD Account to a 6 Digit one.

As you know, I don’t do poetry or blog about the ‘scourge of prostitution’ in Kibera here. Ask Alex Maina. I talk about tech stuff. The closest hoes come to computing is when you talk about network switches operating in promiscuous mode.

So, from iHub, using a cable to connect to the LAN (The Wireless Connection here is said to have the potential of being VERY RICH if it ever reincarnates to a woman, because ot SUCKS BALLS so much.), I will share my week.

My long week

Between Saturday last week and Monday this week, I was inundated in unprecedented melancholy when Anastacia (My Laptop) got her periods and threw a fit, transmogrified all my data and all my work for the last 4 years. This left me discombobulated from the rest of the world and so, I could not blog. No. I can’t blog from a CyberCafe. I have to be faithful to my sweet, old Anastacia.

Thanks to my rSync Cloud of Xema Labs at RackSpace, I did not lose any data. I just lost 6 hours of code (15 lines of real code.). But Guess who’s back, stronger than a 6am erection.

Ball

And so, Weekend Football is back after 10 days of darkness. Man Urinal shirts have had a price-hike after Arsenal drew and now they are being sold at KSHS 350. I don’t now how these always-broke fuckers will afford them now. Arsenal Shirts still remain at KSHS 1, 500. I am buying 2 after this blog Post. Poor choice of a team to support always has a direct effect on your thinking capacity, logic and ability to make money. Wa kumi hapati elfu.

Now. Enough about about faggots.

Madem

I am still in shock after a female friend of mine told me to my face today (on chat) that unless I promise her some penetration testing and a firmware installation, she will not go out with me this weekend, as I was requesting of her. My Gawd! Can’t we just go out and shoot some pool without me having to fill your Drive C? She was demanding that I plug-and-play in 3 of her open ports. I told her that nowadays I am saved and I do not like ShareWare because most of the time it ends up as a ‘Plug-and-pray‘ escapede. Akajam. Nikamsare.

Safcom

On Monday, I went for a 2-hour meeting to Safaricom HQ and, yes, their mood has changed. Moca.co.ke will soon be up, again, once we get the Mpesa Accounts reactivated after it was disconnected. I won’t say any more.

My appeal to Kenyan coders is this:

The food is about to be served. Clear your tables and wash your plates. Buy new forks if you have to. The food is tasty and sumptuous. You have been warned. Don’t let the chance pass this time round and be left with a bad taste in your mouth and a bucket-full of tears. Learn Java, PHP, Python or C++. Achana na the other Toy Languages. The time is now. The time is here.

Ehh, enough typing. Systems await.

Back to code…

Wazi.

Nimesema! Jamini mkitaka.

I am getting lesser and lesser blogging times, but now that I have a few mins, I will use the chance to get a few things off my masculine chest.

Mwalimu

Last night I was really appalled and flabbergasted when Mwalimu Churchill left the Stage during the ‘Churchill Recorded’ show just to go and greet a Mlami with a hearty handshake.

“Acha nisalimie mzungu. How are you Sir. Thank you for coming!”. #wtf!!

As you all know, I am no racist, in any flavor, but I just HATE neo-colonialistic habits. Especially when they manifest themselves in people you term as ‘educated’ and ‘modern’.

The Annoying Kenyan habit of ‘White is Might’ is really something we need to shake off. We need to stop being unfair to our white friends and treat then as equals. Let us befriend them. Not worship them.

Same thing happened last week when I had gone to The Stanley for lunch. A white couple that came AFTER us got served BEFORE us. It is a habit, I am told. Despite the fact that they spent USD 10 and I spent USD 120, they still get better service, attention and wider smiles than I get. And No. I was not wearing my Arsenal shirt.

On Mpira

It really amazes beyond comprehension when a black man (mostly Sudanese Jamaas from Zimmerman) puts on an AON (Another Oblivious Nitwit) shirt and calls Man Urinals “My Team”. The source of “MY”, logically, comes from a sense of belonging. Arsenal, Chelski, Bolton, Wigan, WestBrom, Citeh, Inter, Real etc have one thing in common. They play African Players. These are OUR TEAMS.

Man Urinals has never played an African player since 2003. And if you ask most of the Manure fans around who that was, they won’t even know. Most started watching football in 2009.

80% of Man Urinals fans in Kenya are Single, lonely and ugly females. 10% are male strippers, watchmen, shoeshiners and VB coders. 1% are the I-know-nothing-about-soccer-so-i-will-follow-the-crowd cartel. The rest are gay.

Women

Moving on, I am no expert when it comes to the intricacies of the fairer sex, but I know a few things for a fact.

• Treat a woman like a queen and she will treat you like a King.
• Treat a bitch like a queen and she will treat you like a slave.
• A woman just needs good care, companionship, security, good sex, compliments and an occasional pair of shoes. And she will be yours for life.

So, there. guys, get a job. (Or learn C++ and do a QT App.) Treat your woman right. And you will soon stop texting Salim asking him who he is to your gal. Or if he has formatted her Drive C.

Safaricom

Safaricom is finally playing ball. Coders have NO MORE excuses to not be Kompressing and just daily be stressing and depressing. More on this in Monday’s blog post.

Back to code…

Wazi.

So this is how it ends...

Well, Griffin always made us take 2 bitter Anti-Malarial tablets daily when we were to go to the Mombasa Camp for holidays. This was a ‘sickening’ experience, but coming from the highlands, it was necessary that we do this as the Coast (Lowland) Mosquitoes had a particular liking for people like us.

The female anopheles mosquitoes would just get WET when they saw the Men in Red and Blue (#mirab).

So, on Monday night, I boarded KQ 416 to UG and the flight that was to leave at 10:30am was just slightly delayed and left at 12:30am.

We reached UG at 1:25am and from the window, I could see Mosquitoes touching themselves and SMSing each other: “Salim is here. The ONLY disease he gets is Malaria. It parrrty time!”

Ofcourse, Safaricom were also happy to see me go to UG. Saf-to-saf call rates remained the same, despite the fact that everytime you made a call, you get 2 SMSes thanking you. So a heavy caller like me had to delete over 100 SMSes daily for the 2 days I was there.

The data rates were also very good. For Safaricom. I downloaded my proposals and meeting documents worth 1.1 MB of data. this made my airtime go down from KSHS 1945 to KSHS 1860. Browsing from your Safcom line via MTN costs just KSHS 75 per MB. I think Safaricom can rescind their IPO if all Kenyans went to UG for a day and they each downloaded the song ‘I am speaking to pamela.’, once.

So, the meetings went well and soon I will change my walking style. Can’t yet decide between the E-240, the Vitz or a Probox. But I am sure I will make the right choice.

Malaria

Yeah. Obviously. I just had to get bit. Ugandan Mosquitoes don’t buzz. The WALK to you and Bite you when you least expect it. So, from my hotel room, I was easy prey. Focusing on the presentations to the UG telcos makes one very vulnerable.

I could hadly walk yesterday and thought it was jet-lag. (For the 55 mins flight). But I know Malaria when I got Malaria.

I am in bed shaking and shivering, then again the rain doesn’t help. Obviously I can’t code today or poke some routers, so I will do something easy. Like web-design. I feel www.iddsalim.com is more than just a blog. Thus cometheth the site.

Back code. Not!

Wazi…

Safaricom. Size matters...

Yes. Safaricom is my topic today. And yes. As always, I will speak the truth. If you expect anything else, go to google and search for ‘The hare and the Inkalimeva’.

Leo I read a very interesting piece from Kach The man who makes the catch. The fact that Safcom Innovations board is finally LIVE and operational warms my e-loins with technical anticipation. We have waited for this for ages.

For the cooks and watchmen who do not understand what all the fuss is about, this is like watching a woman who had kaziad you al this time finally asking you “Unaingia ama nitoke?”. To a campuser, it is like finally being allowed entry to a club. To a Man Urinals fan, it is like watching rooney dive in the box to get a penalty. At last mtafunga sasa.

I was going through the list and ‘#ahem!’ is all I can say. But the fact that the three men I would defend any day if they ever committed a crime (Mugambi, Erik and Njihia) are on the list made my day. I know we have my most trusted strategists, thinkers and movers there.

The only skill lacking: A Technical Brain. Someone who would know how to design a technical thought process, putting into consideration things like capacity demands, featuresets prioritization. Someone who would liaise with developers and be head of the TEST and QA cycle. Technical QA. Not user-end. I could recommend a few.

My meeting with JM last weekend at the iHub and the fact that Safaricom has revised their revenue share to 70:30 (70% to the CP and 30% to Safcom) really makes me glad to be in the innovation space at this particular time.

And yeah, Quit tomorrow. If you can code and you are employed, you finally have a chance to be your own boss. With your brain as your tool. For the rest, kesho mkue office by 8am.

All in all, after the Man Urinals 9-0-1 formation against Arsenal, this piece of news, plus Season 1 of ‘No Ordinary Family’ has made my Sunday.

Back to code…

Wazi.