Sunday, December 17, 2006

Closer and Closer

I noticed I've been in high spirit throughout this week; Francis Ibikunle mentioned how he stumbled on KodeArena 2006 from a google search. He would like to be one of the sponsors of KodeArena Reloaded.
Francis gave me Mr. Toyin Ogunseinde's contact, he turned out to be a truly interesting person. I'm sure he must be a very busy man but out of his Omatek hours he managed to reply my mail twice in 2 days. He thinks he will have a booth for KodeArena at his next ICT show in Lagos sometimes in April and he intends to help with sponsorship. He adds he will use the about 3500 email addresses of who is in Nigerian ICT to our benefit, great!.
See why it feels like Christmas in May? Hehe, its actually Xmas around the corner.

Monday, December 11, 2006

No Anticlimax!

The code jam has dominated our talks for several weeks, even now that its over. It feels so fulfilling given the challenges we faced: Delayed pay-packets, a 6 week plan, the politicians who nearly seized our first day, the participants (mostly students) who showed up without laptops (we should have known that, those are expensive in Nigeria right?), the car I damaged the second day, the support we got anf the ones we didn't.
Even though we're still so broke as I type but we're presenting the cheque tomorrow after announcing a winner today. The spirit is just so great. We take walks around talking about KodeArena 2007 which we already dubbed "KodeArena reloaded". We already have plans to archive the current site http://www.kodearena.com as http://www.kodearena2006.com. kodearena.com will always host the most current version. KodeArena will be registered as a non-profit, non-governmental organization and we foresee a first prize of no less that N100,000 for the next edition mid 2007.
And the comraderie is great! People looking at our Sponsors page believe its sponsored by multinationals. Krapt software is another name for Bayo Opadeyi, Conquest creative aka Tunde Famakinwa, Kradlepoint aka Bode, Stan Madueke, Gbenga Faniyi and me decided to keep our faces bland :D, its a case of putting a company on the face and not the reverse :). Yea, Parkway project gave money and expertise, Leapsoft's Essien was the toast of day 2, Softcraft's Dapo made the code session rock, Diran gave good company and made the wireless network possinle, Pat made sure we had food in our tommies, Ope, Remi ... and no one left early, it was as if these thing has been long delayed.
Now I know people are intrisically "good". Everyone seems to have a plan to make things better in a little way. The guys on http://www.ngdevelopers.net who didn't come showed great love and those who did come made the day swell.
Stay tuned for KodeArena 2006.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

KodeArena 2006 : 8 days to go

Moral is just right today, we spent yesterday combing the hotels in Abeokuta and getting price lists for the rooms. We're thinking we should make this info available online so that those whom we cannot host will know beforehand.
Gbenga was thrilled at the number of hotel in this seemingly small town: mostly 2 and 3 stars. and Bode wondered how the make money We rated Gateway hotel a 3.5/4 star cause they have the most add-ons; a large parking lot, beautful poolside, a gym, large grounds, shopping malls all surprisingly well maintained by s state government. Dusnar Hotel is alrite too, a large ground and parking, reasonably cheap rooms ($40 - $200 a night) compared to gateway's $60 - $600. We could not help noticing that a meal at Gateway is what others charge for rooms :). Dusnar has fewer attractions but the environment is serene and equaly accessible. continental sutes has a small parking lot as well as the other hotels we've seen and rooms range from $40 - $60.
Rooms at Wemby Suites right down the road from Splashers HQ are second most expensive and all rooms are booked beyond the event dates of 8th and 9th December.
Akin is helping collate the hotel room costs and it will be hosted later.
Some more guys indicated interest in the event: Niji an ex-Unaabite is coming in from Jos Plateau state and so is his colleague Chykes from ado-Ekiti. Bayo invited some more friends from PH and I'm beginning to worry about providing refreshments for our guests :) but this is something we have to pull through.
Yesterday I mailed William Makassa in South africa and there is a chance he will come in. I know he has links with Canonical amd Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu Linux.
I presume Dapo has nt gotten a response from Microsoft but I'll wait till I talk to him today. I will be catching up with office job for the rest of today and continue publicity tomorrow, maybe a little fund raising.
I wil send reminders to promising sponsors; we've started feeling the heat, hehe.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

On KodeArena 2006: 9 days to go

We've resolved to keep the hype up till D-Day. Dapo sent a mail to Microsoft today and we're hoping to get banners and some giveaways items from them, the web team created a page to view registered users, those who do not mind of course. Today the web team continues work on Faqs page. Tunde continues work on fixing up speakers, Stan's team worry about the structure and questions of the code sprints. I sent a mail to NGDeveloper.Net yahoo group.
I did notice that Shina of Leapsoft and Wazobia linux opened the mail I sent yesterday, promising. We sure hope they sponsor a few drinks and that reminds me, we'll need a DJ but maybe Sese will be boss of the mic.
Today, I'll probably spend my break getting room prices from nearby Hotels, the web team will probably host the Faq page and add some news item. I got a digital camera and will still try to get as many as possible to capture the event. We'll be updating content on the site and NGDevelopers.Net throughout the event.
Stay tuned.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

KodeArena 2006

This is the biggest thing around. This is our combined Code jam and software developer summit and its happening live in Abeokuta! Really many things are debuting: The first code jam in Nigeria, and who would have thought it would take place in ancient Abeokuta.
Initially we thought it should be a code jam, just a code jam. But during publicity at University of Abeokuta, Nigeria (UNAAB), we realized we may have a larger turnout than the intended 50 and have since decided on 2 mostly parallel tracks.
Since then its been energy everywhere: KodeArena Website has been built, thanks to Stan, Bayo, Tunde, Bode. We also got our first 2 sponsors: Tunde donating 10 crates of drinks and Bode 4. We have since gotten our dream venue of South-West Resource Center, a digital projector, LAN and internet connection all from the same source, thanks to all the people at Gateway ICT and Resource center.
NGDevelopers have been alerted and we have some speakers, yes: Emeka Onwuka of Parkway Projects, Essien Ita Essien of LeapSoft and Wazobia Linux, Jide from UBA and Muyiwa Asagba of Interswitch.
I spent some times today sending out invitations and finding out hotel rates for the website. Bayo, Stan, Bode and Tunde pumped in Faqs for the live site. Bode agrees to visit Obafemi Awolowo University this weekend, Gbenga Ogun State University, Keni (me) University of Ibadan. Some of Tunde's friend are coming in from Port-Harcourt and Vicky is expected to lead a team from Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomosho.
The energy is everywhere, I feel love in the air!

Friday, November 24, 2006

We had a talk about adopting an object persistence framework for development. As a part of standardization and

reducing project delivery time, we decided to review the OPFs we have and adopt one(?) for development.
We considered the following OPF and not so OPF frameworks:


  1. Artemis Object Persistence Framework

  2. Microsoft Data Access Application Block

  3. NHibernate

  4. Ado.Net (Traditional)

  5. Ado.Net 2.0 Database Factories


We decided to not rate 4 and 5 (ADO.Net and Ado.Net 2.0 Db Factories) since they are fundamental and the others

rely on them.

We did acknowledge the easy of use for small applications and the fact that 5 (Db Factories) can support other

data providers beside SqlServer.

The serial numbers are used as keys.

To rate, we came uo with a number of criteria that have immediate consequences on our everyday coding:


  1. Open sourced

  2. Best Practises: Not MS Best practices per se. We attached best practice to stuff like not having to hack ugly

    codes tp provide some functionalities, e.g. connecting to other databases, creating an object just to return a

    bool etc.

  3. Out of the box support for other databases beside SqlServer

  4. Support for persisting datasets/typed datasets

  5. Development speed/Ease of use.

  6. Performance

  7. Active support/development.



We rate on a yes/no basis only. Yes = 1 and no = 0





NHibernate and Microsoft data application block DAAB tied on point and after some more debate we agreed:



  • Since almost all splashers job use a SqlServer backend, all new projects consider it as a first option except:

  • The project uses a data source different from SqlServer and is significantly large, we consider NHibernate first. If small, we consider the traditional Ado.Net or ADO.Net Db factories.

  • We continue to support Artemis OPF because of legacy projects.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

What about Nigerians?

I remember the last time I google Nigeria , it was the same as doing a google search for scam. Today it really got on my nerve.

I wanted to put up a DNN site for a friend and followed a referral on DotNetNuke.com to www.infosaic.com. It was all rosy; I mailed support and got a response in minutes. Sweet, these guys are the bomb man! They must be bad (means excellent) and will definitely have a ton of DNN experience since they are sponsors of the open source initiative.
Then I paid online. In Nigeria we don't have ready access to credit cards. Some banks make arrangements and give MasterCard to customers but its not exactly credit, its prepaid.
Anyway, I made payment for a month to rev the hosting package, got an immediate email with dns information, then waited...I waited.
I mailed support the following day and got no response. Waited another day and mailed and still no response. Why have these guys suddenly gone cold? What happened to the immediate, almost automated emails I’m already used to?
Well, I got this response from a support personnel:


Hi Kehinde,

Your transaction has been voided due to previous fraudulent activities.

Thanks again,

April Sherry
Infosaic Technologies, LLC
asherry@infosaic.com
614.855.7084 x70 (local)
888.855.7084 x70 (toll free)


I was furious, suddenly I realized I was Nigerian. A renowned scammer for all they care. Anyway I was still mad and sent a strongly worded letter back. Got a flimsy response of how I have tried to pay for the same domain name with different numbers. Gosh, I was not even buying a domain name, just hosting.

I soon found this to be the trend, web hosting companies shying away from Nigerians, Sad. Sese had a similar experience where he registered a domain which was not honored after they found he was from Maryland in Lagos and not Maryland USA. Harris also paid for a domain on yahoo and though the money was debited, he never got the domain.

Things happen, Shitty things.

Like I promised the support personnel, I have started tendering my case before courts of public opinion.
If only they had a banner saying "Nigerians not allowed".

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Its Bayo's day, and Nigeria's

Today was a good day, 1at October is Nigeria's 46th birthday and Bayo's 46? :-0 birthday? Haha, we spent the first few hours debating who would be older, Bayo or Nigeria since he won't reveal his age. We concluded Bayo would have too many candles on his cake and thats why he does not have any, someone thinks the share number of candles would burn the cake, haha.
So we started out slowly, Keni (me), Stan, Tunde, Victoria(Tunde's sunshine) and of course Bayo. we had some good stuff to eat at sweet sensation, lots to talk about, a lovely environment, sweet food and aroma. I had sukiyaki and some fried rice, delicious plaintain and some etceteras. Stan curry chicken, Tunde, Vicky...I almost got a ride at the kiddies groovy section.

Then we had more company; Fabulous Carlos and some nice ladies; Lively Adun, Adaora pronounced adore-her, cute Omoh and Chichi, company! and more excitement. Carlos is an incredible guy and the girls are lovely and soon we found Carlos knew Sese in school, we sang some birthday songs, abridged so Bayo don't have to answer for his age :) and man, we had much to drink.
Now the girls are sitting in a bunch, we are slowly getting to know them, the first half was coming to an end and we were thinking, well its ok and a bit of fun and then we decided to hit the road, go to Olumo rock. And then it was fun all the way, ancient abeokuta unleashed, good company unleashed, them girls now flowing, gist unleashed and finally pictures. The second half



Here, the party arrives Olumo Rock, where Abeokuta got its name, Abeokuta means a city under a rock.







Here, I play the devil, "If only Tunde will bow, I will give him the whole world he can see from the top of this rock".




The guys covered some distances to make Bayo's and yes, our day bright.












We squat in an ancient 5 bedroom cavern




Traditional drummers




A guy and his family comes for some air





I celebrate the peak with Adun here.




Bayo and Carlos dicusses the future? I mean after conquering Olumo rock, whats next? Kilimanjaro?




Adora and Omoh adores the scenery




I don't know how well it went for Nigeria, but as I type, Bayo is dozing and savouring a beautiful hangover.

view more pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30092685@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99562911@N00/
http://kehindeadewusi.blogspot.com

Monday, September 04, 2006

Database Haiku?

"To this level, i will never descend".

This is supposed to be some geek poetry.


Server is lifeless The customer is distraught Where is the backup?

Performance is slow All the disk drives are busy Where was the where clause?

As leaves fall from trees Drive enclosure falls to floor Time to visit Dice

Dynamic SQL Or SQL stored procedure Which one should I choose?

To be certified Or not to be certified That is the question

Documentation Would be nice to see, said I As snow falls outside

In darkness I lie The pager sounds so shrill I'll make the coffee

The server is built Everything is now installed What was the password?

No changes made I Says the developer to me Void is the table

Robin plucks some seed On the porch while eyeing me Wireless is so fine

See original

Now tell me what in geek heaven that is?

Saturday, August 12, 2006

That Ancient Ilorin Township

The last time I was here was in April, before then, it was year 2001.
I graduated from the University here some 5 years ago, the campus has developed faster than the town.
There are very few changes in town, the black cops have started extorting drivers here too and its evident people are wary of fighting for their rights; it never yields much. There are more fast food joints, more bakeries and loaf outlets...not much has changed in this poor town. I heard the state government spent N37M sad notes to plant some ornamentals in readiness for the presidential visit, haba!


The campus can boast of more structures. Someone has also paid more attention to sports. There is a nice looking indoor games hall, one more basketball court and the facilities seem to be seeing some use.
I see some nice looking chicks too, i decided to go off in search of developers first and come back to better company :)

Walking around some blocks revealed students are still active at posting notices and articles, good. The ACES (Association of Civil Engineering Students) board still looks functional, I remember being editor for this board for a year. I was dubbed Electro-Civil engineer for deserting my department and writing for another. Well, I must have done a good job because no-one complained when I did get an award fot it.


QA point: Back to the present, I saw a "Do not litter" sign with the picture of a basket but no basket. I threw a piece in the picture and of course it fell to the ground. So much for dumb signs.

I think I chose the wrong day to look for developers, I'll just leave the browser pointing at NGDevelopers.Net and invoke secondary protocol i.e. using known or new contacts and maybe leave a note on the message board.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Always keep your head up

Okonjo-Iweala
I became her critic when she took up appointment as foreign affaris minister. Hey, she is in it for the money too...they all say its administration that matters, but it does not make her a professional, imagine a former world bank VP.
Even though my tutored mind kows very well a foreign ministry has a lot to do with economic financial prowess, I still didn't feel a thrugh professional should just take up any appointmentm then I found out she was still head of the economic team, I'm sorry madam.
and she resigned when she was removed, savagely by that ...Its so un-Nigerian. she has pride and I love a professional. Its evident her professionalism has started bothering those goats and they knew she woild resign if they did that. Is it the transparency she advocates in goverment financial expenditure?
whateva, I hail Okonjo-Iwaela, don't don't resign in Nigeria, they cling to office, money and power becaue that is all they care for. I'm so happy anther is not one of em.
Monumental huh?

  1. Exit from Paris club of creditors

  2. Negotiation underway fro exit from London Club

  3. Publication of the monetary allocation to the different tiers of government

  4. Resignation from a government who refused to understand

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

NGDevelopers.Net

Thats our pet project, its the Nigerian .Net user group and the site is 10% up. Great jobber Tom set up an empty DotNetNuke site for us.
My weekend is going to be busy sweet, I'll be tweaking the skin package I and Ebenezer made while I hope Ope will help with the article module while I tweak some other modules.
Dapo is a bit excited; hez had some bad time recently and just disengaged :(. Life goes on anyway and it can only gt better.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The challenges of software outsourcing in Nigeria - a case study of splashers technologies ltd: Part 1

Software outsourcing is its simplest form involves seconding or contracting of software development jobs by one company (The Owner) to another (The Outsourcing). Companies will generally indulge in outsourcing for a number of reasons, the commonest of which is cheaper labour and professionalism.
Overall, companies outsource for the following reasons:

1. Cheaper Labor: Companies/Individuals in developed countries whose economies are generally stronger will outsource to competent hands in the third world to get better deals in terms of per hour charges
2. Professionalism/Dexterity: Certain countries have made a name from their prowess in software development. E.g. India. Certain firms in some little known countries have also made a name from their competencies.
3. Specialization; some companies started up with a technology arm that may primarily do jobs like networking. In their quest to give their customers a total solution, they often need to float a software arm. Rather than embarking on the intricacies of taking on the challenges of setting up a software division, outsourcing is a handy option.
4. Companies have also been known to outsource for reasons ranging from a need for more capable hands, large volumes of outstanding jobs and a need to train their own internal staff on the job.

To those who will question under whose authority I write or what has placed me in a position to write an article about outsourcing in Nigeria. I have been into the outsourcing job with Splashers Technologies for 3 years. Most of our jobs have been sourced from Artemis –solutions group, MI USA. Splashers must have started out with a very small team because by the time I joined in December 2003, I met a team of 3 developers and that included the GM. Well I replaced 1 of the three so we were back to three.

Since then, we’ve scaled. From a double room that was more of a single room divided into 2 in Festac town Lagos to a big building in Obantoko, Abeokuta to a much better neighborhood in Ibara Abeokuta. In addition, the number has risen to between 11 and 13 developers, an admin team, office maintenance crew and security personnel.
There are plans to scale even larger: a permanent building, a consulting arm in Lagos or/and Abuja Nigeria. There are plans to take on local outsourcing (so far we’ve completed 3 jobs and more are queued). Other plans include more community development and an initiative that kicked up among splasher’s developers is being supported by the company (NGdeveloper.net).

Back to the mainstream, I must emphasize there are challenges in software outsourcing. This writing was motivated by a friend in the USA, Francis Ibikunle. Francis wanted to start an outsourcing initiative, the regular send jobs down to Nigeria, get it done and uploaded, make a few sales and start up a stronger company in Nigeria. Well, I buy his idea but not the approach. Francis would rather do business with me than with Splashers Technologies. Now Francis is a motivated guy, he is definitely a business man and he has not given me room to forget the fact. Where I am a self motivated entrepreneur too, I must say I’m probably in the line of deep thinkers. I have seen a lot of the problems of outsourcing and I intend to learn from history. I tried to persuade him (Francis) to do business with an established company rather than an individual, tried to make him see and ended up presenting him with options. Well like Jesus Christ, I was biased; something like choose life so that you may live.
Francis has since chosen to sign a deal with a guy in Lagos. As a good friend, I told him I’d write this article and relate more with him. In his chosen path, I offer as much help as I can because I like success stories. So that we may learn from history, I write.

I have identified a couple of challenges over the years, most we’ve succumbed but not without some agonies, some we are gradually overcoming. I made up a little list that’s not exhaustive.
1. Evolving and managing processes
2. The goal, getting the team to buy into the long term vision and mission
3. Professionalism
4. The huge challenges of Infrastructure
5. The development abstraction layer.
6. Managing scalability

Because each item in the list above can generate a lot of steam and writings, I have tried to be as succinct as possible. Part 2 and maybe subsequent parts will handle items not covered in this first part.

Evolving and managing processes;
I was told by management sometimes ago thatI have the credit of being the first to package a deployment document with a solution; a readme.txt, scripts, at least formally. Since then this has become standard practice.
The company has since evolved a process of software development. The beauty of this is that the processeses evolved. Unlike the evolution of man, however, the process despite the fact that it’s stable now is still evolving.
The process is a long drawn one; methodologies of successful companies were researched, articles were shredded. What’s important however was that only the part that works for us in practicality were adopted, and more often than not, with some modifications.
Presently, we have processes that handle general software development process. A process called CADIUM may soon be patented by Artemis-solutions group and another company in Michigan has already adopted the process. All thanks in no small way to splashers Technologies.
The quality assurance (QA) process is core to business. If you think quality assurance is a small deal, try doing business with people other than family or ask Joel on software. Before this process was fully embraced, several iterations were wasted. By iterations, I mean the series of we’ve completed and uploaded this milestone, client test (in this case, project owners that outsourced) and alas, uspRegisterUser is missing and the solution is back at home. Somehow, that was thee last piece worked on by developer A and it skipped his mind during packaging. Another common scenario was, “You said this was fixed but it appears that not the case!”. These expensive iterations were emphasized by the time difference between Nigeria and the USA. We have a about six hours difference between us and if we upload stuff around 5pm Nigerian time and they discover the bugs 2 hours later (say 10am MI time), overall the rest of the day is bad since we’ve gone home in Nigeria.
A number of solutions were quickly presented to combat these issues: a night shift was pushed. We thought of the fact that we ran a private power generator for the better part of the day, our current facilities just won’t support a night shift. A more versatile QA process was adopted instead; a QA team was commissioned consisting of mostly dedicated QA guys. QA methodologies like unit testing and hallway testing were adopted. Other more intrinsic details included rules like checking out of a source safe repository and never testing on the development machine.

Version control was another process we adopted early. The was a need to store codes in a central repository for reasons including needs atimes to revert to a stable version of a module, track changes to create change logs, keep code safe among others. Many version control options were considered taking into account the poor internet connections prevalent in Nigeria. We eventually settled for subversion and all client machines now run tortoise svn.

A hiring process became necessary to hire highly motivated and genuine coders. A matriculation process for new signups includes introduction to coding standards and existing frameworks, never failing to mention just how much innovations are welcome. For instance, we had a team evaluate our in-house object relational modeling framework ORM and we’re seriously considering dumping it for NHibernate. A training process saw us starting a geekify session every Wednesday. A developer researches a topic for a week and presents the topic to the rest of the team.
Other processes that have been evolved in the process include a backup strategy, project management process, process evaluation process, project management, productivity management and client satisfaction evaluations.



Watch out for part 2

Uncle Keni, no?

I read Ryan's blog where he speaks about how he is used to being an Uncle now. Uncle Doom is cool though scary. I relished that Uncle Keni period where I would indulge and spoil my niece or nephew. I need a miracle, prayfor me when you stumble on my blog.

Maybe I'll get to give some kids a name, I'm thinking Sanaa for him or her cause I'm sure it will be one swell work of art.

Monday, March 06, 2006

End of an Epic

We got to the end of a long drwn and almost embarrasing bug last Friday. Dan Lash is the consultant on EMR (Electronic Medical Records) and He sent this refreshing mail. I guess Bunmi was so relaxed he got life going on again by sending a link http://lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060304/NEWS03/603040314&SearchID=73237458875562

The mail as sent by Dan Lash


Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to announce we are the end of an era.



About two months ago the users of EMR started to notice a subtle bug in the scheduling system. It appeared that there were problems with the patient name that was listed in the subject of the schedule not matching the actual patient attached to the schedule. This was observed through several reports:



Viewing a loaded patient’s schedule list
Viewing the branch calendar, and editing schedules
Noticing that some schedules changed branches


These observations led to several hypotheses for the cause of the problem:



Auto-compose was turned off
Creating schedules when a patient was/was not loaded
Recurrence was updating non-recurring schedules


While brainstorming possible causes, we also instituted policies to prevent errors and help track the bug:



Always verify auto-compose is on
Change the patient if you notice the subject doesn’t match the attached patient
Don’t use recurrence


These policies and continued user reporting helped us narrow down our frame of debugging.



Last week all of the development and management team for EMR decided on a plan of attack. We installed a hook (SQLProfiler) into the EMR database to watch all transactions for one day. We also created two isolated copies of the EMR database (one before the hook and one after). Once we had that information, we compared individual records and found one that had changed during observed time period. That record was then used to track through the report, generated from the hook, to watch for a particular pattern of stored procedure calls.



Once we pinpointed the series of stored procedure calls that caused the damage, the development team started combing over the code to find the pattern that executed them. Luckily we were able to find the code! The code was then examined to find all possible ways it could be run and then each of those ways were analyzed for possible mistakes. To everyone’s relief one of the ways the code was executed was identified to have a slight oversight in the code; a check was not made to distinguish a workflow schedule and regular schedule.



From there the development team patched the code in question and analyzed other areas of the code for similar problems. While this was a huge step forward, it was only half of the battle. The EMR database still contained damaged records that had wrong patients attached to schedules. So the development team then went back to the database to fix it. They were able to exploit a feature added to EMR some time ago to generate a fix for the database.



The fix for the database was then tested to check that it fixed most (90% range) of the schedules. Some schedules remain that have a wrong patient attached, but the frequency of these broken schedules has been reduced to 1-3 broken schedules per week. These schedules must be corrected by hand.



During this two month battle there were many people that played an important role in tracking down and fixing this bug. I would like to thank Beth, Michelle and Kristeen for their reports. Also I’d like to thank Keni, Demola, and Seun for their hard work in tracking down the code. Congratulations everyone, we did it!



More good days ahead :)

Monday, February 20, 2006

An "un-Unusual" Day at work

My spirit was high this morning, last week was not very good because I shuttled between systems. I was trying to see if I could fix the monitor of my probleme(R) Dell (TM) Inspiron. The Dells we bought then 2004 are all jinxed, the Dvd drives were replaced at about the same time, the power packs followed and then the batteries. Its a desktop now with a flat system unit.
Back to how my spirit dimmed today; it was the internet link first. After a bit of trouble-shooting, I recorded a few non-bilable period and got it up, just conflicts on the network.
The main frustration...our source-safe server is down or is it just not responding? It was not a quick fix like the network issue. I jumped from system to system, restarted the make shift source-safe server. Wait, the system is really overworked. It carries an AMD 1.1GHZ processor and just 256MB of RAM. This is a bit disgraceful sha because aside source-safe, it runs Active directory and exchange server. Alas it also carries sql server and now more horror, share point and biztalk servers.
I see why people do dope to cool off.
I'm mad and screaming inside. I have not billed an hour today. OK, here I am blogging to cool off, at least the internet link is up today or I could get suicidal.
Maybe I need to move on for real, huh?
A sad day. I don't want to be like Okonkwo in "Things fall apart". Okonkwo was a man who said "yea" but his chi said no.
I'm saying yea and the situations around me is trying to kill my self motivation.
see why guys can't exactly be very productive in Naija? See why the same Nigerians make great achievements out there but not as much back home? You see why equations are more difficult to solve when you have too many variables?
And its not even an unusual day.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Hear God on money

One man pretends to be rich,
yet has nothing;
another pretends to be poor,
yet has great wealth.

A man's riches may ransom his life,
but a poor man hears no threat.

Proverbs 13:7,8 NIV

__________________

Better is little with the fear of the LORD than
great treasure and trouble therewith.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a
stalled ox and hatred therewith.

Proverbs 15:16,17 KJV

__________________

A man with an evil eye hastens after wealth
And does not know that want will come upon him.

Proverbs 28:22 NASB

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Recycled Political Wastes?

This is Ahmadu Ali, as at this writing he is the PDP national chairman. PDP is the ruling party in Nigeria.
The series of meeting they've been holding lately is to plan the third term democratic coup d'etat of incubent Obasajo. A third term? what does he need 12yrs for? These guys are going to tweak the constitution of Naija to support their desires. Anywa, the God that dealt with Abacha after using him (Abacha) to deal with some nothern mafiosos playing God is still on the throne. God, don't let this guys get away with their evils while they live o, in Jesus' name, Amen.
This is Ali's

Naija students of then will never forget the "Ali must go riots" of 1978. A very undemocratic entity of the then Obj military regime. He placed a ban on the Association of Nigerian students (NUNS) and it seems logical for him to be a part of a regime of the old wines again and their undemocratic exploits. Among their unorthodox weapons is political thugerry.
Read more http://www.dawodu.com/oduyela26.htm

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Black Men Don't Quit


This is supposed to be the governor of my state, Oyo state of Naija [throws up]. The product of illegality. Look at him, they now call him Kollington after a flashy (or unflashy) musician in Naija.
Today, his deputy is in the news:

The founder and proprietor of Timi Agbale Grammar School, Ede, Osun State, Chief Gabriel Ojo Falegan, has described as untrue, the claim on Monday by the new Oyo State Deputy Governor, Mr. Hazeem Gbolarumi, that he graduated from the school in 1974

He even claimed to have attended the Pacific University in the US, I hope these guys will come out and deby him too. FYI his name is Hazeem Gbolarumi, so I hope someone is checking it out now. Punch newspaper did and found nothing.
The worst part is; they never resign, no matter how bad they cling.
Men without honor!

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

A new york cabbie


And one more related item: Tonight I saw a new form of undercover cop car. As you may know, many precincts have taxis that are used as undercover vehicles, which is pretty smart as it is. But tonight, for the first time ever, I saw a church van with tinted windows blow its cover by flashing its police lights to get through a particularly bad traffic snarl. Most drivers were so surprised that they didn't take it seriously enough to pull over and make room until the van made the sirens blare. Who knew?

I came across her blog on yahoo insider and now she has +1 viewership. I guess nobody told her about AdSense; she gets between 4000-9000 hits and a wow from me. She has a theme thats New York, the night life background and she managed to capture the wild lights too, her blog is like traditional NY.
Interesting, she a grad of Univ. of New Mexico and she has refused to go back to office job after a lay-off.
Anyway, thanks on your insight on New York cops; In Naija here, policemen breaks all traffic rules to get nowhere fast; they never obey traffic lights, drive on the wrong side of the road. If you think I don't like nthe Nigerian Police, wake up, I detest them.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Objectionable Obj

There is a naija edict that may mean I'm risking 20years away for speaking again obj on the net, so I will make sure I don't break the law.
Obj is evidently one who does not believe the judiciary can measure anywhere close to the executive(obj). As much as I like the his rotweillers (EFCC), its evident they are choosy about their preys.
I love the ones they have gone after in the past, Alamiesegha of Bayelse, I would have mentioned IG Tafa if he had not escaped with a mere 4month term when I actually forecasted 4 life sentences b2b.
How can an unelectable Adedibu (Godfather of Ibadan polity?) say this on tv, "If the governor can earn N60mn on security, am I not entitled to a quarter of that?". I feel like throowing up, a man whose only trade is political terrorism. Of course, only the masses heard that proclamation, you can be sure obj missed that despite the number of times it was aired.
Back to the judiciary, its a ridiculed arm of government in democratic Nigeria. The naija police will only listen to Mr President, and they were doing exactly that when they provided security for the outlaws (according to the people and the judiciary) in power in Oyo state. aside such, there rulings are effected if they are in support of the government or it concerns the ordinary citizens whom the government knows not.
Is it unfortunate my dear cousin is a barrister at law? I think not, a time will come when people will not be able to attempt a third term bid on laws they make in the dusk of their second term in office when they remember the faith that befell some...Let me not break that 20 years law.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Nigerian failed banks

14 of 'em. I wish I could put the names of the failed ceos against it too. This is as at January 16 2005.
By the way, some of the existing ones are a merger of losers, beware!

African Express Bank,
Allstates Trust Bank (Bros Ebitimi Banego, I know this for sure)
Assurance Bank,
City Express Bank,
Eagle Bank,
Fortune International Bank,
Gulf Bank,
Hallmark Bank,
Lead Bank,
Liberty Bank,
Metropolitan Bank,
Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria (Uncle Olusola Saraki, so ti jeba?)
Trade Bank
Triumph Bank

Won't some guys get prosecuted?

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Sometimes for the greater good

sometimes for the greater good, sacrifices must be made - Pharaoh: Prince of Egypt

Last year's resolution was to take time out for some training and cover skill gaps, especially in web development.
This is the year of the green back for the company I figure. Last year's result was not very interesting or maybe not?. Some notions that money was not coming in was erased and self motivation among guys here is crazy as usual. Forget the manu variables of working in a third world country.

Why do you think guys have to wait to het out of Nigeria before they start building the fastest chips


There are many variables when you take the equations in Naija, more constants in Yankee, You feel why they have the answers all of the time?

FYI, I'm still at splashers.
We resolved to fill in the blanks that have seen Artemis having so many projects and very few coming to Splashers. 2 days ago, I remembered "Who moved my cheese" and migrated to DotNetNuke in a few hours. After 24 hours I had finished my third integration. This plus the few modules I have built makes me a DNN semi-guru.
A nice beginning.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Competition Vs Monopoly


While you enjoy a monopoly, never stop to think and plan ahead for competition, competition is brewing nigh.

Thats me trying to sound like the proverbial old men on yonder days. My motivation for this post are two case studies around me. The first is a gas station in Abeokuta and the second is a fast food joint. They both enjoyed near monopoly in business and location but could not handle it. Cab drivers complain about shortages in gas sales but still fthinks the gas station is better than the others not as big. The fats food joint has a very wacked service, is almost stagnant on innovations and you bet, the food is wacked. They even increased the price of my favorite fillet 3 times in a week.
Along comes the saving grace in competition, Mr Biggs for fthe fast food and monsterous NNPC for the gas station. Behold a change in fortune. The only customers they have now are the impatients.
Sorry, got to go, Dapo just got nominated as an MVP!

Dead body get accident

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber struck a funeral for a Shiite politician's nephew Wednesday, killing at least 32 mourners, wounding dozens and splattering tombstones with blood — part of a surge of violence as Iraqi leaders try to form a coalition government

December 15 2005 was "democracy day in" Iraq? A bid for a coalition government is leaving fewer people alive to be governed.
Guys feel Naija needs extremists like these bombers to get our politicians thinking, maybe. The bloats think they can squander our wealth simple because we love life too much to challenge the guns fthey've earned with their positions.
But maybe we don't need them, maybe...The truly developed and democratic world don't have none of those do they?

Dead body get accident

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber struck a funeral for a Shiite politician's nephew Wednesday, killing at least 32 mourners, wounding dozens and splattering tombstones with blood — part of a surge of violence as Iraqi leaders try to form a coalition government

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

New Year Resolutions

1. Never late for work, meaning I adopt a new resumption time ahead of office by at least an hour.
2. Draw up a timetable. Detail time for office work, research etc. Allow exceptions only in extreme cases.
3. Do a lot of web development and research.
4. Adopt more open source technologies.
5. Spend some more time on user groups and social groups.
6. Blog a lot more.
7. More good God time.
8. Take no BULLS__T from nobody.

So help me God. Amen!