9 Feb

Different View: The Difference Between a Programmer, a Hacker, and a Developer

Posted by ssmusoke in tips and tricks.

Insomia is not always a bad thing after all, I got to read Daniel Miessler’s article – The Difference Between a Programmer, a Hacker, and a Developer which I think is a good primer, but flawed in the assumption of formal education for developers.

My experience has been:

  1. A developer does always not have to be formally trained, however over time they have built experience and understand design patterns, architectural approaches, pragmatic decision making etc.
  2. A programmer – writes code and delivers it and hopefully over time grows into a developer.
  3. The hacker is a special being who writes code, solves problems but adds a creativity on top of that along with a passion and drive which is sort of “mystical”

My Venn diagram therefore looks like below:

Developer Programmer Hacker

Developer Programmer Hacker

8 Feb

Versatile Blogger Award

Posted by ssmusoke in social commentary, social media.

I have been nominated by Jemima Nalumansi who has the full list of how the nomination got to me akin to walking like the Muganda lady of the Ffumbe clan (http://www.ffumbeclan.org/) she is, so anyway a tough challenge she put up to me but I have to rise up not to disappoint….

The rules of engagement:

  1. Thank the person that nominated you and include a link to their blog (just did above)
  2. Nominate at least 15 bloggers of your choice. When considering a fellow blogger for the Versatile Blogger Award, keep in mind the quality of their writing, the uniqueness of their subject matter and the level of love displayed on the virtual page.
  3. Link your nominees and let them know about their nomination.
  4. Share seven facts about yourself.

Seven facts about me:

  1. I love good food and coffee … but most of all give me a hot cup of spiced, brewed tea then you have me hook line and sinker….
  2. I am driven by my culture that provides me with a moral and social compass, plus a decision making baseline confused a little by the modern world …
  3. I am self taught software developer – only have my street scars to show
  4. I try to be as reliable as I can be – at times bending over backwards to deliver to the tasks assigned to me or promises that I have made hence I am making fewer and fewer.
  5. I am venturing into agriculture as I know it is the next frontier, but it gives me a chance to bond and experience what mother nature has to offer
  6. Proud father of 4, husband to one – and still trying to figure out what all of that means
  7. I love difficult, abstract and challenging problems, they stretch my mind and body to extremes … I enjoy the challenge of following Alice down the rabbit hole to see how far it goes

My blogger list in no particular order

  1. James Wire – entrepreneur, farmer, ICT all round guy but old skool values
  2. David Mpanga – he is a blogger not in one place but his social commentary hits home. My offer to him is to help him setup his blog hoping he reads this
  3.  Maria WhoIsThatChic Nathaniel – hard hitting, bone crushing no holds barred writing
  4. Brian Ssenoga – tech, FOSS, Health in ICT
  5. Stephen Magero – words carefully chosen
  6. Patricia Kahill –  aka Kasozi, my go to social media consultant
  7. Beewol – Mondays will never be the same again
  8. David Okwi – geekprenur
  9. Onyait Odeke – quiet calm photographer, techie
  10. Mushabe Dickson – author, enterprenur… but blogger still
  11. Solomon King – I head the fan club if that exists, the creativity and passion that makes me feel like a droid slogging through the world. Hope he will provide a better link than Google+
  12. Jethro Musoke – he does not like writing but when he does …  but he needs to write a lot more
  13. Emma Cuppycake Asio –  read and judge for yourself
  14. Olive Nakiyemba – traveller, runner
  15. Micheal Niyitegeka – tech, education, Rotary, and running
  16. and one for the road Simon Kaheru – oh yes I read every blog post you write, Colin Assimwe you two… and of course the Master Apprentice Kizzy Katawonga a new addition fueled by insomnia 🙂

Jemima, as per #4 of my failings, I have delivered …

30 Jan

Tech Tip: Websites on Github with Jekyll

Posted by ssmusoke in content management systems, css, git, html, innovation, mobile computing, opensource, responsive design, social media, software development lifecycle, styx technology group, technology, tips and tricks, web development. Tagged: , , .

We have been facing a challenge on how to manage the Styx Technology Group corporate website without having dedicated resources to host, deal with security, updates and maintenance. Having been in the website business for over a decade at the turn of Y2K,  having an easily maintainable solution was key for the long haul.

Enter GitHub pages (https://help.github.com/categories/github-pages-basics/), of course any decent software developer and team are using some form of version control, but the beauty is that it allows projects, users and organisations to have self hosted sites that are managed through a repository.  That in combination with Jekyll (http://jekyllrb.com/) supports content management without a database.

To further speed up our development process, we leveraged existing themes for the website look and feel that were close to our need, while keeping the site design very simple so that we focused on solving the problem at hand.

It was suddenly music to our ears as the team did not have to leave their IDEs (random plug for Jetbrains IDE tool suite that we have standardized upon)  in order to make updates to the website. Just create a new markdown document, verify and push … And bam!! the updates are done, version controlled and all, no more hassles with database configurations …

Need help getting your website up and running in such a fashion do shoot us an email at consulting at styxtechgroup dot com and we shall be happy to help and engage…. Have a great weekend

29 Dec

OpenMRS Implementor Series 101 – Building a distribution package

Posted by ssmusoke in eHealth, openmrs, opensource, software development lifecycle, tips and tricks. Tagged: .

I am not sure where this will end, however it is my way of giving back to the OpenMRS community that has provided an excellent learning platform and great support to me over the last 6 months, I have been using the software tools.

My intention is to share what I know, as a way of organising my thoughts and sharing ideas as I figure out where to add this to the OpenMRS community documentation, where it surely belongs. The flow of each of these posts will usually be to answer a very specific question that I have asked in the past, and where I think I have figured out an approach that seems to work.

UPDATE December 31, 2015: The new home for this blog post is  on the OpenMRS Wiki at https://wiki.openmrs.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=93358939 all further updates will be placed there

Problem Statement: How can I get an OpenMRS distribution that has all the modules that I need?

New to OpenMRS – What is Possible?

If you are new to OpenMRS and would like to see what is possible, then download the OpenMRS X.X Standalone Edition from http://openmrs.org/download/ which contains a pre-configured reference application with sample data that is ready to run in a single command.  This is note meant for production use as the embedded components are not robust enough for the growth in data collected.

Enterprise Installation like Reference Application

If the reference application provides all the modules that you need, the next step is to set-up n enterprise ready installation using a dedicated application server & database in which the Platform x.xx WAR (for Enterprise) can be installed. The modules for the reference application above can be downloaded as a zip file from the standalone edition above.

Full Control of Enterprise Installation

The last option is the most complex, and is for those implementors who want to install the enterprise edition but have control over what modules are installed or even what versions. In this case the OpenMRS distro platform is your best choice (https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-distro-platform) which allows the building of a custom WAR file that includes the modules that you need.

The modules are defined in the pom.xml file and are accessed from the OpenMRS Maven Nexus repository (http://mavenrepo.openmrs.org/nexus/index.html#view-repositories;modules~browsestorage).

An addition to this project is for modules (pending review) but currently available at https://github.com/ssmusoke/openmrs-distro-platform is the ability to include custom modules (*.omod files) by dropping them in a folder called modules.

Please do share your comments on this style and let me know where it would fit best in the OpenMRS community documentation

 

4 Dec

Syzygy – Release 2 – Uganda Mobile Money Cost Estimator

Posted by ssmusoke in android, enterprenur, frugal innovation, git, mobile computing, mobile money, mobile technology usage, software development lifecycle, styx technology group, tips and tricks.

Syzygy is a Uganda focused utility calculator (launched by this post https://ssmusoke.com/2015/08/11/launching-syzygy-uganda-focused-utility-calculator/), this new release adds a tool not available anywhere else allowing you to estimate the costs of a mobile money transaction. Are you sending to a registered number, unregistered or trying to withdraw from an agent or ATM?

Hope this app saves you the hassle of searching for the transaction chart which is usually hanging in the agent’s booth.

Do let us know what you think of the new release.

The link to the app is http://bit.ly/syzygy-ug

A screenshot of the new calculator is below

Mobile Money Cost Estimator

Mobile Money Cost Estimator

16 Nov

Alternate Approach to MTN SIM Card Registration Process & Web Tool 

Posted by ssmusoke in alternative approach, frugal innovation, internet, mobile technology usage, product review, software development lifecycle, styx technology group, technology.

MTN Uganda has finally put together an application to support the online registration of simcards. However the process as outlined in the Dignited article (http://www.dignited.com/15503/you-can-now-register-your-mtn-uganda-sim-card-online-heres-how/) requires a user to download a registration form, upload it then wait until MTN staff can get back on the registration status.
This blog post provides an alternate design and approach for an online sim-card registration tool, thanks to the team at Styx Technology Group for putting the design and mockups for the alternate solution.
The principles of the system design are as follows:
  1. A user can register more than one sim-card under their own names only after completing their profile information, which cannot be changed later (for audibility)
  2. A user can return and check their registration information later
  3. MTN staff can respond to a registration pointing out any missing or inaccurate information
  4. The user can be notified by SMS and/or email of the status of their registration, and can also login to check the status
  5. The registrations can also be downloaded and added to MTN systems (as may be required)
  6. For identification, two documents have to be provided to confirm, and because the numbers are entered, it is easy for MTN staff to verify
The mockups below tell the story of how an alternate process looks like  licensed under the Creative Commons 3
Login Screen

Login Screen

Signup Screen

Signup Screen

Dashboard

Dashboard

My Profile

My Profile

Register Number

Register Number

UPDATE – November 19, 2015: Looks like MTN updated the sim card registration process to an online form at https://www.mtnbusiness.co.ug/mtnreg/ in response to this post

20 Oct

Alternate Approach to Voice Price Wars in Telecom Industry in Uganda

Posted by ssmusoke in alternative approach, APIs, enterprenur, innovation, internet, mobile computing, mobile money, mobile technology usage, opensource, styx technology group, technology. Tagged: , , , , , .

My colleagues at Styx Technology Group are looking at alternate approaches to telecos in Uganda to increase their ARPU (Average Revenue Per Unit) a metric for revenue from each customer, instead of the current price war tagged to 3/= per second (US$ 0.1 per minute).

  1. Accept that voice is now commodity, being pushed further out by VOIP for both regular users and business, due to the improving Internet connectivity both via fixed and mobile connections. There is no longer a competitive edge to having cheaper voice, the revenues are fixed and can only go lower
  2. Bundled services: Currently there are separate plans for voice, SMS and data, which have to be purchased daily or when needed. The monthly plans have a premium attached, so without looking at the numbers I suspect that a majority of the regular users purchase daily plans as and when is needed. The telecoms can create bundled plans (already existing for voice) to include SMS and data without the hefty premium. Additional incentives can be provided for further discounts when a user pays consistently for a plan for 6 months, without any breaks.
  3. Smartphone Device and Service Contracts: While these are being gotten rid of in the US and Europe, the market in Uganda is ripe for disruption, where smartphones are paid over 12 to 24 months, with bundled services. Obviously the argument here is the risk associated with lending in Uganda, but options include partnering with financial institutions can help reduce the risk profile, work through employers to deduct the costs of the contract directly at source.
  4. Multiple Smartphone Data Plans: This is similar to the device plans above, however this allows the owner of the plan to register additional devices for monthly fee to share the data. This has been common with unlimited plans, and would provide a new revenue stream.
  5. Extending Mobile Money Services: The best service to copy is PayWay with a wide range of devices, and platforms on which to use the service based on what infrastructure the agent has. I would like to be able to swipe my VISA card and transfer money to my account without having to go through the bank interface which tends to be down more often than not.
  6. Bulk Sales of Devices to Schools: The new underlapped customer base, sell more devices to schools get parents to pay part of the costs to push e-education services, why do kids still have to fill Advanced Level and University Level choices on paper forms that can be lost? With powerful tablets in the $50 to $100 range only the telecoms have the clout, network and drive to push this through.
  7. Custom Devices and Services: These are for data collection needs, surveys etc, which can be accessed through third parties but pushing the envelope on what is possible. The key here is flexibility of service, enabling channel partners build and innovate by creating custom services and plans to meet their specific needs.
The telecoms need to think of blue ocean strategies to create new markets, provide ability for others to leverage their platform investments for new revenue channels, leveraging the example of Amazon that has created a multi-billion dollar technology infrastructure business based on solving internal problems.
What do you think?

UPDATE: This blog post follows the same thinking as The Telecom Wars in Uganda – Round 5 – 2015 and Beyond on this blog too

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