Some are More Equal Than Others

History and experience has taught me a very consistent message, it has made me to grow and not worry myself much about the different salary scales in the work place, level of powers in the work place and who got a massive bonus and so on and so forth and staff like that. I have also given up in competing with Quinton the white guy who hails from a very affluent family, who has only his qualification and no experience. I gave up because I can never amount to Quinton no matter how hard I try, at least not while the company still maintain I have to attend a lot of “training” get more exposure in the field for they see me as this incompetent person even though I have a qualification, vast amount of experience in the field.

I tell you what, I wish Quinton and his father Mr De Kock, all the best of luck (although they don’t need it), In fact I want them to get more money and continue to maintain their lavish lifestyle, nepotism et al. I want them to buy more cars, furniture etc, insure them in case a black graduate who still needs training may come and steal them, or any black for that matter. In South Africa, crime has a colour, theft, robbery, corruption rape, GBH, heist etc is labelled as a black crime. White crime has a fancy name called, white collar crime, the crime that you hardy see on the news if at all and there is no prize for guessing why.

South African insurance industry label the De Kock family as the low risk and I’m the high risk, why am I a high risk, the answer is simple I’m from kasi, and whites believe that in kasi, crime is the order of the day, I say bayadakwa, most crime happened in towns, suburbs, cbd’s (where large corporates are situated). If it happens that De Kock family lose their property the insurance will replace them in no time and even offer them counselling as an added benefit (I’m sure it’s the first time you hear about this benefit, yes, it’s for whites only) . If I happen to lose my property, I will be sent from pillar to post and later only to be told that of a certain clause in my contract, wala abanganiki niks, kodwa kusharp vele ngiwu darkie, what did I expect, ngizoziphindiselela angeke imali yami yama premiums idliwe mahala.

The insurance company by applying this unfair procedure on me, they have raise the stealing instinct in me. I will enter them, ngizobangena. Quinton pays low premium, low access, he is a low risk, he earns more than me but I’m a high risk, I earn less than him, I pay high premiums than him isono sami nje ukuba mnyama nokuhlala ekasi, I’m reminded of the Apartheid Afrikaans term which said swart gevaar, babengadlali namanje sisabonwa siyingozi.

Cars – recycling

I am happy to see Quiton in a new car, this not only shows progression on his side but it also shows that the company his also taking good care of him. Or maybe the father is also helping or whatever the reason maybe be, I am happy that Quinton is driving a new car. I am happy that Quiton is also insured so that should an unfortunate happen to his new car the insure will quickly sort it out.

You see I also like Quinton’s car but the problem is that I cant actually afford a car, yes we work for the same company same qualification as well but different salary scale (remember I have given up on the salary story). I understand that Quiton might have less responsibilities compared to me, he doesn’t take care of his family at a every youg age (story for another day).

I have grown to associate myself with a lot of people; be it “good” people or bad “people” it doesn’t matter they all play a significant role in my life. Whiles knowing Quiton I also know Sipho aka “Msayi”, well Sipho is one of the “bad’ people that I have come across. If you need a car, furniture or etc Sipho is the relevant person to speak to, he will sort you out.

As I said I like Quinton’s car I also want to see myself in one, so a friend of a friend of mine introduced me to Sipho and he can get me this car at a half price. I must just say the word and organize the funds. Sipho also has a friends who knows a friends at the traffic department so by the time the reaches me it will be legit (very nice).

This is how my heartache of not getting a raise r not getting a bonus is mended. Yes when Sipho goes to Quinton and ask for the car I am sure it wont be in a friendly manner, Quinton will have to go and see a physchologist or something or take some time off go on a holiday or something. He also be comforted by the fact that the car will be replaced. View this as some form of messed up barter trading.

Holidays “taking a break:” our form of a break is alcohol and drugs for some
You see the De Kock family is very organized, they even go on holidays every year be it in South Africa or abroad. Mr De kock even goes hunting from time to time and he comes back and sells us biltong at the office, this is brilliant.

We all deserve this small breaks, as I have said I am struggling to afford a car my form of a holiday if to go home in December and buy groceries for my family. There is plenty of food especially leading to the 25th of December, apparently this is when some famous guy died or something.

I know a lot of young boys who use abuse drug and alcohol, at a glance I used to judge them for this myself and used to think that they could do something better with their lives. I am not saying that all of them issues at home. Let me dwell a bit on the issues part, some of these boys and girls have no parents at all and that’s the majority of them either they died of dieses like AIDS, or they are locked up in prison or they were raised by their grand parent and they also passed away. Not knowing what you will eat can mess up any one “indlala ayina ntanga”.

I see the use of drugs or the abuse alcohol as an escape from the hush reality – I call this the break that the De Kock family take every year. Being alive is so unbearable for some people so much so they have learnt to live their lives half drunk or drunk all the time. If I am drunk in the morning I don’t care what I I will eat on afternoon or evening and my mental state doesn’t allow me to feel the pain of knowing that I don’t have anything in life. When Quiton goes to see a psychologist for the robbery I go to a Sheeben and buy a beer or two. Quinton will eventually heal and all will be back to normal.
I wish the De Kock family well on their trips, and they must rest and come back rejuvenated. And I also hope they find all the belongs in one piece.

There is too much inequality in South Africa ! please don’t get me wrong I am not justifying crime by any means but do what you have to do. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

12 August 2014

The Broken Tablet

Well I get alot of questions about the broken Tablet, questions like "What happened?", "Is that yours?" , "How do you feel?", "Why don't you fix it? (My favourite) just to mention a few.

Well a simple answer to all those questions would be :-

"Yes the Tablet is mine, its like that because I pissed off a woman and I won't fix it, I wan't it to be a point of reference and a reminder not to piss off a woman ever again :)"

Welcome to the Izzy World...

System Requirement (Follow up Post)

I would like to believe Information Technology is the fastest growing industry in our times (I stand to be corrected), with such growth, organisations or even individuals invest a lot on technology. Some do so by funding start ups, purchasing software packages to support their line of business or sometimes invest the time and money in writing their own custom software or even getting simple website for the organisation (nowadays if you are an organisation and you don't have a website you are just in the wrong century). Since not everyone out there is a computer geek and not everyone can create their own website so that's where we come into the picture :) , great stuff!. You will need to tell me what you would like me to do you for (ooops!! Do for you ) You approached me because I am known to have the skills to make your IT dream come true. But since this is your application or your website, I have to do exactly what you want, if I have any suggestions ill communicate them to you and we agree on the idea, I can't just go crazy, its not mine, Im just a resource.


So for that process to be smooth and not bite each other's heads at a later stage, we will need to document these things, sign the document with hopes that everybody will go out happy when the project is done, that document is  as system requirement specification, ok I went to wikipedia to get an explanation for this term

"A system requirements specification (sometimes known by the acronym, SyRS) A structured collection of information that embodies the requirements of a system.
A business analyst, sometimes titled system analyst, is responsible for analyzing the business needs of their clients and stakeholders to help identify business problems and propose solutions. Within the systems development life cycle domain, the BA typically performs a liaison function between the business side of an enterprise and the information technology department or external service providers."

ok enough with the serious stuff, back to my point (Even though its not clear yet)  so the requester(you the client) will tell me what you need and ill tell you how we can achieve it and recommend technologies to use and give you an estimate on how long it will take me to complete it. Then we will eventually agree on it then I start working on the project, since I wouldn't want to be associated with failure (IT projects are known be a failure when the systems is completed and never used either because they are too complex or over the budget or just not completed at all. For now ill focus on the point where it wasn't used because it was complex (Not user friendly) ) I would want to involve the client in the project's life cycle, Ill do the design and will require his input or even just a rubber stamp that I can go further with it. Ill do that through out every step of the project. Now here is the challenge, The client might have requested this application or this website from me, it is not his core business, that means what I'm doing its not the only thing on his plate (That's Probably why he asked me to do it at the first) so what happens if he is not available to review this and what if he comes at the day I deliver and say thats not what he wanted. Lets look at ways to overcome such instances. The are ways and techniques out there to do things better, lets talk about them on this post...

Scope Creep - Follow up (Part 1 of N)

Its almost two years since my last post about Scope Creep, It came to me that I do a follow up on the subject. Right! Back then I was more of a Gadget/Tool (Did everything with No questions asked) that wrote code based on a certain specification given to me by either my manager or by the BA (which in most cases it was given by the Manager). yeah! cool, a very nice spec with everything required and ill write the software the way I understood the specification, great! I'm doing what I'm told to do. 

Now the problem starts when that piece of software gets reviewed but the person who actually requested it, Now here they see how powerful it is and they see more uses and more features to be added to it, or in some cases they see it differently, like its just a complete disaster, which for an actual fact its their fault they didn't really know what the want lol (a part of me had to laugh at that) . So now that they realised what they really want they start changing the flow of the application or changing the design, which is not a problem the developer can do it, but what they usually forget to do is changing the estimated completion time. Where does that leave the person accountable for this? let me tell you, under-pressure, well if you are lucky to find dedicated and hard working developers this is not a problem they do the work, with no questions asked. 

But the situation also differs when the application is supper cool and they see a potential "New" feature and they don't really want to put a separate request for that feature because that will take time because it still needs to go through the proper channels, being Documented, scheduled, Authorized, Prioritized and all other planning levels and that will cost the client even more. So they try to squeeze it into the current requirement (Jackpot!!).

In both cases if you have a product owner or a project Manager that doesn't have "NO" or "Stop" in their vocab that then becomes another problem (Why are they there at the first place? UHMM? that's another day's story). The spec grows even bigger. Ok ok.. I think its safe to say you get the picture. We've been looking at this with developer's eyes, Now lets try and shift the focus, lets say you are now the client, lets say you don't really know what you want, you have the idea but you are pretty sure of what you don't want. Will you pay for something if it doesn't satisfy needs? No! I don't think so. Which is why for the next couple of posts ill be looking at Scope creep(Maybe its a different term is used, but will find out) from all stakeholder's perspective. 

What is system requirement

Assigning a null value to DateTimePicker(.Net Framework)

In the my few years since I joined the software Development , About half of the application I wrote I was required to allow the user to changed or enter a date field which came as a very easy task since Microsoft .Net has a DateTimePicker Control which works perfectly fine, the user can interact with it and you can get the value of DateTime type, which is awesome. Until i reached a point where I got data from a nullable database field which held the date value i have to display on my User Interface's DateTimePicker control, Unfortunately my favorite Microsoft .NET DateTimePicker doesn't accept null as a value plus you can not clear the display which by default it displays the current date, The client want to see a blank field if the date value is null on the database, which to me makes sense, I shouldn't see anything if the is nothing right?.

Went back to the drawing board, did my research and I found that you really can't clear the DateTimePicker control, MSDN also confirmed that. Now my head grew bigger each minute, until it crossed my mind that i can actually create my own custom control the can behave the way I want it to or use one of the third party controls i found on the internet, but writing my own control will add to my skills development, so I decided to write it,  how cool is that? I managed to extend the DateTimePicker to behave the way I want I to, Ill be posting an article on how i created the control and ill also provide sample code and the complete project just in case you where siting with the similar problem as mine.  

The real world

When I grew up I always thought IT specialists did not have a life other than their Computers, laptops or PDA's. I really thought they where gadget freaks. But when I got into this world, I started to see it in a different way.

These gadgets are really our lives. Think about it? How long can u stay away from the internet? (Not longer than a day). Its like u looking for any reason out there to be glued on your computer every time. And when your spouse asks, "Honey aint you tired of being on the computer? You've been staring at it the whole day?" You'll be like "eish baby there is something I need to complete, its work stuff". Some came up with a silly excuse "I'm trying to compare technologies to use in my next project" we all know that you know exactly what you going to use. Some inverted the term "Working from home", Only to find that you are on some social network, your internet world seems to be better than the real world. Anyways I'm starting to get confused also, which one is my real world?