The African Globalist… and Developer on the Side…

I have been trying to load the google.com search page but I keep getting the above error message on my browser. Looks like google.com is down for now…

Posted on September 4th, 2007 by andai
Filed under: Misc | No Comments »

I have been neglecting my personal web development for a while now simply due to work pressures and other commitments… but now that I am picking it up, I thought it would be nice to keep an open blog of my progress as I go along. There are a number of reasons for this based on the fact that I am completely revamping the simple Content Management System I build for the Nubian Underground website.

These reasons include;

1. Since I last completed Nubian Underground’s CMS, PHP 5 was released. This release included major improvements and better object-oriented features
2. MySQL 5 was released. The most significant feature of this release, at least for me, was the support for Stored Procedures and functions
3. The XHTML code behind the current version of Nubian Underground is not clean enough and there is not a proper separation of the presentation layer, the data layer and the business logic
4. There is no real database support as I had originally envisioned

For this reasons I felt it was high time that I completely revamped and built from the ground up, the next version of Nubian Underground.

The aim of this project is to build a CMS that is not only robust, but would also closely follow the Model-View-Controller design pattern, would be versatile in terms of allowing users to easily customize the look and feel, and also to enable site admins to use a wider array of data sources for the site content. Additionally, the CMS should easily present its output to both regular browsers and mobile devices, should easily allow for certain content to be made available to specific users, for example to paid subscribers. Finally, this CMS will also expose a number of web services to enable content sharing and monetization.

Those are the reasons why I am rebuilding the CMS.

Now the reason I plan to blog about my progress is because I intent to share with you, the lessons learned as I go along, including code snippets and the like. At the same time I would also like to get feedback from you with regards to my approach and things that I can improve… I mean, isn’t that one of the reason the web was created, for the Universities to share research and ideas?

Posted on August 27th, 2007 by andai
Filed under: Content Management Systems, Service Oriented Architecture, Web Project Management | No Comments »

The New York Times is running an article on China’s economic effects on Africa’s own economy. It is an interesting but not surprising to read that the fact that China is able to produce goods cheaper than African industry and export back to Africa, resulting in the closing of several textile factories is really not a surprise.

The fact that Chinese goods are taking over many markets around the world should not surprise anyone at all. India, in addition to China, has been blamed for the loss of both white and blue color jobs in many countries in the West, and that is likely to continue. As person in the article basically indicates, China is simply doing what it should, competing in the global economy.

What is rather surprising to me is the attitude of some of the Africans blaming China for the loss of jobs and income. On one hand I think that is tragic, but on the other hand, I think we are seeing the continued result of a continent and peoples, who have long become more used to receiving handouts rather than learning how to compete, how to develop its resources including human resources to become self sufficient and less reliant on handouts. How can Africa really expect to compete when it has refused to put in place the infrastructure that would provide the environment to foster economic progress. I am talking about education, health, security and policies that encourage the growth and development of business. I am talking about roads, bridges, rail, electricity, phone and internet.

The saddest and most pathetic part of all this is that Africa has been blessed with a lot of natural resources. Even as much was was taken or exploited during the colonial times, there still remains an abundance of natural resources. Yet, Africa remains the poorest of the continents. And not just the poorest, but way, way behind the others.

I think the statement by Moeletsi Mbeki, a South African entrepreneur and a political analyst …. sums it up nicely… most of Africa has has 35 to 50 years of independence and have not developed any manufacturing… I would actually venture to say instead that most of Africa has been independent for 35 to 50 years and has nothing to show for it! That I think that, is pretty sad

Posted on August 21st, 2007 by andai
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This New York Times article titled ‘More Advice Graduates Don’t Want to Hear‘ shows you some small and simple but effective ways to save money towards your retirement…

Posted on June 7th, 2007 by andai
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