Chris Meistre

I think I was born to be a programmer.  Ever since I can remember, I’ve had this thing I do that whenever I see something in the real world I try and work out in my head how you would go about structuring  an algorithm that would simulate or automate it.

As an example, let’s look at how you wash a car.

1. Spray car with water
2. Apply soap on a part of the car
3. If car is completely soaped up, rinse off, otherwise go back to step 2
4. Dry off part of the car
5. If car is completely dry, stop, otherwise go back to step 4

When I stand at an ATM drawing money, I go through my head the processes that it goes through when I do a transaction. (note, this is obviously not how an ATM works, and is just here for illustration purposes)

1. Read information from my mag stripe
2. Accept my PIN code
3. Send my PIN code along with the unique ID on the mag stripe to a central database to compare and see if my PIN is correct
4. If it is correct return the information like bank accounts, etc to the ATM so that I can do a transaction.  If it was incorrect stop and exit
5. Get transaction information, check it with central database and if possible record that the transaction has gone through
6. etc

I don’t know what the word is for someone with a personality like this, but that is what I am   I am sure that some people who know me wouldn’t expect me to be like this, but I find myself often going through things like this in my head.

I believe the ability and the urge I feel to do this with a lot of things in life has helped me with my programming skills.  It has helped me understand other people’s software as well, which normally results in being able to understand why a certain program is occurring in their software.  As an example, when a program fails at a certain point, I can work out that it’s probably because at that stage it needs to load information from a file but it hangs there.  I am then able to check if the file it needs is indeed there, and if replaced it works.  So without error messages guiding me in the right direction, it’s very often possible to work out what a program is trying to do at what time.

This gets me to an article I read about whether or not you are a good programmer – Bad Programmers.

In short, you are a bad programmer when:

1. You struggle to reason about code
2. Poor understanding of a language’s programming model
3. Poor knowledge of a platform’s features
4. Unable to understand pointers
5. Difficulty seeing through recursion

Signs that you are a mediocre programmer:

1. You’re not able to think in sets
2. Lack of critical thinking
3. Pinball programming – working in just certain states
4. Unfamiliar with security techniques

And then there are signs that you shouldn’t be a programmer:

1. Unable to determine the order of execution of code
2. No ability to think in the abstract
3. Collyer Brothers syndrome
4. Dysfunctional sense of casualty
5. Indifference to outcomes

That is just a summary of it, and I think it’s really worth a read to see where you fall if you consider yourself a programmer.

This year I’m taking part in the Thirty Day Challenge again.  The most valuable thing I’ve been able to learn is about saving time doing keyword research.  Normally I would’ve used things like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and then a number of others.  But with Market Samurai, it cuts that time to about 5%.  This tool combines all the tools I used previously, but it puts it into a nice package that saves you a lot of time.

I was able to research niche keywords and find 18 micro niches that I can use to make money online.  To first put everything to test I chose two of them and got websites up and running for them.  2 day s later they were being indexed by Google, and 2 days after that I check up to see if any people had reached the sites.

Was I surprised!  I knew keyword research can make all the difference to a website, but I forgot how well it can really work.

In the first 2 days I had 680 visits to my one website, all coming to me from search engines.  The other one had gotten about 40.

I checked the stats again this morning and it’s averaging at about 329 visits per day for the one website and 124 visits per day for the other one.  This is good for a 1 page website.

So before you get your website up and running, spend a few hours to work out what keywords you are going to target, because it can mean the difference between having a bad or an awesome website!  You want to target keywords that enough people are searching for, but with not too much competition in terms of other websites people reach with those keywords.

There are lots of reason I love this country of ours. Sure, there are hundreds of bad things about it, but I always tell people that tell me how bad it is hear and how much better it is in other countries that all countries have their own shit. Crime, for example, is a world thing, not a country thing. You hear about all the fairy tales of their being so little crime every where else, but although it might be less than here, it is still there.

I’ve never thought of myself as patriotic, and to be honest, I’ve never even voted. And I fully believe for that reason I have no right to moan about the happenings in our country, I haven’t used my voice. I also don’t think I will ever vote. It’s difficult to try and explain why, so I won’t even try.

I have been privileged enough to be able to explore a number of places here in South Africa. I’d like to one day say that I’ve been everywhere here. I love traveling between the different provinces and observe the different cultures we have. Where else in the world do you have so many different cultures and races living together?

If I have to sit and think about it, being in this country and traveling through it makes me feel alive. I get excited when we travel because we have so many different landscapes and terrains that we can admire. The terrain also changes so quickly moving along a road that you just simply cannot travel through this country and get bored.

We also get to experiences places and landscapes that not a lot of people would be able to experience through our EC Offroad Adventures adventures.  A passion for nature is what you need in this country, because you can really just get lost in it’s beauty.

Then we get to the ample wild life we have here, and all the game parks and nature reserves.  We often drive back and dirt roads which takes us on public roads that lead through game reserves.  The most memorable moment was traveling along the road and all of a sudden we had 4 giraffes right in front of us in the road.  Where else but in Africa do you get to see such wild life while driving along a public road?  A quick visit to one of the game parks will quickly let you understand why tourists from all over the world flock to South Africa to experience what we’ve come to take for granted.  15 minutes away from my house, I can go and drive though an elephant park and see elephants roaming around.  10 minutes in another direction we can go view lions and cheetahs.

I also believe we have the most awesome beaches in the world.  Yes we have had problems at the beaches like drunk civilians causing havoc, unruly 4×4 drivers causing problems with the wildlife and finally getting banned from the beach and abalone poaching.  But go take a stroll on the beach early in the morning when the sun is rising or in the evening when the sun is setting with your dogs and tell me that isn’t one of the relaxing experiences you can have.

Our country has the best weather.  Where else in the world would it be cold in the morning, sunny in the mid morning, raining and windy by the afternoon, only to have perfectly calm and warm evening?  Perhaps some people would blame that on global warming?

Even the poorest of the poor in our country are still proud to be South African and 99% of the times you can see them happy and smiling.  Ah yes, I hear you saying what about all the protest action that happens in the townships.  I can understand why these people are upset, I would be too.  But ask those protesters if they would leave this country for anywhere else, and I’m sure the answer would be a flat NO.

Here in South Africa, we were spared from the rest of the world’s financial problems for quite a while because of the right systems being in place.  We are currently in a recession, but it happened months after the rest of the world had their downfall.

I even love the politics sometimes, where you hear the various party leaders slander each other’s decisions and views, but still they can sit down and have civilized discussions.  Although they do not agree with each other, most of them do still respect each other as people.

I love South Africa’s banks and it’s telecommunications provider….. haha ok well, not really.

Talking about things we hate, we need special words to use for those people.  Where else would you find such meaningful words as “Kak” and “Jou ma se ….”?

All in all, I think the people from South Africa are very positive human beings, and if you’re one of those people I salute you.  Positiveness alone might not get you very far, but with it you will get further.

I remember hearing this song from DMX a couple of years ago. Every now and then I find myself repeating the words in my head, sort of like a song you just cannot get out of your head.

Sometimes I wonder what life’s about
Sometimes I wonder why the lights are out
Sometimes I wonder why I like to shout
Sometimes I wonder, what the lies are about
Sometimes I see things I shouldn’t have seen
Sometimes I wonder why, I’m a hood and a fiend
Sometimes I look at what I’ve become and cry
Sometimes I, get on that BULLSHIT and be ready to die
Sometimes a nigga that’s yo’ man might get it
Sometimes even though it’s sweet, if you ain’t wit it
Sometimes the pain is too much to BEAR
Sometimes it RAINS too much to care
Sometimes if you, don’t watch yo’ back it’ll cost you
Sometimes you wonder, who would give a FUCK if they lost you
Yet sometimes the sun shines around the clock
But sometimes it’s dark, and hell is hot

It really sums up life I think. People can say what they want about him, but DMX sure has a way with words.

We spend so much time on our blogs. Thinking of stuff to write, finding the time to write, and then we still want to try and actually make some money off it as well. I found a great way of selling link space on your website for a few $ per month. Try it out.