Ahmad Mukoshy is a young Nigerian doing great thing up there in the north, very passionate and consistent. He has been in the industry since 2007 and since then have serviced hundreds of client around the country and beyond.

- WebTrends NG

I am 20yr old born and brought-up in Sokoto (Nothern Nigeria) and I am the CEO of Aimtech Ltd a pioneer web hosting company and also Founder and Developer of Yarnable and Yrn.me a micro-discussion site and a free URL shorter respectively.

I started my first venture (Aimtech NG) in 2007 when I just graduated from Secondary School (High School).  As of that time, I was only 17yrs old and I was a bit versatile with web design and development. Web design has been my hubby since SS1 (Senior High).

I had zero support except for my enthusiasm! My father was “Not Ok” with me sitting on a computer all day long because to him, I was wasting my time when I could be studying Mathematics (his favourite). It was really challenging! But thank God to that, I am not in my Final year soon to be a University Graduate!

Financially, I had to struggle to establish and sustain my ventures. I remember I actually sold my mobile phone back in 2007 to raise capital for my hosting company, that was about 11,000 Naira ($70) or there about as of then.

I was selling Domain Names to my friends and internet contacts who were asking me of how I registered my own back then to make money. So I figured I could turn it into a business and I ventured into web hosting service with just 1 customer. Today, my hosting company empowers over 450 web site owners.

Read the rest of the interview at WebTrends Nigeria.

Ahmad, You are incredibly a huge success to this Nation and the world at large will encounter soon. I have been following your updates quietly though may not understand them all cos I’m not much into IT… It amazes me the giant IT stuff you execute while an undergraduate.

May the good Lord guide, bless and keep you. Please do your best to bring up as many Youths as you can as their role model. Nigeria needs young people like you; focused, too busy and fruitful.

You may not be known now but keep at it. One day your secret labour and sleepless nights will bring out to the glare of all…

I just feel like encouraging you; I dont even know what prompted me to doing this but each day i log on to facebook and read ur update, something tells me you are going to be great; a world changer!

Please do not joke with these few words I’ve spoken. Be humble, friendly, cheerful to people you come across with on daily basis. Above all be closer to your God.

I like your personality, Ahmad.

I wish you could just see the smile in my face when ever I read this, It always revive me times when I feel down, days like today (pheewp… Doh!)

Sincerely, I always appreciate this person and will always do!

Though I receive countless of such encouraging emails, this one some-where some-how is just connected with my nerves…. God bless you and I still say thank you!

… a young 20 year old Nigerian serial entrepreneur who founded of Yarnable, an elegant micro-blogging platform and YRN.ME a URL shortener.

I recently granted him an interview after meeting him at BarCamp Nigeria 2010. He shared the motivation behind his social networking websites, his plans for the future and a little bit about his personality. Enjoy…

Oluniyi: What was your exact motivation for developing yrn.me?

Ahmad: Well, it was the idea of building yarnable that ignite yrn.me. During the early thoughts I had to build Yarnable, I forecasted the need for a URL shortner hence a tally name Yarn Me!

Oluniyi: So why was yrn.me unveiled weeks before yarnable.com?

Ahmad: I began building yrn.me first while putting down the parent site. More especially, the yrn.me core system took me about a week to build while 3 months to build Yarnable. I was also a user of URL shortening service, so I thought I and my twitter friends could make use of yrn.me not just for Yarnable, that was how I made it public.

Oluniyi: How has the response to yrn.me been so far?

Ahmad: It is quite appreciable and I was more than surprised how the usage picked up so fast. When I built it, I never thought the hype or the public usage will be this good. So, I now I am building the system better with personalized keywords, user accounts and statistic report.

Oluniyi: Would you say you have achieved your aim of building yrn.me?

Ahmad: Well, not yet. Because, now I plan to have it on the top of African URL shortening services. I set to compete well with major brands like bit.ly and tinyurl. With the more home keyword, Yarn Me. I believe I have a chance to have Africa use Yrn.me especial when it’s getting better.

Oluniyi: You have quite laudable plans and I take it for granted that you have a strong strategy to make that impact. Right?

Ahmad: Yes, surely I will make the big impact. I have the passion for it, I use it and my friends do so it is here to stay.

Oluniyi: What is your current market share of the URL shortener space for Nigeria?

Ahmad: No such data has been available to me, however the market is not so competitive to me. Yrn.me has shortened over 300links since launch!

Oluniyi: Could you describe yarnable in your own words?

Ahmad: Yarnable is a micro-discussion platform that allow users to share topics of interest in under 140 characters.

Oluniyi: Hmn. With a glance at Yarnable, the obvious word that comes to mind is “Twitter”. How does Yarnable compare with Twitter?

Read the rest of the interview at DavidAjao.com

I have a couple of domain name now, some hosted and others not. But I’ve not sold any to domain name brokers, I just keep them, I guess I love them.

Back then, I ventured into domain brokerage with http://nairaparking.com and now its a stealth start up that needs some push-forwards.

Most of my domain names are hosted and few parked on Nairaparking and Sedo.

Here are some of my hosted domain names.

aimtechng.com, danfodites.com, nairaparking.com, ahmadmukoshy.com, edugeria.com, yarnable.com, yrn.me,

For my parked domain names, I will soon find a way out with them and also make it worth while for other domain owners in Nigeria.

It looks like i’d give NairaParking.com that push it requires to start to move forward.

The normal serial programming most php developers use is reffered to as proceedural programming, something like this.

<?php

$name = “Mukoshy”;

$welcome_msg = “Good Morning”;

echo “$welcome_msg $name“; // Good Morning Mukoshy.

?>

But the question is how many times do you have to echo $welcome.$name on your pages just to tell your visitors a welcome message and as you can see I use Good Morning, what if its Afternoon or even Evening? I’d have to do some if-else statements just to cover the task which will take so much of lines

Even if I accomplish it on one page, I would have to code it (Or Copy) to another page and it goes on all my pages. This has so many disadvantages, from plenty codes for tiny task to tedious work if you decide to change the welcome message to say a uniform one like “Welcome Mukoshy” will serve any time of the day.

So… Let me take it through OOP! See the fun of it.

<?php

class greetings {

function welcome_msg ( $name = ‘User’ ) {

//Now I’d Create the msg (Afternoon, Morning, Evening).

$time_now = time();

if ( date(“A”,$time_now) == “AM” ) {

$msg = “Good Morning”;

}elseif( date (“A”,$time_now) == “PM” && (date(“G”,$time_now)>13)){

$msg = “Good Evening”;

}else{

$msg = “Good Afternoon”;

}

return “$msg $name”;

}

}

?>

Now, I can save this file as greetings.php as my greeting class, all I need to do is call it when I need to say some time greetings to my users, it doesn’t matter how many pages I have I will not have to copy or rewrite the codes again. Simple lines as follow on any page will say the message accordingly.

<?php

include (“greetings.php”);

$greetings = new greetings();

echo $greetings->welcome_msg(“Mukoshy”);

/* The above echo will print, Good Morning Mukoshy if the time is morning OR Good Afternoon Mukoshy if time is afternoon and Good Evening Mukoshy when the time is evening. Simple */

?>

Now you see the power of OOP?

However, I have not taken the time to test the above code… You debug it if you find some. I just manage to write it and color it. But I’m sure it will serve! (Try It).

OOP simply makes programming easier!

Well I decided to talk about it again, because these time…. I guess they’re getting smarter than I ever thought they could.

Take a look at the snap shot of the email I received from them, well written and structured to convince you its genuine.

But, take a minute and look at the picture again…. the header reads:

from: Guaranty Trust Bank <GeNs@gbank.com>
to:
date: Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 6:22PM
Subject: GTB Banking Update.

[Trace 1]
Something is missing, the to section. That I guess they couldn’t ensure it sends confidentially to emails (technical).

After reading the email, I was still doubting if it were scam because their was no link. But an attachment of which I though could be a form I’d print and take to the bank.

[Trace 2]

Notice the attachment is in HTML (Gtbank.html), which could have been a word document if I were to print and take to the bank!

So, I managed to click on the link to view the attachment to ensure I was right it got to be a scam!

[Trace 3]

Great appearance for a similar bank page, nice cloning of the GTBank Portal. However they’re asking for PIN Code which banks will never do. Not GTBank, not any other bank!

CAUTION: “Never enter your ATM No, PIN or ePIN (Visa Cards) online unless you are on certified Interswitch Sites. Even, I recommend you go to Interswitch Official Sites and check if the site you’re paying on is listed on their merchants. “

Well, I have been receiving similar of these scam emails. You may wonder why I emphasize on being cautious of all these. its because a close friend of mine was once a victim of Similar ATM online fraud via a fake MTN Promotion.

Pls. hold your funds safe and be extra careful where you enter your ATM card number online.

Be Safe.

We recently caught up with the young techie to get his perspective on a few topics.

TechMasai: What projects have you worked in recently in the web 2.0 sector?

Mr. Mukoshy: Well, my two major projects in the web 2.0 area are yrn.me and yarnable.com which I both built from scratch and hoping to build them to a world class standards.

TechMasai: What makes Yarnable different from other micro-blogging platforms already present?

Mr. Mukoshy: Yarnable is not just a micro-blogging tool, but also a platform allowing users to interact more specifically via related topics, just like a typical forum, you may call it a micro-social-forum based on 140 characters concept.

Yarnable allow users to find topics that interest them the most and share their thoughts in form of threads, making interaction a fabulous real-time conversation.

Yarnable will also be having additional features coming in time which I highlighted at BarCamp Nigeria 2010 in Lagos during the public beta release. Details at http://yrn.me/dp37o (BLOG)

TechMasai: What is the potential of start-ups like YRN.ME in providing value to Nigerian and the world community at large?

Read the rest of the interview at TechMasai.com

The stupid thing I kept on trying to do, was to be like every successful person I see on screen, read in a book or just heard about. I got my self troubling my mind every day, trying be a successful person that people will talk about, I didn’t care what is it that I will be, all I wanted is to BE SUCESSFUL!

Recently I began  to realize that in my quest to be successful, I was only trying to be like everybody, only to end up as Nobody! The fact is, I can never be everybody. God made us with differences in specialties, abilities, and even personal interests.

Take for instance, if I woke up today with a strong interest in becoming an artist in the future, I’d begin to learn how to draw. It will start to be fun with the passion I’d build for it. Suddenly, I switch on the TV only to see Angeline Joli in a session of TV review; then my whole plan changes and all I want to be, is a Movie Star.

But, even with the deepest analyses the two words “Me” and “You” are not the same and will never be, both in length, collection of characters, pronunciation and in fact even their meanings.

Mathematically:

ME != YOU

(ME is not equal to YOU)

So, why on earth do I want to be like you when i am me. Your life, your thoughts, your interest, your passion, your courage and even your ideas are entirely different from mine and should not interest me just because you are success with them. It’s always said “no two people are the same”.

If only I focus on my own thoughts, my true passion and ideas, What will I be?

Simply, I will be me and I will be successful! Because, all those people I see that interest me actually followed their own passions, their own minds and thoughts. They tried to be them and nobody else, that was why they succeeded.

“ Follow everyone else and you’d end up in a crowd! Can’t be seeing, can’t be identified, in fact you’re lost.

Follow your own way, you’d stand a side only to be seen, identified and fully found. “

So, now I am focusing not to be you but to be me! I have my own dreams, my own way of thinking, I am the captain of my own life. You may try to be like me if you want to, but I am no longer trying to be like you. I have my own path!

“ If you keep trying to be like someone else, the best you can ever be is second best. “

I set my new goals, my plans and the road I want to drive my life on (i define my path). I might not be you, but surely I will be ME. You could do the same, build your own path and follow it.

Life is all about choices, we’d make our selves whom we want to be.

Upon logging in to my Gmail to check my mails, I was surprised to see a new feature called Google/Buzz. Reading from Google Blog:

“Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch“

But in my own words, I’d rather define it as “Google’s Twitter like service in Gmail, allowing you to tweet right from your Gmail and forget Twitter.” I’m just being frank here.

Also, it is obvious that Buzz comes with the main twitter features in place.

When Twitter came to life, Follow and Unfollow was born with it. I assume its Twitter’s way of defining friends. When you follow a friend, you get to see all his tweets like wise when you unfollow, you take him off your tweets timeline.

Now that’s is live on Gmail’s Buzz.

From my little finding, I also realized that Buzz has replaced the Google/Search real time results from Twitter. You may try a search like “Buzz Google” you’d see what I’m talking about.

I remember, reading from a blog (I forgot the address though) that no matter how Good, Unique and Accepted your product or service is, you should also be on the watch for Google. Because, if by chance Google decided to bring similar (mostly better) service like yours, that defines the dying date of your product.

But I still wonder, would Buzz make me reduce my twitter usage?

Well, I’m not sure about that. But surely, I’d love to tweet from my Gmail. * Frankly speaking, I’m not in support of Buzz but If Google will allow my Buzz to reach Twitter via Twitter/OAuth. I’m going to be a Buzz Addict!

Some Major Selling Points for Buzz include

- Uses your friends/contacts on Gmail, whom you email or chat with always. So, you’re automatically ready to go.

- You have security over your Buzz, either public or simply to your friends only. Privacy setting is always crucial you know.

- It automatically grab images from links you post, you remember the Facebook thing, select which image to display.

- It also allows you to attach videos easily, while you buzz.

- Finally, it comes on mobile too. Making it  easy to Buzz on the go!