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How to run a WordPress blog on Amazon AWS (for free)

I got into blogging before it became a common word. Sometime in March 2001 I created my first website, dejiolowe.com, put some random information there and just literally talked about crap.

Fast forward to 2005, I moved my blog to a ColdFusion engine, BlogCFC by Raymond Camden and started real blogging. I was active once in a while but then the host was very unreliable. After all, I got it for peanuts.

Incidentally my big bro had quite a bit of leftover server capacity somewhere so I ported to WordPress. I ran that for a few years before it started fraying at the edges. The server just had a penchant for going down randomly.Along the line I became an ardent a fan of cloudy stuff and Amazon AWS leads everyone shoulders and above. Feeling jobless I decided it’s time I tried out a bit of that.
So my assignment was to create a new WordPress website on AWS from scratch.

Follow my steps:

First thing you need is basic knowledge of what to do. So I searched for “how to run WordPress off amazon AWS” on Google and got some interesting links
I followed Amazon’s tutorial which is pretty clear and straightforward
I went over to AWS on Amazon to log in. Now if you have an Amazon account, all you need is that same username and password
Following the tutorial on step 2 above, I created a free tier Windows 2008 R2 instance, configured it as explained.
Then I went over to my old website to export out the content into a WXR file (a WordPress XML file format).
I went over to my registrar’s domain panel (mydomain.com) to change the IP address of my domain name to the new one given by Amazon (A records in technical terms) however you can buy your domain name with Amazon on Route 53.
Once the DNS name propagated across the internet, that is my domain name is now pointing to the new host, I logged into the new server to upload the WXR file in step 5 above.
I downloaded a new theme for the blog.
I installed all the previous plugins such as Akismet, Exploit Scanner, Jetpack and StatCounter.
The interesting bit about this setup is that it’s free for the next 1 year. If I end up becoming a celebrity by then, I can use part of the endorsement money to move it to a bigger server so I can handle the expected spike in traffic. But I seriously doubt that.
You don’t need steps 5, 6 and 7 if you are starting your WordPress website from scratch.

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s it.

Crispr is the new Little Boy

You’ve probably never heard of Crispr but then who has? I bet you are creepier than a centipede that killed a snake if you ‘ve.

I was trolling some biology news of recent when I bumped into an interesting story about gene editing.

By the way, I’m curious about genetics. I once did a genetic algorithm in school which succeeded in messing up my head more than anything else. Since I was already messed up anyway, another dose of scary gene science won’t put me in a worse place.

Crispr, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, is a genetic basis of gene editing using Cas9, some fancy protein (not your regular protein shakes) that makes this to work.

Don’t let me bore you to tears.

In a nutshell, this technique and protein will allow you to edit any gene in any cell – cut, add, do whatever you like, even if you are under the influence. You can also apply Instagram filters. Ok, that’s a lie, or maybe not! Unfortunately, it doesn’t have UNDO, AKA CRTL Z!

Scientists are already using it to edit a mosquito that won’t be susceptible to Plasmodium, but nobody is sure of what happens after. Chinese are even crazier; one of them edited an embryo, left behind by some unfortunate mum, to remove some lousy ass gene that causes beta thalassemia, a disorder that unhinges human ability to make good red blood cells. Thankfully (for now) it failed.

Realizing the power that this can be, scientists are running around to create rules to govern everyone.
My dear friend, as we all know, some dudes never play along nicely. Imagine terrorists creating superhumans? One that is strong, super intelligent (removes the gene that wants to watch Africa Magic and Telemundo), grows to adulthood in a month and can live forever.

We are doomed! Maybe not.

Someone is going to invent a type of software that can help prospective mothers select genes, behaviors, and have perfect kids. It may even be an Android or iPhone app for convenience. The Blackberry version won’t be released on time, or it may just produce annoying kids. Caveat Emptor! If the price is too high, someone will release a hacked version on Pirate Bay. Unfortunately when the baby is born, baked or cooked, it may come with a natural tattoo – ^^#^^Crispr^^%^^.

I have lost my mind.

Did I mention Little Boy? That was the first atomic bomb dropped. It brought everyone a healthy fear of mortality.

I thought artificial intelligence is going to change the world; I may be wrong, it could be something very crispy.

Instant Recharge Tracker

Only an idiot would trust a banker. Rumor has it that while the cockroach would be the last to exist after Armageddon, the bankers would be the second to the last.

The smell of easy money, when the economy is tight and Naira is testing out a new parachute, is hard to resist. I’m not a prophet but I predicted this some months ago that by year end, only a few banks won’t offer xyzAmount# service.
Instant airtime recharge is the new kid on the block for banks and it’s simply amazing for the average Joe on the street. If your nail is cropped short like mine or bedeviled with fungi like my cousin’s, then not having to scratch a recharge card anymore is a dream come through.

So, with mobile money short codes deployed to more salubrious usage, I can at least give a rundown of what the money men are up to.

Bank	Code	Partner
Access Bank	901Amount#	Clickatell
Citibank	Corporate customers. No interest, I guess
Diamond Bank	Probably in the works
Ecobank	326Amount#	Clickatell
Fidelity Bank	770Amount#	InterSwitch
First Bank of Nigeria	894Amount#	InterSwitch
First City Monument Bank	3892141Amount# (Seriously?)
FSDH Merchant Bank	Probably not interested
Guaranty Trust Bank	773Amount#	Clickatell
Heritage Bank	322030*Amount#	InterSwitch
Keystone Bank	322082*Amount#	InterSwitch
Rand Merchant Bank	Merchant bank – probably no interest
Skye Bank
Stanbic IBTC Bank	909Amount#	Clickatell
Standard Chartered Bank	Ehm..
Sterling Bank	822Amount#	Clickatell
Union Bank	Definitely something cooking
United Bank for Africa	Definitely something cooking
Unity Bank	322215*Amount#	InterSwitch
Wema Bank	322035*Amount#	InterSwitch
Zenith Bank	966Amount#	Cyberspace

Rumor has it that the money is good, and I know at least 2 banks doing over N500M a month. In fact, one of them has strolled beyond N1B in airtime sales a month. Typical margin is a neighborhood of 5%+/-.

Feedback has been positive but the major sand in the Garri of this has been network performance – customer getting debited but airtime doing what Buhari is doing with ministerial nominations. MTN, being the largest telco, probably didn’t see this coming and so every time their service has a problem, which is like every minute, something goes wrong and customers reach for their machetes. Another annoying fact is you need to have a minimum of N12 to be able to do airtime on MTN although some banks are offsetting that money for customers.

What’s killing financial inclusion in Nigeria?

Financial inclusion in Nigeria falls short because products lack accessibility and affordability, ignoring basic needs like free transactions. Understanding the needs of the poor is key to an effective design.

No scholar worth his salt would denigrate his study in the first line, or on any other line for that matter. However, listen carefully, take what I’m going to say below with a pinch of salt as it’s based on armchair projections.

But then who cares?

We are quite a lot in Nigeria, or so says the official and derivative stats. I really don’t buy into the numbers but then nobody gives two flying horse legs about my opinions. With about 180 million hungry souls crammed within the national border, only about 30 million accounts are there in the 20+ odd banks.

Considering that nobody in Nigeria is faithful to anything, especially to their banks, I know finding unique bank customers could slash the numbers down to about 20M. Just a hunch, don’t quote this for your PhD!

The Central Bank of Nigeria, other NGOs and do-good money bags have tried all they could with financial inclusion but it ain’t just hitting that sweet spot. Banks were corralled into the deal, and we came up with Prepaid Cards and Mobile Wallets. Both had as much success as the Zepellin.

On a quiet Sunday morning, after the rain has done about 3 rounds, much more than middle-aged men can cope with these days, I thought about what could have made all the efforts, the bankers, the CBN, flounder like a pricked balloon.

It was just simple. Financial inclusion designed by rich bankers and their friends in Brioni suits just don’t work.

Why? Because financial inclusion products should be accessible and affordable. Unfortunately, they are not.

This is best underscored by a recent conversation I had with one of my banker friends designing a saving product where artisans and others can pay N100 a day to save about N1,000 using their phones. I was like, what the F? I wouldn’t even do that on a regular account!

Which brings us to why the fancy financial inclusion schemes never work. Most were designed with absolutely no idea of what poor people want. But then ain’t difficult to find out, they want basic and affordable financial products.

They want free cash in/cash out.

They want free balance inquiry.

They want free bill payments.

They really don’t give two rats’ legs about cost of transaction.

Oh my, they don’t keep money in balances because like we all know, you can only save when you can afford to. When you live off less than $1 a day, which 70% of us are anyway (who did the enumeration?) you can’t afford to save. When you earn less than N50K a month and you have mouths hungrier than young birds to feed, you can’t save.

So dear banker, if the poor can’t save, there isn’t going to be any float.

If you don’t get any of these above, you can’t design products for poor people, bottom of the pyramid or financial inclusion.

This isn’t Davos, so get off your high horse dude!

Short scalpel cut to immortality

I’m assured of immortality.

Ok, if you think my religious inclination has changed, maybe not that fast but then why die, hoping for heaven when I can simply stroll over to the General Hospital Ikeja and get a body swap?

And when I have used that up, I can come back for another as long as I don’t get a bullet in the head.

So says the mad doctor who is going to do a full head transplant in 2017. And not just him, he’s got about 100 assistants for the macabre project.
Hey, before you call him mad, think about how much furor was raised, especially by some religions aunties of mine, when test tube babes were first marinated (or how do you describe the process) in 1978? Today almost all my nieces and nephews are born that way. OK, that was a joke.
What Canavaro, the name of the evil doctor J, is doing is to help some random dude, with untreatable muscle wasting disease, get a new stab at life but the implications are far reaching.

I can’t imagine Mugabe hanging around for another 50 years. Or Putin? Or? Now things look scary doesn’t it?

Just a thought, if my body is old, along with my head and then I get a new body, how about the head? Some shriveled round thing with clammy leather hanging and bobbing perilously on top of a body with six packs? Or could Canavaro just improve his methods so only the brain is transplanted? How do I feel waking up the next morning in a body with tattoos?

If the brain alone is transplantable, would it be the whole stuff, or just my memories? What if some bits of the brain is already worn out from age – Alzheimer and other random gerontological malaises?

Wait, what makes me me? My thoughts? My memories? My one pack? Definitely not!

Could this get less invasive and just a thin slice of brain is transferred? If that’s it, what about if we developed a process to transfer my thoughts and sentience from my body to another? What if I could do a transcendence from my body into a thought machine?

I’m getting confused and it’s a Friday evening. Time I went home before my sanity is sold on OLX.