Chances are you probably know one or two Gen-Y who came outta university studying computer programming/computer science/software engineering/IT (they are different but we won’t get into that now) and complain about not getting a job. Heck, you are probably one yourself.

Disclaimer: for the sake of discussion I’m gonna lump all computer-related jobs into one word: ‘programming’.

Job Vacancies

The fact that the Computer / IT category being one of the top vacancies in JobStreet, not getting  a job in programming sounds awfully weird.

Perhaps this is a problem across the job market, the same problem could apply to engineers, accountants and more. Perhaps then this is a Gen-Y problem, not programmer problems.

Perhaps that is all true (or not). But this post is not another Malaysia-economy-in-ruins rant. Perhaps it’s worth examining why programming jobs are unique.

Barriers to the game

Here’s what you need to know to be a decent web developer:

1. Web server configuration
2. Scripting languages
3. AJAX
4. Application framework
5. Version control software
6. Optimization technologies
7. SSH (or the Windows equivalent)
8. Database design
9. Database administration
10. Aesthetic design (however little of it)
11. Search engine optimization
12. Flash
13. (… name one that I missed)

All that to get some lousy text displayed on your web browser. I haven’t gone into game development yet, but you get the idea.

Technological advances that are suppose to make your life easy is exactly why programmers need to know so much in order to make products that are up-to-date.

Throw in long hours (potentially but not universally), logical thinking (believe, this one is not universal) and proper communication skills (which virtually hardly anyone but management graduates have), all the sudden selling sugar waters don’t sound too bad.

So why bother?

To those who are just not cut out for it, don’t bother. Sometimes raw will power can only bring you so far. I for instance gave up painting Batman as a hobby long time ago.

But to the precious few with the natural talent and those are who already waist deep into programming, most of you don’t realize the POWER you wield.

Most programmers don’t realize they are truly the people running the world. Programmers need to know they have the power to shape events, society and the world if they choose to. Here are my arguments to that point:

• Large scale – Iran + Twitter
• Small scale – think about how powerless your family was like before internet; think about how different it was when the house was internet-enabled; and then think about the time when it broke down. That is the time when there is a dramatic shift of power to the person with the gung fu (yes, I’m spelling it like Bruce Lee did).

With power comes responsibilities

Having the responsibilities means a few things:

1. Coming to terms with it - accept that you have that power; you are not another face in the crowd. It might be a curse or a gift, you are not the nerd behind the keyboard they think you are.
2. Willingness to do good with it – this one is obvious; watch Spider-Man 1 & 2 a few times more to get it.
3. Willingness to honor it and not let it go to waste – that is the whole point of this post…

Because programming is not a job

A job an activity so excruciating they have to pay you money in exchange for doing it.

Programming is a lifestyle. Programmers live to make things, money or no money.

Be the maker of things

There are very few activities life can offer that surpass the joy of making things out of something.

Don’t go into a programming career imposing the same criteria as you do to a job financial schemes.

Being a programmer means you are a maker; and being a maker means wielding power and taking the responsibilities to nurture them into something great.

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Hailer is now hiring sales agents to sign up new users from retail stores.

Job scope

1. Help retail stores (shopping malls, shop houses, etc.) to sign up for a Hailer account
2. Guide them in creating mobile coupons

All races, genders and language-speakers are welcomed. Great for part-time work. Trainings and guides are provided.

Please help us by forwarding this message to your friends

Interested candidate can email to jobs [at] hailer.com.my

Hailer Wall allows you to put up interactive public displays. That means your roadshow get to have a big screen that the public can play with just by SMS. Watch it in action here.

And today we are releasing the Hailer Wall code sources. You can find that under:

http://code.google.com/p/hailer-wall/

With this code source, you have the flexibility to extend the power of the application and design even better looking public displays. (We have our vanilla flavored Wall here and here which you can readily use as it is.)

Techicals

This project is build with Adobe Flash (front-end) plus PHP-script (back-end).

Running the Wall requires an Internet-connected web browser (with Flash plugin) and a large display (projector or LCD).

Download now

Download the Hailer Wall source code here.

If you are a web developer, chances are you already have plenty of websites that host important information for the people you serve.

But here’s a wake up call. For every web visitor, there are nine other person who is without internet connection. Even more likely is that your potential visitor has no computer right in front of her.

If you could make slices of your website accessible through SMS and make it accessible to truly everybody, wouldn’t that be cool?

Hooking the web with every mobile phone

The keyword is EVERY mobile phone (not just smart phones). We believe the people you serve should not made to be iPhone-totting tech elites.

Hailer has recently been updated to support direct calling of external web application.

Everytime a user SMS “hail @yourname” to 32280, your provided URL is called. What is returned by your URL will then be fed back to the user through SMS.

Joe Visitor <—> Hailer <—> Your Web Service

What is this good for?

You can make your website accessible over SMS. Say you have a page called “Contact Us”. The contact details within can now be made available through SMS.

By sending “hail @yourname contact” to 32280; Joe Visitor gets back “Tel:03252352 Email: find@something.good fax:03232545″.

Build your own search engine

In our previously post, we chronicled the Hailer service find, a similar service build by hooking external service with Hailer to provide search engine service via SMS.

Now you too can build a similar service on Hailer. Learn how in http://hailer.my/doc/developers#webapp

Talk to us

Being able to build anything and make it accessible on SMS is exciting (yet daunting). If you are a developer or even student, come talk to us and we’ll give you twenty more ideas how Hailer can make your project even more awesome.

In the last article we studied how Hailer can be used to finish off excessive stocks from your store. But what if you run a restaurant instead? What if you could fill your seats up just when you are having a slow day?

Real-time offers

There are 2 millions ways for your restaurant to make attractive offers for your customers. The problem is if your offer stay the same for two months, it’s gonna be boring and forgettable. But if you do unique offers everyday, your customers would have problem keeping up with you.

Now what if you could do new offers every hour and still keeping customers updated in real-time? That’s how Hailer come in.

By getting customers subscribed to your updates in Hailer, your offers could be sent to them through SMS just before lunch time. Just when people are asking “where should we go for lunch?”, that’s when your restaurant should show up and stay in their mind.

No more down time

In the F&B business, the last thing we wanna see are empty seats. Slow times like that can sometimes be unpredictable.

That’s the time to put Hailer into good use. It is as simple as SMS’ing “hail 50% off for everything, only 3-4pm today“ to 32280.

The game is changing, your joint needs to change with it. And Hailer will gladly bring your restaurant to the next level.

Next up we’re gonna explore how you can exploit Hailer to make a big crowd for your roadshows.