On Puppies, Kittens, Pandas and a 24 Hour Code Sprint Which Led to Awwsome, an Android App.

In the IT industry, "I have an idea, I am going to make an App about it" is similar to "I have an idea, I am going to write a book about it" for the rest of the world (Maybe not the whole world, but I couldn't find the right category).
Now, I have both those things on my bucketlist. And finally after a 24 hour coding marathon, one of them has been checked.

Download Awwsome on your Android.

The Story Behind Awwsome.
I have been visiting reddit quite often since the past few months. One of my favourite subreddits is r/aww. People post images of their pets, put catchy titles and all. It makes you go aww, legit.

Some of the pics are too awwdorable (pardon me). I often end up e-mailing them to people close to me, probably in the form of good morning messages. Them pups are ought to give a good jumpy start to the day. Instant mood lifters whenever you are feeling low.

That's what sparked the idea. An instant mood lifter. Awwsome is an android app which greets you with images of kittens, pups, squirrels, hedgehogs and everything nice on your phone. Plus, sharing with your closed ones is just a button press. Simple.

Download on Play Store.

So one night before going to sleep, I quickly drew on a paper the basic interface and jotted down the functionalities promising myself to work on it tomorrow. As I had mentioned earlier, I really wanted to make the most of these vacations.

Next morning, enter Panda aka Shantanu Jain. Panda is like this one stop android guru. On a normal day, he is always tinkering one thing or the other. He already has 5 apps to his name I think.  He is a proper machedu. And I am not going to plug an english translation to that. He is a machedu.

We decided to give ourselves a 24 hour deadline to finish this application and have it published on the Play store.


It was about 12:30 PM when we started. Both of us sitting in one corner of the rc.
We weren't going to host the images or the database on the clients app and instead put it up on server online. I was in-charge of that. A python based script to collect the content,  an online service to communicate with the application and the database which would hold all the content.
Panda was supposed to make Android part and its client side functionalities.

About 30 minutes later, Panda and other friends decided to watch Heropanti. After watching Xpose its been downhill for us. All of us our experimenting with such movies, for research purposes ofcourse. After Xpose, Main Tera Hero and Yamla Pagla Deewana 2, I realized I was about to cross the point of no return and stopped myself. Treated myself to Highway and came back to senses. But friends went ahead and watched Gunda and now Heropanti.

Anyway, so Panda left. I was left alone in the very same corner. I kept working on the data collection script and was done in an hour or so. The main barrier was to put that data up on appengine. There were 1000+ entries to be made. For uploading bulk data on appengine, they have this functionality called the bulkloader, but it didn't have enough documentation and SO didnt answer much.

I ignored that method, and tried thinking of some Jugaad. By 6 PM nothing moved and I decided to chuck it and play some football. I decided to resume work post dinner, by that time Panda would have also recovered from the movie.

Post Dinner I decided to ignore the jugaad and attack the problem through the proper way, trying to follow each step of the bulkloader method. Again by 2 AM nothing moved and I decided to give up that method.

I figured out another way in which I converted the csv as a txt and uploaded it. Used the interactive consolve to urlfetch the file, pass it through the python csv module and use each to row to fill the database. It worked. Such a relief.

After that I finished the service and added the random picture functionality. It was a breeze. My work was done.

Panda was still working on the app, the feature to share photos with friends wasn't working as expected. But a machedu he is, he got it figured out. A lot was left on his side, admob, favourites, client database etc.

Now, I don't code in Java. The last I coded in Java was in my second semester. Since then it has always been Python for me. Even my GSoC project is in Python.
I was pretty jobless, and hence started working on the write-up for the store, different promotional banners, twitter profile, facebook page, logo and the name.

We were supposed to do everything in those 24 hours.


We were pretty confused about the name. From the very beginning it was supposed to be DailyCute which would pave the path for such similarly themed apps by us in future. Sometime during the night, I thought Awwsome was a pretty rad name. But the very fact I could hardly find anything named on the internet made my doubt myself. Was it too shitty? How come nobody uses it? Must be shitty.

Anyway, after a lot of deliberating, we decided it would be Awwsome. We were making, coding, publishing Awwsome. See? Its such an awesome name. Hmm. Maybe.

By 8 AM in the morning I was done. With everything. Twitter. Facebook. Banners. Everything.

Panda was still coding the app. I wish I could help him. I was feeling pretty bad.

By 11:30 AM. Everything was done. We were testing it, adding small features and everything. Panda made the apk and uploaded it and went to the next bed and dozed off. I was supposed to fill in the write ups, screenshots and the various forms required  before publishing the app. We released the app in beta. It takes a fews hours before it goes live, and I decided to sleep as well.

I woke up at around 6 PM. Panda was already up. He couldn't sleep in the heat. He was already making minor changes and was ready to make the app live for everyone. He is such a workaholic. We made it live. Now Google takes a few hours to make it available. Soon, Awwsome was live :)

24 hours of coding, some dalwaddein, tons of images of puppies and kittens later, Awwsome was born. Published and live in the Play Store.

It is a very good feeling. It is exciting. Its an amazing feeling everytime some code you've written interacts with the world. Many people have absolutely loved the idea and the product.

What happens now?
The excitement dies slowly. Because its tough to get your word out there. Its tough to market. Its tough being shameless. I feel a little bit odd plugging the app in every conversation. But I know it is something good and it is worth it. I have to accept that marketing requires effort. A lot. I know if people would just download it once, they will like it. And I am not even taking credit for it, how can one not like puppies? Are you even human?

Well, if you like the idea, please give it a go :) It will definitely make you smile. Pakka. Promise.

How you can help us?
Download on Play Store. Rate and Review!(FYI. You can download an app in your phone from your laptop too. Open the Play Store Now.)

Like Awwsome on Facebook. We post aww images.

Follow @AwwsomeApp us on Twitter.

Spread the word, it will mean the world to us. Every download equals one tummy rub to us some puppy. Do it because one of the developer is named Panda. Ok? No? Hmm.

So anyway, if you have an idea for an app, just go for it, set a deadline for yourself, or best do a 24 hour coding marathon. It is tiring, but extremely satisfying. This blogpost itself is part of a daily one hour writing sprint. Now, I need to work on the second point on the bucketlist :)

Complete Guide To Summer Breaks In College.

What college students should do this summer vacations?

How to make sure you spend your summers in college effectively. A few things a college student could do during his/her summer break and how not to waste it away?

Okay. So your summer break is about to start or it has started already. You are really excited to do things. All those pre-exam bucketlists and amazing ideas you had night before the exam or even during the exams. It is time for them.

If you are in your first year, chances are that you are going to waste this summer. Most people do, and yes most people were as excited about it as you are right now. But they wasted it. Its too easy to do so. With the summer heat, the comfort of your home and newly acquired bundle of series and movies which are instant answers to your 'I am getting bored'. Don't let it be a summer in which you finish oh so many seasons and movies and did nothing else. At least don't let it be just that.

Diwali Break in Retrospection and Rants about the 'Rich' and the 'Founders'

How my Diwali bucket list failed miserably and rants about the Pot Bellied Rich and for-the-heck-of-it Startup Founders.
So I had planned to do so many things in the 10 day break I had.



Well this is the 8th day and I am going to look back on how much I have accomplished.

First, the grandiose plans that were made:

1. Complete these three books:
   
   • The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar (Read!)
   • Dear Life by Alex Munroe
   • Think Everest: Scaling Mountains with the Mind
2. Resume writing about the trip to Ladakh
3. Start studying for the end semesters, because c'mon I don't even precisely remember the last time I went to the LT.
4. Work on the GCDC project.
5. Finish the dbms submission(Yeah right!)

So much right? The things we think we'll do and the things we actually do. The difference is wider than the gaping expression you had after the Red Wedding episode in GoT.

The percentage I completed?
26.6%
Wait the percentage does sound high. Misleading.

I worked on the GCDC project and completed one of the books. Yay me!

-About the book:
How is the book, The Monk and the Riddle?
I really enjoyed reading it. It starts a little slow but by the end it is really gripping. You can call it as an self help book for people who want to find their calling in life. But it really concentrates on start-ups and gives the inside story of the Silicon Valley culture. It's not about how you should manage a business or write a business plan or anything. Please. It's not that. It's more about asking yourself why you want to do it? It talks about how we keep postponing what we really want to do in life and instead do things which we think are the responsible things to do. It's about the deferred life plan. The one which you follow instead of the whole life plan. The writer is really passionate about the topic and speaks his heart out. I really recommend this book, check it out.

<rant>
Common Start Up Stupidity
I find a lot of people caught with the start up craze. I am sure you have too, especially if you are in an engineering college. I am not saying it is bad. It is bad when you are doing it just for the heck of it. With no originality what so ever. Doing something which is already being done. Nothing new. Bleh. But that is my personal opinion. Shouldn't getting something new to people, adding some really cool features to an existing concept, filling the gaps or changing lives be your aim? By doing something already being done with no substantial change whatsoever you are not really adding value to anyones life. Is it a new better way of doing something which is already being done? Foremost, do you really feel for the idea? I am not blaming you if making money is your only aim, but I hope you don't. If you are one of these people, please read The Monk and the Riddle. Please? Don't get me wrong, I am totally in for the independence and all the entrepreneurial spirit and all that but not for soulless-cash-making-oh-I-am-so-cool-founder shit. If you are not passionate about it you are going to lose your interest as quickly as you finished making the facebook page of your startup.
</rant>


Oh I have a few more rants.
<rant>
Super Rich Pot Bellied People
Diwali means meeting a lot of people and going to parties and community gatherings. Well most of them are infected with people that I have had the opportunity to inspect closely while sitting quietly in the corner eating the buffet dinners. Not that its hard to spot them, unless you are them. Super rich pot bellied people. Super rich people who wear shiny clothes, spit out of cars, buy expensive phones and flaunt them by clicking pictures of people they usually don't talk to, also take centuries to click that photo.
 The moment they open their mouth, all that they've earned drops out like coins from slot machines with the displeasing metallic clanking sound matching their ill worded mouths tone.
</rant>

Disclaimer: I could have thought more critically about this subject, but heck I just want to write whatever comes to my mind. Blog v2.00 remember?

Hmm, I shall limit my randomness.



I will finish the other two books by the end of this semester, which means 20 days. I will completely ignore the fact that it took my a month to complete Lolita with my 2 pages per day before bedtime routine. Also that I have my end semester exams starting soon and its only 12 days to my GCDC submission.

A place to note down and over optimism, the two prerequisites of making bucket lists.

Anyway, the second thing.

-Resume writing about Ladakh. 

Well that couldn't happen but I am planning to dedicate entire tomorrow to this. It's all about getting into the zone. Once I am in the zone with the right amount of nostalgia, enough to make me excited but not that much that'll render me dreamy and leave me feeling frustrated about not being able to go back in the near future.

-Start studying for end semesters? . . . .
Bleh.




-Work on the GCDC project?
Oh btw, GCDC is Google Cloud Developer Challenge.
It is going really well. More about it in a different post. But it is almost done. We just need to plug the backend and then frontend together and work on the interface. All major backend problems have been solved.

-Finish the DBMS lab submission.
Well it is almost done. We were asked to make a dbms for a project management software. Completely from scratch. From the SRS (Software Requirement Specs) to the implementation in PostgreSQL.

Well I was recently working on populating the database with fictional data using a Python script. It really was a no-brainer but it was fun randomizing the data and making sure the foreign keys weren't violated.

Well, that is it.

Happy New Year and Happy Diwali :)

Comment about your Diwali break bucket lists and what all you did :)

I am scared.

I am scared. 

Recently I decided to do something. It is a grand plan. Everything about the plan is appealing. So yes, planning part is done. Finally the confirmation came from the other side and the plan started materializing.

I'll tell you what the plan is soon, even though many people already know it. I think I can tell you soon because I can finally see it as happening.
Keep your goals to yourself. This is one the best things I have learned. Check this TED talk without fail.

It started becoming real. And I got scared. I am really scared. But no one really gets it. I shared my feelings with few, but all they have is how wonderful it would be when I do it. How amazing it would be, and how everything will be okay in the end.I really appreciate it. But it really doesn't work that way. I know they are trying to help, and I do look for comforting words at times, but the ones I get are not the ones I want. Maybe words won't help. Maybe someone should just sit besides me and accept the fact that the plan is scary. No overly optimistic words. Someone who just accepts it that i am scared and sits in silent solidarity with me for some while. At least we would be on the same page. Then 'we' will know it'll be alright.

 There is this constant pain in the back of my head. I am tensed. There are even moments when I think of giving up. Letting go of the plan. Telling myself that thinking of the plan was good enough, I don't really need to do it. 

This is not the first time that this has happened. It happens many times. Whenever I plan to do something which will be really great. Something which is not ordinary I get scared and the prospect of going by everyday routine is appealing and somehow warm. 
I get this feeling before playing important football matches. I clearly remember this before the semi-final against PDPU during Concours'12. I was scared. But it wasn't the fear of losing. It was something different. 

It was then that this quote by Marianne Williamson (paraphrased in Coach Carter) finally made sense to me. Every word of it. 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others"

Please check the Zen Pencil version of it.

I guess i have a similar fear right now. Actually, exactly this. 

That football match was the best game I had ever played till now. That feeling was amazing. We went ahead and won the finals too.


Our comfort zones, are damn too comforting. The fear of unknown is really getting at me. But I think this trip is all about getting over it. And once I am done with it, the feeling would be something similar.

On letters and memories.

Hello :)

The only thing I've done today is watched two episodes of Seinfeld and sleep. Seriously, nothing else.

But I like how I have this urgency to write something before midnight, and I have only 2 hours. The motive behind starting the blog is working very well.


On letters and memories,

Or cheating your way to being remembered. Haha.

Letters.
I have always been fascinated by hand written letters. Always. Though i never got many. I've told this to people who are close to me before. I am in general very passionate about the written word. How everything written is permanent and stays. How anyone could write, and how everyone is a writer. You just have to write what you think, how difficult can it be? It's probably those pseudo-intellectual writers who keep using fancy words and metaphors which are really not needed, that scare away people from writing. 

You just have to write what you think. Its like listening to your mind, and just jotting it down. I will save this for another post, on why i love writing so much and why everyone should write. 

Today it is about letters.
 Recently, i have received and written a lot of notes and letters. But most of them are farewell notes and goodbye letters. They are neatly stacked in my drawer of little things i have saved up from the starting of college. Little things, from clips to an Orange from first semester which has now solidified to an extent that it can be used as a ball. It leaves a tangy smell on you after you've played with it for a while. I love collecting such pieces which will trigger back memories many years down the line. Yes, in a way i love staying in the past. In a romantic sort of way. I am always looking for souvenirs of moments and nights. I even remember saving my first parchi when i was caught by the traffic policeman for driving late night. To think of it now, it makes me remember everything about the day and the pillion.   

I remember reading, "Don't have time to think?" . It is a collection of letters exchanged between Richard Feynman and the people around him. I was really fascinated. You actually get an insight into how these people think. With so much clarity and rationality. The conversations are so pure with real emotions, with words that do justice to the emotions. Unlike conversations nowadays, conversations are short, of not much importance. They don't leave a mark on you. Years down the line, i don't think I am going to remember many conversations i had with people which are close to me. Conversations online are sick and invaded by cute looking parasites like :P's . Their population in each conversation is alarming. Yellow everywhere. I even use them instead of full-stops. Our vocab is binary, with 'faad', 'rad' or 'epic' used for anything good and 'sad' used for anything bad. Seriously. We've oversimplified the beauty of emotions so cheaply.

I really wish i end up gathering a lot more letters by the end of my college life. But i just cannot wish for them and wait. I've decided to write letters, at least one, to people whom i think i was unjust with, people who i think deserved better and people who mean so much to me but don't know about it. Hand written and to be posted by mail. Its a forceful way of making sure you are remembered down the line. 

Well, i came across this interesting Ted back which inspired me to write today's blog post.
They explain it in a better way. Please watch both of them.

She has an interesting point. When she says that she holds the letter which once his father touched. It was sort of a connection. As i said, letters are ways of explicitly making sure that you will be remembered by the person who means a lot to you. You'll always know, whatever ups and downs you had with them, this letter and everything said in it , will always stay.

This one particularly being my favorite. 

I just love what she is doing. Imagine waking up one day with a bunch of letters about you from people you had no idea existed. She operates a site. So if you sign up , they tell you the next time they are writing letters for someone, and you can join in and write something as well. Imagine, making somebody's day special somewhere across the world.

Here is the link to it.

http://www.moreloveletters.com/

Do check the website out. She has written some amazing letters.

For example this, i guess everyone in college should read.

http://www.moreloveletters.com/2011/12/07/put-down-the-textbook-and-read-this-a-love-letter-for-the-college-students/

So I have added two things to my bucketlist today,

• Write a love letter to  a stranger
• Write a letter to someone I know

Sorry for the hurried up post, I just made it on time. I haven't even proofread. Only 5 minutes to go. 

Dear reader,

Please subscribe and comment or better, 
write me a letter and i'll write back :)

B - 213,

hall of residence men DA-IICT, near indroda circle Gandhinagar, 

Gujarat 382007

(I am not sure if this is creepy, But what the hell?)

Yours,
Nisar.

Ps. I could have written a lot more. But can't break the rules. Maybe a follow up post.

Purpose

Well, everything needs a purpose.

I've been told to start writing a blog since a long time. But I never had any motivation. But now I have one.

What is it now?

" I have decided to treat this blog differently now. I am going to treat it like twitter just in the longer form. Macro-micro blogging. Which is um just blogging. So smart. Haha. Devolution.

So I am just going to blog anything that comes to my mind. Anything that happens in my day. Just about anything. No expectations. Just writing whatever catches my mind's fancy. Anything random. There is an ant walking over the banana resting on my desk. Probably feeling very proud.

So, yes.
I won't give a fuck about expectations. The length can be any. I will just write anything. Not falling for this trap again. Hopefully. No expectations, no disappointments. I just want to keep writing, it makes me happy. I don't want any kinds of inertia. Just free flowing writing.

The power of one-click publish on the internet gets demeaned if it takes so much courage to do it. It's supposed to give me a voice and I am reclaiming it :)"

More on it is in my post about Writer's block and this change. Read it.

How did it start?

The Beginning

It is to avoid decadence. Every summer vacation starts with many bucket lists being formed during the exam preparation period, when everything other than what needs to be studied is fascinating. You suddenly realize everything you wanted to do before, but have little time to do it now. So everyone one of us is brimming with motivation and inspiration to complete all out bucket list as soon as the exams end. But somehow our ephemeral enthusiasm is washed along with the vomiting of everything we know during the last examination.

More about this ephemeral enthu in one of my exam rants!
Stop Being An Idiot Before Your Exams.

So, this blog is supposed to help me throughout the summer. One post/day. To make sure i do something new and constructive throughout the summer and write about it everyday.

It can be anything, new music discovered, random musings etc. Anything discovered that is worth sharing, will be shared.

Happy Summers :)

And hence,
Avoiding Decadence.