Bing Image Parser

How many people have noticed the different images that are displayed on the home page of the search engine Bing? I used to visit the Bing homepage just to check the image each day. As an aside you can get some trivia on the US version of the site.

It was then that I had an idea to see if there was a way to automate the way to see different images that are provided by Bing. After a search, done ironically, on well "Google" (Searching on Google is like second nature for me), I was able to get an RSS feed URL for the Bing images, and able to parse it using a small Java application.

The reason behind choosing a source which gives data as RSS is that it is a standard. What the core of this application does is parse an RSS Feed. The other functionality like console, ability to save image and other settings are built around this core. So essentially this can be reused to parse other RSS Feeds.

The UI is not very fancy, it is a invoked via command line and there is a windows shell script that can be used to run it easily. (Make sure you have Java runtime installed). If you don't want the source code, you can grab a build file (zip file with the application and shell script file) from GitHub.

After getting the build file, extract it to a folder, edit the "settings.properties" file and run the "run-biotd.cmd" file. If you are opting to save the images to disk, make sure that the folder specified exists.

The entire eclipse project is now available at GitHub and licensed under the "Apache License Version 2.0" at the link below.
https://github.com/midhunhk/the-bing-image-of-the-day-parser

Build no 0.4.5 is available at
https://github.com/midhunhk/the-bing-image-of-the-day-parser/blob/master/BIotD/builds/BIotD_0.4.5.zip

Make sure to check these out and watch out for future updates. You can use this source code to parse any other RSS feed response and make an awesome app, so don't wait up.

Mobile App vs Desktop application Development

The app development and release cycle for mobile (or tablet) and desktop applications differ vastly.

A desktop application is expected to be feature complete at the time of launch and may have undergone years of development (in the case of large applications like an Office Suite) before a major version is released. Only minor fixes for bug and security are expected till the next major release.Unless it is a major security related update, most of the time I ignore application updates for my desktop applications. This is because if there is no change in user experience or performance, it doesn’t seem work to go over the procedure of doing an update (A system restart for some applications if on Windows adds to this misery). I keep my graphics driver software up to date without seeing any significant performance improvements.

On the other hand, most users expect their mobile apps to get regular updates. It has sort of become a norm. This could be an addition of a new feature, improvement in user experience or a bug fix. Updating an app is seamless and there is little or no data loss and you can start using the updated app as soon as it is updated.

So while developing a mobile app, in my view, it is important to launch the first version with the most important and basic features that an app is concentrating. And add additional features upon each updates in short cycles. This would keep give the users a feeling that the app developer is constantly developing the app on improving the user experience. Most importantly this would keep the app fresh. If it stops evolving, users might get bored and may try out another app.

The advantages of this kind of release cycle are that the developers can get feedback from the users early and take into account feature suggestions or changes.

It should, however be noted that these views may not apply to all scenarios, there are exceptions. For e.g.: there is no scope or need for a short release cycles in the case of an app like Calculator.Desktop browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox have short release cycles, although there may be some minor change in a version.

To conclude, the approach for mobile app development is different from that followed for conventional software releases. This should be researched from a marketing as well as technical stand point before being finalized.

Google Play Store updated to Version 4

After glimpses of screen shots on the web, I finally received the update for Google Play Store and it is a major version jump this time, to 4! When you launch the updated Play Store, a redesigned Page greets you.

There is a lot of white space and padding between icons and doesn't feel cluttered a bit. You can Purchase or install an app directly from this screen by clicking on the vertical 3 dots next to the app name without having to go into the app description page.

A set of movies from  Play Movies also appears on the main page of the store in a similar style.

The list of installed apps page is also tweaked slightly.

Message Counter for Android

Development has been going on a simple Android application called "Message Counter".

How the Message application works on an Android phone will vary greatly based on the OS Version as well as any modification done by the manufacturer like HTC, Samsung etc.

So as the message details are stored on a device using SQLite and whose contents can be accessed programmatically, I decided to write up an app called MessageCounter. The first version was completed quite fast, but in order to support Android 2.3 and up, some sacrifices were made regarding the UI and performance.

Taking advantage of Fragments, ActionBar etc introduced in later versions of Android (3.0, Honeycomb), a new version was created re using code from the first version.

The V2 of Message Counter was completed in a matter of hours and improves on performance and UI. Below are the screenshots of the app. You can find an update to this post if and when the app is made available on Google Play Store.

There are plans of making the source code open source and will be hosted at GitHub. An update to this post will include the details.

Update 1 : The project is now available on GitHub at this address : https://github.com/midhunhk/message-counter. The source code is licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0

PNRStatusApp v3 (for Android)

And thus the long awaited major update to PNRStatusApp (for Android) is nearly here. In the midst of very hectic work schedule, with new features and a new look the version 3 is almost completed. However taking advantage of the latest APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) provided by the Android platform, this version is only supported from Android Honeycomb (3.0) and above. The old version supported from Android Froyo (2.2) and above.


The newest feature added is the ability to search the message inbox for messages from IRCTC regarding booked tickets and displaying detailed information. This part still requires some more tweaking on.

The Messages are displayed in a 'StackView' that lets the user scroll through the list of messages.

More information coming soon...