Message Counter 3.0 Beta

Material Love gets extended to Message Counter, after Random Contact. A fresh coat of paint, a new icon and use of some Material Design Principles is a start for the Beta version. This version is code named "Talisman" which follows "Silversun" and "Silvermoon". The updated code is available in GitHub as well.

As per Google Play regulations, only members of a test community are able to test these apps. So the community link is https://plus.google.com/communities/110966372903178356479.

From a technical standpoint, support has been added for AppCompat libraries, replaced ActionBar with a Toolbar. Using Toolbar should extend the experience to users with API less than 11 (Honeycomb). Use of padding, vibrant colors and card view are highlights of this build.

The first thing you will notice from the screenshot below is the use of Cards and a redesigned Counter screen. This will be the "hero screen" for the app.

Note that this is a work in progress and there may be some bugs or issues and do send them in. You can post them in the community or raise issues in the GitHub page for the project.

https://github.com/midhunhk/message-counter

Material Design Wallpapers

So Google made the Android L developer preview last week. In a couple of screenshots, they had shown images based on material design and I thought they would look cool as wallpapers. So I created a couple of artworks based on them. You are free to use them as wallpapers or in other creative ways.

Up above you can see my current home screen, you may be able to spot a widget for MessageCounter which is in development as well. So without any wait, here are 2 images. Click on them for a full screen version and download to use them as you like.

The following images are licensed under Creative Commons license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. You are free to use these images subject to the terms of this license.


Material design Wallpapers by midhunhk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Update: One more artwork is here. This one is my current wallpaper.

Watch out for more updates.

Update 2: The complete wallpapers and as well as future updates can be found at :  https://plus.google.com/photos/114665288998361746888/albums/6121148941176472961

Design evolution of Random Contact app

Background
Just this week I published an app on Google Play Store called Random Contact. It all started when I was learning the Android Contacts API. I wanted to make an app myself that made use of the Contacts API so that I could learn and see it working in a real environment. Especially as I had a Google Nexus S, it was even more an incentive to develop and experiment my own apps and see them running on my phone.

Random Contact

So that was the reason for developing this app. There seemed no point in making another contacts app as the stock(default) one was very good and many third party apps available. So I thought of making an app that shows a random contact details. It has a surprise element to it.

Warning: This app is not meant to be a replacement for your Contacts / Dialer app. This is a fun app with no real use. The main reason this app is considered as part of "Useless Apps" internally.

The development started with an old version of Android API (2.2 to be precise), so I wasn't keeping in mind the latest design guidelines and the result was an ugly looking app with very little user experience

Redesign and Rewrite
After the Holo design came out solid Android Design guidelines became the De-facto standard, I went about researching on how to create a better User experience (UX) keeping in mind that this app has no special value to a user.

After going through brainstorming and multiple drawings on paper, came up with the new design. And in keeping with the time, rewrote most of the code against Android 4.3 APIs and is now available on the Play Store. Along the way some optimizations and new features were added.

Few people might have seen the original app, so below you can find a screen shot of initial screen, design on paper and the present day app.

Left : First version, Middle : redesign on paper, Right : Completely redesigned UI

Apps Library
I will touch on this in a future post, but one of the side effects of development this app was an Android library app that I created which makes use of mostly my research and studies. This will be an ever growing library which is open sourced and publicly available on GitHub. Any new Android projects can make use of this library to achieve similar functionality.

Try out the app
So if you are still interested in checking out this app, follow the link below to get it from the Play Store.

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.

PNRStatus App 1.6

The next update to PNRStatusApp is here. Some minor changes in layout, UI elements and the addition of StatusHistory to keep track of all the statuses of a ticket that you have checked.

Redesigned Main State

Status Histories

You can access the download link at the end of this page.

Changelog :
PNR Status App 1.6 [Aug 2011]
- [CHANGED] PNRInfoRenderer Layout and UI.
- [ADDED] Button to copy the PnrNumber to the clipboard.
- [CHANGED] PNRInfo List not updated when a note is added / updated.
- [CHANGED] PNRNo is not editable in the PNRInfoRenderer.
- [ADDED] Each time a PNR Status is checked, it is stored in StatusHistory.
- [ADDED] Last successful Status is displayed on startup.
- [ADDED] StatusHistoryWindow lists all the StatusHistory of a PNRNumber.
- [FIXED] Bug while reading back StatusHistory items.
- [ADDED] Added option to clear StatusHistories.
- [ADDED] Info Message if More Info clicked without checking the PNRStatus.
- [ADDED] Style for PNRRow based on the last check.
- [FIXED] Bug of Booking status text also getting updated when the note is updated.
- [CHANGED] Removed the StatusBar.
- [FIXED] Bug in PNRNumber equals method.
- [FIXED] Bug in check for duplicate PNRNumber.
- [ADDED] Alert is shown if trying to add a PNRNumber that already exists.


Download from here (http://www.mediafire.com/?3miq5dfjzrwjuuq)

Triton Player 1.3 : Themes are here

Another major update for Triton Player is here. Version 1.3.5.0 is out with the main attraction being the ability of themes. Currently we have the default Orange theme and a new theme called Minty Green.

Triton Player with Theme Minty Green

Along with a string of minor enhancements and bug fixes, we have changed the settings panel for themes and language under a new tab called other. There is an improvement in start up speed also.

Change Theme

The change log for this release is :

 Triton Player 1.3 [June 2011]

 - [CHANGED] SettingsManager redefined.

 - [CHANGED] Events Reordered.

 - [ADDED] Remember last played track no and position when the player is closed.

 - [ADDED] Update InfoView when a Track is added or removed.

 - [CHANGED] Playlist Track no updated when a track is removed.

 - [OPTIMIZED] Saving settings on Application Exit.

 - [CHANGED] Shuffling doesn't restart from the beginning with a new track.

 - [DROPPED] Reordering the playlist acting weierd, reorderTrack() function still available

  inside PlaylistManager.

 - [CHANGED] Styling of application.

 - [CHANGED] Properly positioned Close and Minimize buttons.

 - [ADDED] Themes!

 - [ADDED] ThemeManager to manage Themes.

 - [CHANGED] Settings read in preinitialize and runtime style loaded 

  before application is loaded.

 - [CHANGED] UI Layout.

 - [ADDED] States and transitions for UI.

 - [OPTIMIZED] Code for Compact Mode toggle.

 - [CHANGED] UI on PlaylistView.

 - [OPTIMIZED] Improved Startup Speed.

 - [ISSUE] Minor flicker on startup if in Compact mode.

 - [CHANGED] Language tab from SettingsPanel renamed to Other.

 - [ADDED] Option to chnage the theme from Settings Panel.

 - [REMOVED] Playlist Reorder codes.

 

 Triton Player 1.3 [July 2011]

 - [CHANGED] SelectionColor of playlist item updated when the theme is changed.

 - [CHANGED] Localization text for themes.

 - [CHANGED] SettingsPanel layout.

 - [CHANGED] Current theme and locale are pre-selected in SettingsPanel.

 - [CHANGED] Tracks added in Shuffled Mode are added to the original collection at the end.

 - [FIXED] Fixed minor null exceptions introduced with new features.

 - [CHANGED] Minimize To Tray is false by default.

 - [CHANGED] Fix for total time calculation in PlaylistView.

Download Triton Player 1.3 here (http://www.mediafire.com/?a7b3m6o7c2kah5e) [914kb]

Cryptx 6

Cryptx 6 is out of beta stage and you can download the new version right now. A few bug fixes and explorer integration have been done, so you can directly double click on an encrypted file to open CryptX window. The changes between he beta and this are :

Cryptx 6.0.7 [Apr 2011]
- Explorer integration for Rap File Type.
- BugFix for FileInfoVo.
- ProcessTime in Log file processed properly.

Cryptx 6.0.8 [Apr 2011]
- BugFix for invalid Decrypted file naming.
- After decryption, the decrypted file's info are updated in the UI.
- Using AeLogger 0.4.9.
- BugFix for UI not reflecting updated Destination Location.

Please download the latest version of CryptX 6 :from here (http://www.mediafire.com/?png0da1boqw46of)

Triton Player 1.2

    Triton Player 1.2 is available for download now. This version is a recommended update and has massive performance improvements. 

Triton Player 1.2

    The major visible change is the much awaited addition of a SeekBar for the player. Some under the hood changes have also taken place which includes Storing the Settings in binary format from the previously used XML format for improved speed and performance. The core of the application, the ‘sndbarlib’ has been updated to version 1.1 with some performance optimizations. So what are you waiting for? Checkout the latest version now itself!

The full changelog for this release follows :

Triton Player 1.2 [May 2011]
 - [REMOVED] Logging platform as it seemed surplus.
 - [ADDED]     Save settings and default playlist on ALT + F4.
 - [CHANGED] Localization String in en_US updated.
 - [FIXED]      Null Pointer Exception fixed in PlaylistManager.
 - [ADDED]     Seekbar for player.
 - [CHANGED] Application settings stored as a binary file to speed up
                        startup time and increase performance.
 - [ADDED]     SeekBar functionality on Paused state.
 - [CHANGED] sndbarlib updated to 1.0.
  - [OPTIMIZED]    Several Code Optimizations.
 - [ISSUES]    Clicking on Seekbar position might not always doSeek properly.
 - [FIXED]      Mute icon was not toggling properly.
 - [OPTIMIZED]    Updating of TrackInfo on UI.
 - [CHANGED] sndbarlib updated to 1.1, with optimizations.
 - [OPTIMIZED]    Removed many unnecessary function calls.


Download Triton Player 1.2 here : (http://www.mediafire.com/?r1z8iea8hq217cy)

CryptX 6 Beta!

    CryptX 6 is finally here. Albeit in Beta version. After almost scrapping the project due to various technical challenges, we have found our way through those and able to make it perform beyond initial expectations.

    Like its predecessor, this version does encryption using the AES Algorithm. Some more work will be done on the application before it is liberated from the Beta Label. But most planned features have been implemented. We are expecting user reviews and suggestions to better understand the product. Checkout some screen shots of the application revealed for the first time.

Initial Screen

File Selected

Encrypting!

Encryption complete!

And the download link for CryptX 6 Beta : http://www.mediafire.com/?xib9jdmmi50k8d2 

PNTStatusAPP 1.5

Most people who travel by train in India might have to come across the problem of checking ticket PNR status. Up until now you have to log in to irctc site to check the current status or type the pnrnumber to some other service to keep tabs on that. This is made easier using the PNRStatusApp, developed in Adobe AIR and using the PNRStatus service from ixigo.com. This non commercial dsktop application can store PNR numbers, check them in real time (provided you have an internet connection) and give you details status.

Wait theres more, the Reservation Reminders section helps you to plan ahead and make note of the day on which the advanced reservation begins (90 days).

So dont wait up and check out this app if you think its useful to you.

Download the 1.5 Version from here (http://www.mediafire.com/?h7nbea6wz3g79)

Extract Audio from FLV file and save as MP3 with FFmpeg

I had to extract MP3 from an flv video a few days back. Luckily i had FFmpeg. Since i had the command line version only, i had to dig deep to find the commands to get my task done.

The command that i used is : 

D:>ffmpeg.exe -i

This will process the video file and out put the audio at a rate of 64kbps. Although the flv contained audio at 128kbps, the result i got was only at 64kbps. 

In order to copy the sound channel directly and save it as mp3, we can use this

D:>ffmpeg.exe -i “D:\testVideo.flv” -acodec copy “D:\audio_from_video.mp3”

The option "-acodec copy" results in FFMPEG copying the audio stream present to the output file without processing it.

About FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a collection of software libraries that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video in numerous formats. It includes libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, and libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library. The name of the project comes from the MPEG video standards group, together with "FF" for "fast forward".

FFmpeg takes care of all the hard work of video processing by doing all the decoding, encoding, muxing and demuxing for you. This can make media applications much simpler to write. It's simple, written in C, fast, and can decode almost any codec you'll find in use today, as well as encode several other formats.

FFmpeg Website

Cryptx 5 Beta 1 Release

   Cryptx 5 development has come massive distances after the project almost got scrapped due to various problems faced during development. Although there are minor flaws in it, we are happy to release it as a Beta 1 so that developers from around the world can help make this project better.

the download link for the CR5-B1 is as follows : 

http://www.mediafire.com/?d5n7331z40y

Screen shot
-------------

   Please understand that this release is not fully complete and has some bugs and problems in it. Some known issues are

* No Help included

* Encryption writes log incorrectly

* Decryption does not write a log

* Need to optimise code for execution pipelines

* command line arguments might be needed to be formatted again

* encrypted file size is larger than original or decrypted file.

Features that are already there include :
-----------------------------------------------

* Rich HTA based GUI

* Work History denoting the various steps that went through the development of the project

* CTimer class to follow time taken for processing the data.

* AES 128 bit encryption

* Encrypted data is stored as HEX for added protection.

* Password is not stored in the encrypted file, only a hashed string. (MD5 can be implemented easily for extra protection of the pasword. It can be done from within the HTA interface).

Updates available at : http://www.cryptx5.co.nr

Hoping for some favourable reply ....

FileSplitter 1.9 Beta - Download with Source

     Here is another completed project from us. Its called File Splitter and basically designed to split a large file into a number of smaller parts and to be able to rejoin them. Ofcourse you may not readily feel any need for such an application, but the point here is that it can be done and the project is Open Source and so everyone can learn from it.

   To have a look at the main features, look at the promotional poster given below :
 


The interface is done with the HTA technology which will be discussed here soon.

File Name : FileSplitter_1.9.zip (415.19 KB)
Download link : http://www.mediafire.com/?un2zjr3oz9m