Easy Mobile Shopping (contd.)

So here's an update about the previous post. I succeeded in making the Android app (yay!). Integrated it with ZXing's Barcode Scanner and added the functionality for the shopkeepers to update their shop location and for the customers to do a location-sensitive search.
I cannot post the app as of now, as the server isn't up and running anywhere. So am still looking for a domain and webspace to host the server. Not sure if its really feasible enough but if someone's game for it, don't hesitate to contact. The server was developed by my partner in the competition and its in a very crude stage and would need a lot of rework and styling.
Wasn't able to win the competition but the learning experience was really nice. Also, it made me realise (once again) that Eclipse is one of the awesomest IDEs in existence!

QRCode + Location Awareness = Marketing awesomeness!

Took part in an Adobe internal application development competition and working on revolutionizing the Indian shopping industry :D
Thanks to a really nice and innovative idea by Ishan am currently busy exploring the Android SDK these days. Well, the idea is to make use of QRCodes and location-awareness into an android app and web server combo. Using the web server, the shopkeepers can register their shops by creating a profile and get a unique QRCode which will point to a URL which will contain a description of the products sold in the shop. The customers can flash their mobile on the shops's QRCode and can browse through the list of products at their leisure.
The location sensitivity part comes into play as the shopkeepers can use the app to provide the location coordinates of their shop and when someone sends a search query for any item the server will show the result displayed in the order of proximity of the shops based on the customer's location.

Thats pretty much it. Been exploring new technologies and the QRCode Scanner by ZXing is a huge blessing. Wait a little to see how it turns up :)

Back

I guess I will start writing blog posts again after a very long hiatus. Wonder how your day-to-day work doesn't offer much scope to writing anything new. My last talked up project was the location-aware thingy for GSoC.
Then job didn't offer me anything exciting to blog about without breaking the NDA. So there was quite a bit of silence. I have again started experimenting and hopefully these would continue so you can see my random bursts about my successes/failures. :)

Import This

Following is the output after typing import this on a Python terminal (via @l0nwlf). Enjoy :)

The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

OneWebDay

So I decided to help promote & support the OneWebDay cause :) As my office printers were all black and white I decided to have this poster. My cubicle was already adorned with a "Mozilla - 10 years" coloured poster (courstesy l0nwlf) and now I had this brand new OneWebDay poster beside it too. As the poster was pretty dull, I decided to show off a lil creativity and used some pink highlighter on it :P Here's a snap with /me in my fav Firefox T and the OneWebDay poster in my cubicle.

As the Imac, from which I clicked the pic was pretty far, here's a close up of me with the poster in my hand.


P.S. I havent yet figured out how to correct the lateral inversion caused by PhotoBooth :(

Yet Another Hello World Post

I am not dead. Yet.
I wasnt hibernating either.
I just got a lil too busy with Twitter.

Geoclue

I nominated GeoClue for Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything in the SouceForge Community Choice Awards. Its your turn now, go nominate!