Posts

[Freelancing] How To Make Sure Your Client Pays

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I've been freelancing, making Android applications for about a year now (started out in '14). I made several applications, for various clients, both individuals and companies, one of which was an Italian mobile commerce company for which I developed three utility Android applications. When you find clients over Fiverr , or similar websites, you are generally sure you will get your money for the work you do, and the website will resolve disputes, if any. The problem arises when you communicate with your client over gmail, where he can thug you if he's a cheat. The solution? This is the ideal way to go ahead with the transaction. 1. [Negotiate Price] Communication between client and freelancer. 2. [Finish the app dev] Freelancer notifies the client the application is made. 3. [Send across developed APK] Freelancer sends apk to client. 4. [Payment] Client pays freelancer over Paypal, or predecided gateway. 5. [Code shared] If t

What Do Animals Think Of?

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There was this episode in Friends where everyone's thoughts are narrated out loud. The six of them are in their cafe and Ross is talking about one of his many dinosaur stories, and the others are sitting there listening to him. Or at least they pretend to. Now that their thoughts are being narrated out loud, here's what they're all actually doing. Rachel : *squints eyes* I love how he cares so much about stuff. If I squint, I can pretend he's Alan Alda. Monica : * Giving him the Pan Am Smile *  Oh good, another dinosaur story. When are those gonna become extinct? Chandler : *nods his head as if he was understanding every bit of it*  If I was a superhero, who could fly and be invisible, that would be the best! Gunther : *serves coffee* What does Rachel see in this guy? I love Rachel. I wish she was my wife. Joey : Hums a song in his mind. Taa da taaa ta duu. Phoebe : Hey, who's singing? The 6 of them are all sitting within a 10 meter radius,

Why Java Interviews are Farji

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Java Interviews are Farji Farji ; Hindi for bogus. Not the exact word I'm looking for, but here's an example. I took up a Human Computer Interaction course during my 5th semester. The professor took lectures just for the sake of completing 42 hours of teaching time, and we memorized Fitt's law and 18 other such obvious laws, word for word, just for an A grade. Farji. Coming to the Java interview I gave recently. I applied for a scholarship in a nanodegree program in Android, taken by Udacity. The initial test was an easy Java based inheritance question. The question stated if it takes you more than 15 minutes to complete it, reconsider not applying for the program. Haha, I quite liked that. The next round was just a super, super long form questioning everything I've ever done. I'm almost sure they would've selected me purely on the basis of how I managed to fill every optional textbox. Especially the one that asked me about my experience in "Disrupt

Software Engineering | We should really make things people will use

We were asked to list down ideas of projects we would like to do for our Software Engineering course today. This course is one of the most important courses of all the ones we take in the 4 years that we are here. The basic idea behind the course is to give students a real life experience of making a software from scratch, working in groups (10ish per group), and developing a product that will be used in the real world. Sadly, of all 30 projects developed by the 300 students every year, I have not heard of any one actually being implemented and used. They're made and forgotten, and the course doesnt hold the value it should. Also, there is no website/page listing all projects batchwise, developed till date. I do not want to make another flipkart/food delivery/car rental app, that the previous batches have been making for years. I want to make a software people will actually use. The ideas listed may seem simple from the outside, but the devil is always in the details. Plus,

DAWebmail - Contributing to the Repo

Link to Github Link to Google Play First things first! Thank you for trying to contribute! This really will go a long way :D I talked to the guys from Zimbra about the app over the winter, and they were really excited about the app. Though the app has gone for a toss now. Doesn't work anymore, because of the upgradation.  <If you are able to use an API, do try implementing that!> Though I could probably sit for a day or two and set it up again, I really want the spirit of open source to hit off at DA. So, this is the project I worked on for months, and really is the reason I know Android dev. And now its as naked as we came. Setting up the Project This is probably the hardest part of everything we do. Setting up the project. The main app is located at (all the Java, layout, res files). dawebmail/app/src/main Please use Android Studio. Eclipse will be a nightmare. I've compiled it using compileSdkVersion 22 .  Libraries used compile 'com.android.suppo

On Startups | The Real Startup Culture vs Food Delivery Startups

I wrote this as an email to my father right after winter break (Dec '15) started. I started receiving a lot of emails from several startups during that period, many of which were listed on angel.co , willing to hire me as an Android intern. I have to say this, I love startups, and am sure to work for one after graduating. But there is a difference between the ones I have worked for so far, and those that I chose not to work with. And that is what this article is about.  I hold no grudges against app-only startups, but my interest lies in making something tangible. --- Isn't it just so cool to designate yourself as the Founder of Banana Corp? To send out professional emails, signing interns for your  startup ? Telling your friends you're busy meeting investors. That you're flying down to Bangalore on business trips. Hunting for incubators to give you a place to work out of. Startups . Ha. The ideology with which most people  startup  is bull. Every

Why Web Scraping is the Coolest-Beginner-Friendly-Utility ever

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I'm not going to talk about how to scrape. Google web-scraping blogs . You'll find a million amazing blogs and articles. Honestly, a million, and they're pretty good. I'm going to talk about how amazing web scraping is, and how I've used it so far. But before that, if you've scraped in the past, do check out... *drum roll* Jaunt-API I've used Selenium, Beautifulsoup, Mechanize, and a couple others, but none are as easy as Jaunt. It truly is brilliant. Plus, the creator, Tom Cervenka, is super quick in replying to emails. Alright. Coming back to the super awesomeness of web-scraping. It's just an alternative to the API. A hack of some sorts. Want to apply machine learning, and need a data set? Scrape the web. See hundreds of cute cat images you'd like to download off a webpage? Scrape the page. Want to automate a login system? Scrape. Here's a list of projects where I've used web-scraping, and in most, less than 100 lines of code

Does God Understand English?

Quick jot. Not very well thought through, just a thought. Does God Understand English? Or for that matter, Hindi, German, Urdu, or even the near-perfect, Sanskrit? My mother visits the temple everyday, along with hundreds of millions of other Indians. Man. Hundreds of millions. Suddenly that seems like a very large number of God-believing Indians to me. Anyway. Whenever I'm at home, she takes me a long with her to our society's temple, and I have a casual conversation with Him , where only I speak in my mind, in English, not knowing if there's anyone there, listening on the other end. And that's what made me think. We all pray in some or the other language, right? A Sardar is most likely to pray in Punjabi. A French, in French. An Italian, in Italian. An Egyptian, in Arabic. But does God really understand the billions of prayers He listens to? Yes, we all think God is a super power, the creator of all, who understands everything, whose decisions are what g

Uploading an App to Google Play [1] - Once you've finished developing it.

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This is about uploading your application to the playstore, with tips as to how to make the entire process easier. Google Play requires you to make icons/banners of very specific sizes, take screenshots, and a whole lot of drama. It isn't something you can avoid, so you might as well just follow these guidelines to make the entire process easy and fast. Alright. I'm going to start the cheesy way, quoting a line so correct, Mahatma Gandhi would shy away. Okay that was crap. I'm sorry :P But this line isn't. In fact, if you have never developed any kind of application before, you will experience ecstasy, so exultant and euphoric that you will want to enthusiastically practice more and build something—anything, like a hungry chef discovering a furnished kitchen with every tool, every utensil, and a stocked refrigerator. - From the guy who started javascriptissexy.com If you've ever built something using your own creativity, your own hands, whether it's a ta