I just  tried out the sencha touch examples  on the android 1.6 simulator and the performance is pathetic. Seems like google forgot to properly implement their javascript V8 engine onto their OS.

Appcelerator’s Titanium Mobile and Sencha touch are 2 different frameworks which address a totally different set of audiences. Comparing them is like comparing apples to oranges. But, to a person who has never eaten fruits ever and wants to just try tasting one (analogy to creating a simple app which doesnt do much of processing) and not try juggling with the fruits (analogy to creating detailed games or apps with lot of processing involved), they appear the same. So here’s a post attempting to compare them and help out those who have to make a choice when it comes to building a  simple app.

Titanium Mobile Kitchensink app running in iPhone simulator

Sencha touch examples app running in iPhone simulator

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Here’s where Titanium Mobile wins :

1. Titanium is open source and free. Sencha touch follows dual licensing model like extJS, i.e. it is open source, but if you use it for commercial purpose, you need to buy their license.
2. Titanium builds native apps. So you have access to almost every feature in the phone, like say reading phone contacts, accessing accelerometer, GPS etc. Sencha will work inside the phone browser .  ALthough it can be made to work as a pseudo-app by embedding it inside a webview of an app made using Titanium/Cocoa. I suppose it can access GPS coordinates to some extent with the users authorization, but I am not sure about it. Also Titanium will support (in near future) running the app in the background and PUSH notifications which cannot be done using Sencha as it runs inside the browser.
3. When an app made using sencha loads , it has to load the framework first and then the content. So it will be a little slower in terms of loading time compared to Titanium built apps as it has to download the 300 KB sencha framework and the images for the buttons. Although the download process can be bypassed (Thanks to James Hughes for pointing it out) by including the framework in the Phonegap or Titanium resources folder, the javascript parsing time taken by the webview might become noticeable at the user’s end. On the iPhone simulator, it takes around 2-3 seconds for the sencha’s simple Nested list example to parse and display even when the Sencha framework is store along with the app.

Sencha touch runs in the any simulator, be in iPhone, android or blackberry. You do not need any kind of separate sencha touch simulator as such. Hence Sencha touch has its own set of advantages, namely :

1. Sencha gives more control in making changes to your UI after the app is published. Since all the code is getting loaded fresh from the server each time the user accesses, you can virtually modify the entire app without the user’s knowledge. But when it comes to a native app built using Titanium,  the changes have to go through apple’s review process and the user must manually update the app. In short Sencha requires a lesser turnaround time when it comes to bugs/updates.
2. Sencha works on almost all webkit based browsers which includes chrome, safari and opera. So you can be sure that it displays the same UI in iPhone,Android,Blackberry,iPad and also desktop browsers. So once IE and firefox fully supports HTML5, then you can have a single code which will work on all desktop browsers and all mobile devices uniformly. Titanium apps make use of native controls. So it gives a different UI on different devices and are currently limited to iPhone,iPad and Android devices (Blackberry devices soon)

Although both the frameworks use simple Javascript syntax , the choice of the framework will depend on the project under consideration. If the app just makes HTTP requests to some servers to fetch the results, then sencha touch should be good enough. But if there are plans of improving the app later on to make full use of the phones features like running the app in the background , accessing GPS data continuously , sending PUSH notifications, stream music & videos, write to Files & Databases etc then Titanium should be used. But a perfect mashup between them is what developers look out for.

Titanium too does not come without limitations. After playing around with titanium sdk 1.4 , I have realized that the guys over at appcelerator care more about the iPhone than android. Titanium android sdk does not support many of the functions provided in iPhone. Some of the most common ones are : Phone contacts, Animations, Horizontal Layout etc. Also the nature of android platforms limits the framework from providing some functions like WIndow transitions, webview for reading pdf,doc etc. I will keep adding more revelations about Titanium as I come across them. Cya later.

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Update as of 5th June 2011 : Source code for the game has been published on this page. Now you can change the game as you wish, using Swishmax (www.swishzone.com)

Update as of 20th Dec 2010 : I have been noticing quite a lot of visitors reaching this page through google search.  So drop in a comment if you would like me to add any new features onto the game.

This was a simple game I created using SWiSH in 2005. The questions appear randomly with no logic for the levels of difficulty and the “Phone a friend” lifeline is a dummy lifeline with no real purpose. You should check out the game here. The game was hosted on a free domain kbc2.be and also on openflash.be initially which got a decent amount of hits. Those domain names dont exist anymore, so I have published it here. You can download the source code and read the instructions below if you like to edit the game to suite your needs.

Play the game

To play kbc flash game, click on the image below.

KBC flash game source code

I have also noticed a few visitors to this blog searching for terms like “kbc game source code”. I am not sure whether anyone want to modify the existing flash game to accomodate new lifelines or game rules.
Anyway, you can download the source code for this game and a sample questions database (20 questions only) using the link below. You will need Swishmax v3 to open the .swi source file and edit program logic. If you just want to edit the questions and answers database, you can edit the core.kbc file in the zip archive.
If you modify the game using this source code and publish it elsewhere, you should retain an always visible text which reads “thekirankumar.com”

(91667 hits) Kaun Banega Crorepati Flash Game (Download removed on 6/11/11 to reduce server load) Download

How to add your own questions or edit the questions in KBC ?

The questions database (core.kbc is included in the KBC.zip package) contents are as follows :

&totques=183&
&ques1=What is capital of India?&
&a1=Bombay&
&b1=Delhi&
&c1=Calcutta&
&d1=Madras&
&ans1=2&
&ques2=Who is known as the father of the nation?&
&a2=Lal Bahadur Sastri&
&b2=Mahatma Gandhi&
&c2=Bal Gangadhar Tilak&
&d2=Rajiv Gandhi&
&ans2=2&
…

The first line &totques=183& in the file can be changed to specify the total number of questions you have in your database. If you plan to put only 20 questions, change the line to &totques=20&

The first question is in a variable called quest1, the second on quest2 and so on…
Similar naming for options . Variables a1,b1,c1,d1 will contain the text for the options for question 1. a2,b2 etc for question no 2

Answer is specified as &ans1=2& where the value 2 says the answer for question number 1 is option b (i.e, the variable b1). Similarly ans1=3 means that the answer is c.

Hence, by editing the core.kbc file using an text editor, you can modify/add new questions to the game.

You can access the source code of the flash game by opening the KBC.swi file using SwishMax. Post the URL of your version of the game as a comment in this page, I would love to see them.

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So here comes the complete AS3/Flash source code with the PHP script for converting the drawing into an Image.
The demo can be found here.

(415 hits) Sandwriting app Download

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17th Dec ’10 :

Now here’s the deal. 160by2,way2sms and freesms8 offer free SMS and earn money through the ads on their website. By using this PHP script, we are bypassing their website illegally as their ad never gets shown. I hope you will keep this in mind when you use this script. If you want to send free SMS legally, then head over to http://freesmsapi.com and create an account. They are offering an excellent service totally free of cost.
Also the developers at way2sms and freesms8 keep changing their url’s and security methods to prevent such scripts from working (160by2.com guys are cool about this). And as this PHP code published here can be viewed publicly, their jobs become easy. So I will not be able to continue development of the scripts because as soon as I publish the code here, way2sms/freesms8 change their code to break my code.
So there should be a way to restrict access to the PHP code published here so that the code reaches appropriate hands only. Maybe a password protected SVN or forums based on reputation points, I dont know..
Post in your opinions about this as a comment and lets see whether we can work it out together.

Update as of 5th Oct ’10 : Bulk SMS services restored !!

Update as of 24th Sep ’10 : Govt has banned bulk sms temporarily. So all the bulk sms providers have stopped their services. More info. This script will not work till Sep 29th. In the meantime, I will upload the next version of the script which can check internet connectivity, login errors and other responses sent by the gateway. I will also be adding support for freesmsapi.com and freesms8.com gateways.

Update as of 10th Sep ’10: The code has been updated to accomodate a small change in the way2sms website.

Update as of 15th Aug ’10 : The code has been updated to work on all 160by2 and way2sms accounts and also will fetch any error codes being generated by these gateways. If you encounter any bugs, drop in a comment.

This is a PHP script I wrote a while back to automate the sending of SMS/text message using 160by2.com/way2sms.com account.

You can use this PHP API script to send free sms India, Kuwait, Singapore, UAE, Phillipines, Malaysia etc. Very useful if you are combining this with the registration page of your website to verify the users mobile number similar to verification of their email address.

Some possible real world applications of this script are :
1. Email to SMS.
2. Birthday alerts/Daily joke/thought for the day/news SMS
3. Gtalk/XMPP to SMS

Pre-requisites to use this script :
1.You need a hosting server with PHP5 and cURL extension enabled. The server should be able to open socket connections to other servers.
2.a valid,verified 160by2.com account or way2sms.com account (Create an account for free on one of these gateways and send a test SMS through their UI first.)

Example Usage (Also included in example.php):

include_once “class.curl.php”;
include_once “class.sms.php”;

$smsapp=new sms();
$smsapp->setGateway(‘way2sms’); // you can set gateway to be 160by2 to use your 160by2 account;
// way2sms code has been tested on different accounts to be stable.

echo “Logging in … “;
$smsapp->login(‘username for way2sms’,'password’);

echo “Sending SMS … “;
$result=$smsapp->send(’10 digit mobile number’,'Your text message’);

if($result)
{
echo “Message sent”;
}
else
{
echo “Error encountered : “.$smsapp->getLastError();
}

Limitations :
1. 160by2.com offers a character limit of around 145 for each message. Way2sms offers a character limit of 140 characters per message. Please see that the character limit is honored.
2. also a limit of 50 messages per day per account and 10 messages per recepient phone number holds good for 160by2.

(4279 hits) SMS API Download

I had also written a script using this class to send an sms alert to notify as soon as the booking for an upcoming movie opens up on bookmyshow.com, if someones interested in using this bookmyshow script, drop in a comment.

New SMS API

Supports 160by2, freesmsapi, freesms8. Does not support way2sms as of now.

To send free SMS all over the world using your iPhone/iPod touch, use Textoo Pro app. It is currently the best iphone app to send free unlimited text messages easily.

(2513 hits) PHP SMS API v2.0 Download

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Install this plugin into Joomla through the community builder plugin installer and enable it.

Defining multiple forms

Click on this plugin under the plugin management tab and in the params section define the forms in this format:

form_name1:field_name1,field_name2

form_name2:field_name1,field_name2

• form_name is a identifier for the form you are creating. Keep it unique and without spaces. This form_name has to be passed as a GET parameter to the default CB registration page to show up only the fields you want.
• field_name1,field_name2 etc are the names of the fields under the Field management tab in CB.

An example entry could be like this :

agent_form:name,username,password,company_name

user_form:name,username,password,address

The 2 forms can be accessed by adding &form=agent_form and &form=user_form respectively to the default CB registration form URL.

Please note that you could also have mandatory fields in any of the forms. In such a case the mandatory fields will be filled with some text to bypass the validation checks before the form is submitted.

Passing hidden data

Sometimes it is necessary to store information based on the above defined forms. For example, when the agent_form is submitted, you may want to store a specific value say ‘agent’ in one of the CB fields (say cb_usertype) so that you can know later,what form was used by the user. This can be done using the hidden data field.

The hidden data field also uses a similar format for definining the fields.

form_name1:field_name1=value1,field_name2=value2

form_name2:field_name1=value1,field_name2=value2

So here, once the form_name1 is submitted, the field_name1 will have the value set to value1.

Note that the value should not contain any special characters like commas or quotes. The value is added directly to the database as soon as the user registration is confirmed and hence will skip any validation checks.

One of the real world applications of this feature is by combining with the JLS grouping plugin which will add the current user to the necessary user group based on one of the CB fields.

This is Based on “Different User Registration Forms” plugin by Bog Imp

(5198 hits) CB Multiple Registration forms plugin Download

If you need any new features on this extension, leave a comment below. I will be happy to add them

Adding form specific title/description

You can add multiple delimiter fields to your CB fields list which enables you to add any html code or static text to your form. This technique combined with the above plugin can create multiple CB forms with form specific titles. But the only limitation here is that the field names for the delimiter fields are also displayed. I dont think there is a way to avoid that.

Auto assign user group based on the registration form

I have modified Jorge Luis Savoini’s (aka BestBeast) JLS group selector plugin to make it work for Joomla 1.5 and CB2.2. This CB plugin also needs to be installed using CB plugin installer. This plugin allows you to assign different user groups based on a value from combo box which the user selects during Registration. But in real world applications, you may not want to ask the user to explicitly specify the user group, but instead you want to redirect them to the appropriate form and use the hidden data method in the above plugin to pass the required data to cb_usertype field. More details on the joomla extensions page for JLS group selector.

(584 hits) Modified JLS group selector Download

For those who want to display partial CB registration form as a module on your homepage , this extension might be useful.

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Please wait till the widget loads

The php curl script will automate a user login to google sms channel ( define username/password in the php code ) and then will send an invite sms to the number specified through the iphone UI. I also had written a script which will send a group sms to all your sms subscribers without actually logging-in to Google sms channels. I will try to find the script and post it here soon.

(573 hits) Flash sourcecode (.fla) file for the iphone widget Download

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I have been using the windows vista sidebar a lot lately and found a gadget for every purpose from love calculators to email alerters. Yesterday I came across the eftel usage meter and then felt that there must be a gadget for my ISP too. So I created this small gadget.

Vista Sidebar Gadget

The dataone usage finder vista sidebar gadget is a must if you use the BSNL’s Dataone broadband connection. It will automatically login to your dataone account and retreive the off-peak and total bandwidth usage and calculates the bandwidth remaining in the current month. It will also refresh itself after a certain specified time interval.

There are other tools which do the exact same thing by staying in the system tray like Dataone Quick Usage Finder, Dataone Usage Finder, Dataone tool. These tools are excellent and have better features than the Dataone gadget.

But the advantage of this gadget is that its tiny, consumes lesser resources, simple and requires no installation. It also fetches the data in less than 5 seconds much lesser than the other programs.

Instructions for use :

To install it, just double click the gadget file you download. It gets added to the sidebar automatically. No separate installation needed.

Usage :

Before using it, enter your username ,password and monthly usage limit  in the settings page by clicking on the small spanner icon which appears when you roll over the cursor on the gadget. The gadget automatically shows the stats on clicking the OK button in settings page.

The First line displays the broadband package you have subscribed ( Home 250/500 etc). The second line gives you the total traffic ( download + upload ). If you have night unlimited package, the traffic includes the night usage also. The third line shows the billable usage which excludes the night (2am to 8am) usage. The progressbar shows the percentage of traffic used during the month. The usage limit i.e. the maximum traffic permitted for your package ( e.g Home 500 – 2.5 GB ) has to be set in the settings page. The fourth line shows the bandwidth remaining per day. i.e. the remaining bandwidth divided by the remaining number of days. The progress bar when at 100% will correspond to the average bandwidth remaining per day at the beginning of the month. If you can maintain the progress bar at 100 % , you can be sure that you will never run out of the bandwidth limit at the end of the month.The refresh button(green circular button) at the bottom left corner can be used to manually refresh the stats. Remember, the stats on the BSNL server get updated only if you disconnect the network(if you use the OS dialer) or if you restart the modem (if you are using the modem’s inbuilt pppoe dialer – holds true if your connection is always ON ).

The gadget will only work in Windows Vista and on a BSNL’s DataOne Broadband connection.

P.S. This gadget wont work for new dataone connections i.e. If you check the usage using bbservice.bsnl.in, the gadget wont work.

I do not have access to bbservice.bsnl.in. If someone who does have access could mail me their username and password, I would be happy to make the gadget work for newer connections too.

(1294 hits) Dataone Usage Meter Download

   (Firefox users – Right Click – Save Link As )

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