Sudoku Plus ! A Sudoku software for nokia mobiles

This is the climax of a fascinating chapter of my life- sudoku. Yeah those who have been here before know about me and Sudoku :) This effort is to tell the world that all the work I put in, just out of fascination and passion, has come to an exciting finish.

I joined Webonise Software Solutions last month as mobile application developer. Here with all the support needed to turn my work into a finished product, we managed to develop an amazing piece of software that not only works well but it looks awesome too. Have a look at Sudoku Plus !

As you can see, Nayan Deshmukh, co- founder at Webonise Lab designed an amazing user experience for the Sudoku Plus.

This month we launched sudoku plus on Ovi store for all nokia touch phones covering S60 V5 and now S60 V3 i.e. all the e series devices. So far we have received an amazing response on the ovi store averging almost 2000 downloads per day. With E series support added, even this rate is expected to increase.

You can take a detailed look at Sudoku Plus on out product page or at Nokia Ovi store.

There are a few things that can still be added to this little thing. But everything has its time. Something equally interesting is going on at weboniselab right now, and if all goes well you may see another elated post here. :)

starting a pc automatically after shutdown

Got my new laptop -studio 15- a few days back. And of course I had upgraded to a night unlimited internet broadband plan. So I wanted to make my laptop start all by itself after 2am, start the download queue and shutdown when the task is done while i'm merrily asleep.
Of course one may find a lot of material on scheduling download queues and shutting down after they are completed but, what of the starting part? One option is to keep the machine on sleep and wake it up at scheduled time. But then, it wastes a lot of power running idle for a lot of time.
So I wanted a solution which could turn on my machine after it had been shutdown or hibernated.
One solution I found is to get into your BIOS configuration program and look for power management tab, there you may find an option for wake up on---. But not all systems come with this utility.And there may be some people who will not understand what to do there. So for these needs there are a few softwares that do this job for us. One of them is wake up on standby. Don't be fooled by the name, it doesn't mean that it only wakes up from stand by. It can also wake from hibernate or shutdown (though both are more or less the same from power perspective :)).
Such systems work on ACPI- Advanced Configuration Power Interface. The machines which have such a facility can be turned on after shutdown automatically at a chosen time using internal timers. This software also offers other scheduling functionalities which you may or may not use as there are other better ways of scheduling.
You can get that software here.
Of course this thing is for windows and I don't know of any such software for linux, and if you find one tell me where to get it :)
These are some things to note for such kind of use
1)If you are using multiple operating systems put the o.s. where you have scheduled the downloads at the default position.
2) Put that o.s on auto log on, and so the system won't ask for authentication.

Web developement using gwt and google app engine

Getting into new environment of web development. Now that I have learned many languages and done some good bit of coding on desktop its really a high time for me to start with this web dev thingy.

Of course I wasn't a total noob in web arena.(I knew html :D ) I started poking around here and there on web ,with some knowledgeable friends and zeroed in on Google app engine along with Google Web Toolkit for my first web application.

For starters GAE is a platform that can be used to deploy your application on Google infrastructure. Google takes care of everything for your application, no servers to manage ,no scaling problem, nothing. It can be programmed in either jvm based language --java,jsp, ruby or using python. It can be used for free for moderate use (5 million page views) and pay according to resources used thereafter. It is just as cool as it gets.

As for GWT , its one of those great things that Google has done. Its well known applications include newer version of AdSense and Google Waves. This technology is especially designed for java developers and I bet they love it. Major advantage is that you are not required to be expert in browser quirks and no separate testing is required for each browser (don't need to worry about IE6 compatibility :D ). And you have all the advantages that java coding offers and disadvantages too (for some people).

Now the combination Gwt and Gae is great. You can develop and deploy great,scalable applications for free at the start. You get a plugin for eclipse- Google plugin for eclipse, which makes it very easy to develop, manage and deploy any such project.
I have started working on it, and as I have the library ready for use at the back-end, my first web application in going to be an Ajax based, sudoku puzzle generator and solver. Currently using free domain from google - My sudoku app.

Sudoku

Blogging after a long time, much due to lack of interest and a bit of time factor as these six months were the most happening months of the engineering life. Much has happened that is worth noticeable but that would merit a separate post.

Today my interest is SuDoKu - A long time passion for me.I have been developing a cpp code that would generate and solve a variety of types of SuDoKu problems in a fast and efficient way.I succeeded in developing a code that would satisfy my requirement a long time ago.i.e 3-4 months back. But now I am more interested in improving the code and its response time in case of solvers.

Interestingly, during any operation in SuDoKu one needs to check the validity of the number to be input at the given place in the 9X9 grid. This check involves checking 9 blocks for row,column and 3X3 block respectively. This would require 27 iterations for each check! This was the major time consuming part of the code. I started using different methods for decreasing the response time.

As I was using guessing along with logical analysis, solution time was never going to be constant.
So in order to obtain mean solution time, I devised a function to run the code on a standard problem 10,000 times and then take the mean. As for the need for reduction of the iterations, I used indexing of the positions in the SuDoKu grid. When any number is entered at any position it would trigger a flag index that contains information for a particular number at a particular position. This brought the number of iterations from 27 to just 3! But it cost 3 times as much memory. But from the context of overall memory requirement of program, it was drop in the ocean.

So I started chasing the fastest solution time with (+/-)5% error. Now I am proud to have succeeded in developing a code that solves the Hardest SuDoKu Puzzle. Now for an average sudoku puzzle it gives mean solution time of 9 millisecond on a P4-2.88 G Hz machine. Other factors other than that of processor speed may affect the time but that would be within 5% error range. So I feel pretty satisfied with my achievement.

You can get the source code here.

Most of the goals about SuDoKu other than cross platform compatibility(much due to lack of interest in learning new graphics library) have been fulfilled. So now it is full-stop to SuDoKu and I am all geared up for a new challenge. After all, only goal is to Excel!

Ponting.. you lost my faith

Late.Too late, as one might say. But right from the first day of the controversy, I decided to just stay put and absorb the proceedings.And now that everything seems to have settled, I want to put my say on the records with the help whatever information that has been given out by the news agencies and the articles of many 'experts'.

I am not a 'pure I hate Ponting' man. I was and am a great fan of Ponting's 'BATTING'. Yes, only batting as, now I don't consider Ponting as a great 'PLAYER'.Why? let's consider the reasons.

First of all, I don't blame him for the result of the match. Lets go case by case. First one, he stood on the pitch after being given out,'wrongly', even after he was given 'life' by same umpire. I don't blame him for this.

Second case:the Harbhajan issue. This is really a serious issue. I think by now, we know enough about this controversy. We know about the 'pact '. If Symonds had given his word to harbhajan on sledging, why should he turn back on it. His answer is dubious. He rushed to help his team mate when being patted on the back by harbhajan. But his 'team-mate ' had no problems with that. Only Symonds did. Now incomes Ponting who is aware of this whole thing and tells Harbhajan that this was second time he has called the 'Monkey' word, believing that he did. We know that Kumble wanted to resolve the matter between players, as he said, seeing the after-effects of such a thing. But Ponting had reported him already. What a strong leader.So quick to back his players. Appreciated. Now I want to say something.

Do the Australians think that they will keep saying anything ,i.e. sledging, and everybody will listen to it. Someone like Harbhan is bound to give it back. This angers them. What is it? Only word is Arrogance. Some people say that Indians are no saints. But in sledging,they are. Not because they are so gentlemen, but for the communication problem. You can try the young ones in Hindi....

But back to point. Ponting did report the incident despite obvious breaking of the pact and provocation.

And all this considering that Harbhajan did say something like that. But on the flip side,SACHIN TENDULKAR says that he did not hear anything like 'monkey' at all. This comes from a man who in any sense is a true gentleman of the game. If one thinks otherwise, he should not read further. So all comes to same point. Reporting Harbhajan was most unsportsmanlike behavior given that his team dishes out many unwritable comments during the match being termed as sledging.

During the hearing word of Sachin was not taken as a proof. One might say similar to Atrocity Act in India word of the accusers is considered as major proof. But this is not Indian act dealing, this is ICC hearing, and all the sides should be given to have a fair say.Here Ponting has no blame, but he is culprit of 'reporting' in the first place.

Third issue: Ponting pretended to take a catch. It was not a catch in the first place.Ponting made it a catch with his outstanding fielding skills.But that does not mean you can claim a non catch. In any other circumstances this would have been acceptable as everybody does the same,and he is no different. But this is a special case because of the very reason that 'he made a pact with Anil Kumble on decision of catches'. He himself broke the pact by appealing on a non-catch. Don't tell me he did not sense it.In any catch fielder does know whether he has taken it or not. I myself am not a brilliant fielder but ask any good fielder, he will tell you the same. Yes he disclaimed a catch before it the other day. But then his team was not in 'threat' of draw.On the last day he really did go mad for victory. And did some shameful things.Yes that decision was given not out.But if umpires would have used the 'pact' and had asked Poning whether it was out,which is what I think he anticipated, Dhoni was a goner. But better sense prevailed for some time and they asked the third umpire.

Fourth case:
I don't consider him to be blamed in Ganguly catch. He believed in his team-mate's words and said it was out.But again what a leader who doesn't have control on his team?It is more than clear that Clark DID LIE. Which means that he lied to his leader if we consider Ponting to be innocent in this case. This is more shameful than anything else. Hence, I presume,that Ponting knew that it was not out. How sportsman-like!

Last but not the least, they just did not seem to be bothered about shaking hands with the Indian players.But it is just madness to expect the Australians to behave them self. Celebrate, you should, but properly. Again sportsmanship comes into picture.

Least of all, after the match he should have apologized for the breaking of the 'pact'. This to me was most 'Unsportsmanlike'.

The comments of the members of the Hall of Fame say it all. If even the greats consider him and his team as unsportsmanlike, need I say more?

All in all, he will always be great batsman. But,as the great Neil Harvey said before this incident, he is not even a TENDULKAR let alone BRADMAN'. MR. Ponting, please try to be a great 'player'.

HELLO SKIES!

It was an eventful week indeed. First I went to a good trip to Raigad and Janjira forts and enjoyed the last days of last year in Mighty presence of Fort Raigad, also enjoying a bit of adventure in the form of 'Journey To The Base of Raigad' in pitch dark, and only a mobile back-light to assist. As soon as I welcomed 'The New Year' late in the mourning, I received shock in the form of a news that said the results were due any time that day. I just wondered how cruel life can get.....why should the very first day of new year be marked as the worst day in next six months?(results were going to be out you see..). But yet again goodness prevailed and stopped the year from being started on bad note, 'the news' was just another rumor after all. Bless me,how relieved I was!

Anyways sooner or later the results were bound to come, and come they did. Eventually it was O.K. got 67%. At least distinction at last. So the year had started with a 'not bad' note on its head.

Now it was time to just relax a bit(which I was going to do anyways..),and enjoy cricket both on and off the field. Just then I got the news(this time a confirmed one) that Gaganvedhi group, associated with astronomy and astrophysics, in our college of which I also happen to be a member on a post(which one I don't know..),had organized a sky-watch. Well, they couldn't have chosen a better time for it. I just wanted to get out the practical world and just watch things happen, for which, for a change, I was not going to be held responsible. Just watch the stars, group of stars, their interesting patterns, various subtleties of positions and formations of them, and enjoy some furious debates on ever debatables like 'the Bermuda triangle' etc.

In some chilling cold I enjoyed better part of this star gazing, but some time in the night the cold got better off me and I just changed the focus from skies to mother earth. An enjoyable stint with wood-fire with the watchman,raised the spirits once again. Again I was up and wondering, to see the Jupiter on the horizon and to see how do the trenches on moon actually look from a telescope. Just bless the great Gallilio, but for him, would anyone have seen the distant stars that make some meaning?

I just know one thing, the world is too big to fit into at least my imagination. Just got one damn clear message from deep inside me,'Boy, just live your life in the happiest possible manner.Don't dare to care about the rest. Lad, it ain't that small....'

hello world

THose who have learnt the C language from LET US C,i think,would remember the first prgrame is always 'HELLO WORLD'. I see the same connection here also. This is my first post, and i think this also start the way C did..'HELLO WORLD'.

I always wanted to express myself but there was no medium and when blogs started, i did not have an internet connection for it.But now i have it and i am thinking to make most of it.

I was inclined to think that title of the first post should be 'well began is half done',but as you see this is somethink that is never done,so lets never be 'Done' with it..

Aniket.