I am a big fan of Twitter. Unfortunately, almost all of my real life friends are only on Orkut. Most of them haven’t even heard of Twitter. Thats how I came up with the idea of creating something like Twitkut.

I update on Twitter a lot. So, I thought how cool will it be if somehow all my Orkut friends can also recieve frequent updates on my tweets as well as be able to read them from Orkut itself. That means they don’t have to be registered on Twitter to follow me and get updates.

Twitkut displays your recent tweets on your Orkut profile page. Besides, it also shows you which all of your friends are using Twitkut so that you can follow them. It shows you their combined recent tweets too. This way you don’t have to follow them separately on Twitter. You can simply read their tweets every time you visit Orkut.

Here are a couple of screenshots:

It makes use of Google’s OpenSocial API as well as Twitter’s Search API to access the tweets. I made use of OpenSocial’s JavaScript API.

OpenSocial is still pretty nescient, especially if you have seen the Facebook API. I was pretty dissappointed at times with the lack of features in the API. For eg., a chief functionality of my app would have been to update the status of the Orkut user with his/her latest tweet. But, the API didn’t allow it.

Another feature OpenSocial currently lacks is that there is no way for the developer to keep track of who or how many users are using his application. I feel this should have been one of the first features that should have been implemented in the API, to allow developers to see analysis of their app usage from within Orkut.

There was one more thing that made me cringe. The Orkut sandbox allows using opensocial 0.8 api whereas prod.sandbox.orkut.com as well as orkut.com only allow opensocial 0.7 at this point of time. Nowhere did they mention this loud and clear. So, I ended up making the app using opensocial 0.8. Then I got to know that I had to use opensocial 0.7 if I wanted to submit my app to Orkut ( ofcourse that’s the reason I am developing the app ) and so I had to make some gruesome changes all over again.

On the brighter side, I was very happy with the response at the Orkut Developer Forum. Jason and others helped me along the way and were kind enough to answer all my queries. Without their response, I would have certainly been unable to develop this app. It also cleared some of my concepts regarding Caching, etc.

All in all, I am pretty happy with the result. I have had nice feedback from people who have already started using Twitkut.

So, if you use Orkut and you are a Twitter crazy person and want to share your tweets with a wider world, you can add the application by going here.

PS: You can follow me on Twitter here -> http://twitter.com/ahujaankit

PollBol is an exciting web app that adds a twist to conventional polling by adding an additional social aspect to it. After making FriendCompare, which was a mashup making use of the Last.fm API, I wanted to make a more independent app that maintained its own data.

Even so, I fully support the idea of making use other apps’ APIs’. It makes it easier for the users to use and it is easier to convince them to use the new app since it builds on the functionality of the more popular webapp. And so, FriendCompare has had comparatively far more visitors as compared to PollBol due to the popularity of Last.fm.

With PollBol, I had to think of a development platform that would allow me to complete the project within my summer vacations. And what better for agile development than Ruby On Rails. It was exciting to use Rails as it divides the entire project into three parts: Models, Views and Controllers. And this makes it easier to plan on the various modules of the project.

I started out with the basic models of Questions, Answers and Users and then added modules as I started getting more comfortable with Rails. It makes it very easy to create Models through migrations. You don’t need to know much of Sql in order to be able to manage data in a database.

Rails also makes it dead simple to create Views for your app, though eventually to make your app look better, you need to have decent CSS skills. Controllers and Views are interrelated. So, for each Controller, there is a corresponding View. The Controller performs all the programming part whereas all the formatting information is contained in the View. Rails also provides Helpers, which help to make Views even more simple and less complicated.

Google Charts API came in handy to display the results of polls.

Though PollBol hasn’t had as many users as FriendCompare, only a handful of people who I really had to convince to help me test the app :p ( thanks Sameer, Neha, etc.), it was a fascinatingly learning and fun experience developing it.

Some of the unique features in PollBol are:

1. You can add additional answers/choices to a poll if you don’t like the available ones

2. You can be friends with other users so you can follow their activity

3. RSS Feeds for public activity, latest polls, popular polls, etc.

4. Commenting on Polls

PollBol hasn’t been tried by too many people yet. Maybe its because I haven’t tweeted or blogged about it. Also, unless its an app as popular as twitter or last.fm, with the social webapps overload, people normally cringe at the thought of registering at a new website ( including me ). Maybe in future, I will allow non-registered users to participate in polling as well as integrating it with OpenID.

Meanwhile, here are a few screenshots for you to chew on:

You can try PollBol at http://pollbol.icedlabs.com

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I just felt like writing today on a hot Sunday evening. A lot has happened over this week and it has proven to be a pretty hectic one for me.

It started off with the boring and passive college, where hardly anything of significance ever happens. You just sit there idle all day and do assignments or talk pointlessly or listen to whatever little the lecturers have to offer. Not only is it enervating, but its also spiritually draining to think that you are spending your entire day doing nothing. The only thing that keeps you going are your friends there.

Then in the middle of the week, my internet connection gave away and it worked like a snail all week, until today. 

And then, yesterday, the bomb blasts took place in Delhi by a group that calls itself the “Indian Mujahideen”. There were 5 of them, though of low intensity, at the busy market places of Cannaught Place, Karol Bagh and Greater Kailash. Though bomb blasts took place sometime back at Bangalore and Ahmedabad as well, these were a little more terrifying as they were a lot closer. 

As of now, 30 people have been said to have died and more than hundred are injured. One really feels sorry for the ones who lost their loved ones to this inhuman incident of terror. This does raise the question, ” Are we doing enough to stop terror ?” I don’t think so. 
What these blasts have done is that they have brought the people closer if anything. It was heartening to see people helping the ones affected by the blasts. 

I have been reading a lot lately. Whether it is weblogs or new words [to improve my vocabulary] or for that matter, course books [really], so I thought, maybe, to be on the opposite side for once. 

Now that my internet is working fine and I have already slept for more than a dozen hours on the weekend, sanity seems to have been restored and my mind is at peace again.

Yes, its called Friendcompare. To describe it simply, it basically lets you compare your musical tastes with your last.fm friends and neighbors.  You just enter your last.fm username and it brings up a list of your friends and neighbors with whom you can compare. Once you choose to compare, it shows you the top tracks, artists, albums, tags, friends as well as recently played tracks that are common between both the users.

Though it isn’t anything huge, I am happy with it. It took some effort, probably more on the design front than the development front :), to get it somewhat pleasing to the eye and yes, functional. But it was a fun, learning experience. On the way, Sameer gave me some brilliant ideas and criticism, for which I am grateful to him. Also, a couple of people at my favorite IRC channal, #think-digit, who gave me criticism and a third-person point of view, and also appreciation :)

As I went on coding and adding new little features, I learnt a lot on creating CSS layouts and programming with PHP. I learnt a lot more CSS tricks which are definitely going to help me out in my next webdesign project ;). And while coding with PHP, I eventually got hints about its object oriented nature and that how it could make expanding the application a very simple task. In future, I would probably like to make use of AJAX to make it a little more web 2.0 :)

You can have a look at this app’s programmableweb profile here.

I have this idea of probably building a facebook or orkut application for it, will it be useful? You can let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile, we move on to bigger and better things :p

I have always believed in astrology since I was in school. Maybe, it was because I was sometimes in a bad mood and it gave me a sense of consolation to know that my horoscope said that I will have low energy levels today.

But the truth of the matter is, I have always been able to connect with my horoscope in one way or the other. It may be because they are so generalized that you can relate to them from several perspectives. But, whether they actually have any meaning or not, they generally do give a sense of optimism and happiness. Thats why I like reading them.

Why am I suddenly talking about astrology? I jumped on to this website, Astrodienst, and was really impressed with its horoscope prediction. Since, I have actually read quite a few of my predictions. They have really neat Personal Daily Horoscope section.

Here’s an excerpt from my prediction for tommorow and I quote here :

Matters of love and affection are uppermost in your mind today. You are conscious of your loved ones and your feelings for them. If other testimonies agree, you might fall in love with someone new. In any case, you are more concerned with love and your relationships than with your own ego. One manifestation of this influence is a pleasant daydreamy mood in which you are not disposed to work, other than creative activity.

Now, you see why I like reading them ;). Now the daydreamyness and love matters might be because my exams just got postponed a couple of days and I am possibly not going to study tommorow.

Update:

Due to persistent requests, I had to replace the earlier image of Bill Gates with that of Linus Torvalds :)

Now the dictionary meaning for the word “Geek” is :
A knowledgeable and obsessive computer enthusiast

Well, I was made to think by my college-mates that I was somewhat of a geek. But all my geek-ego came crashing down late one night when I was up chatting through the IRC.

First of all, even though I like to think I type at a decent speed, I had a hard time catching up with these guys. And I managed to land up randomly on this channel while going through a list of 4000+ IRC channels. Here are some funny excerpts from my chat:

1. On female geeks

<ankit_the_hawk> i have never witnessed a girl geek before
<QwertyM> yeah?
<QwertyM> witnessed?
<d1g1t> seen* met* heard of*
<Filled-Void> hitboxx always witnesses girls >:)
<ankit_the_hawk> lol
<QwertyM> lol
<d1g1t> LOL
<ankit_the_hawk> lol
<ankit_the_hawk> ok ok...never heard of
<ankit_the_hawk> would be the right thing to say
<QwertyM> probably
<QwertyM> if you mean the same
<d1g1t> Rules of the internet : #20934 : no lol' ing twice at the same thing!
<QwertyM> Go to #python and say lol
<QwertyM> they'll kick ya
<d1g1t> pick up line : "help me setup linix on my computer plz"
<ankit_the_hawk> lol yea!


2. On Windows


<ankit_the_hawk> I just found this channel in a list
<ankit_the_hawk> on Mirc
<QwertyM> off 4000 other channels?
<d1g1t> OMG
<ankit_the_hawk> leave my IP alone
<d1g1t> HE USES WINDOWS
<ankit_the_hawk> yea
<d1g1t> HE IS AN OUTCAST
<ankit_the_hawk> now don't kick me for that
<QweryM> TOTALLY
<Learning-Ubuntu> Devil's cape for the Win
<QwertyM> BURN
<QwertyM> CRASH
<d1g1t> THROW HIM IN SOME VOLCANO
<QwertyM> AND BURN

These were the couple of parts I feel everyone would be able to understand. I refrain from posting the more unusual. The reason I was so enthralled was that these guys belong to the same city as I do. And I hardly find any where I go.

After reading them, you will probably understand the scarcity of female geeks and the geeks love for Windows :D

So well, this is one reason, I have started liking IRC. Especially the channel #wordpress is cool where I am able to get my queries answered and one can find lots of like-minded people who are capable of helping you out.

I am in the process of finding more channels for open source development, programming in C/C++, CSS, etc. which are the things that I like to do. And so, IRC is much more than just geek chatter.

The above chat also thrusted me further in my quest to use Ubuntu as a permanent OS :)
The following couple are examples of IRC clients that can be used on Windows:

1. mIRC:

I find it easy to use. Though I was warned by the geeks that it is a ” hotzone for malware, trojans, etc. to enter one’s pc” since it uses p2p. Presently, I use this one but I will definitely crossover in little time.

2. x-chat 2:

This was the one that was suggested to me by them as the replacement for mIRC. I will definitely try it in a couple of days since I have already installed it. Its just a matter of letting go of mIRC. :)

I occasionally do experience this sort of a feeling. It might be when I wake up in the morning and have faint memories of last night’s dream or in one of my subconscious mind states ( sometimes during my long journey back home from college). Recently, after a particularly intriguing 2mins of dreaming in my bus journey back home, I realised it is actually a pretty accurate insight into what you subconsciously actually want.

The Dream

Now, of course, I am not going to tell you what the dream was all about :), but when I connect all the dots ( i.e. all the different events from my life linking up together to form a very intriguing dream :) ), I realize that someway or the other I actually do want those things to happen.

Somehow, the brain manages to pick out all the things you like ( and you thought about them recently ) and then manage to connect them together in a very story-like sequence of events. Now, at this point of time, I actually don’t remember the exact dream ( I perhaps should have jotted it down, it was that interesting ;) ), but I remember finding it very interesting and could easily relate to every single detail.

Example

I will take a small example to make things clearer. Suppose there is a girl you like and then you also love roller coasters and ice cream. And you only recently thought about all the three in the same day at different points of time. You then could have a dream where you go out and you are sitting on a roller coaster with that girl eating an ice cream ;). Now the brain ( at least my brain did :D ) manages to pick up a lot more things and produce a much much more interesting sequence of events.

Cause

Now, I don’t know whether it is because :

1. I am extremely creative, even subconsciously. :D
2. I am just too desperate to have that particular thing.
3. My nerves are so tired due to the daily stressful routine that they have started malfunctioning.

or 4. Its my brain’s way of telling me and reinforcing what is actually my true giver of happiness.

The 4th reason definitely sounds a lot more promising and optimistic :).

I mentioned the 3rd reason because I recently read a small article about removing all the pressure that builds up inside us. It talked about Tai Chi and its ability to relieve stress and improve health. It also said

“The neurological overload caused by lack of rest slows down your ability to think creatively or make accurate observations. Your capacity to send correct signals to your subconscious mind gets diminished. Your subconscious mind is like a slave. It will obey any order you give it.”

Here is the complete article if you would like to read it.

I have been going to college continuously for the last couple of weeks ( i.e. the entire 5 days ) and when you consider the distance I have to travel ( 1.5 hours long single trip ), it probably could be a cause. But, it definitely didn’t slow down my ability to think creatively ;).

It is, perhaps, the latter part of the article text, that talks about the subconscious mind obeying your orders, that holds greater significance. We probably are the author of the entire sequence of events ourselves.

You are welcome to share your views on the topic.

“Haal Pooch Kar Mera, Intezar to Karte, Mera Haal Sun-ne Ka,

Haal Pooch Kar Yun To, Aap Chhedh Sakte The,
Jaise Ghar Tattayon Ka, Phir Bhi Ain Mumkin Hai,
Aap Se Na Keh Paata, Naagawar Sach Batein,
Aur Ram Dohraata, Muskaraa Ke Yeh Kehta,
‘Aap Ki Inaayat Hai’

Phir Bhi Sochtaa Hun Mein, Haal Pooch Kar Mera,
Intezar To Karte, Mera Haal Sun-ne Ka
”

Now in case you are wondering what inspired me to write up this nazm, it was a communication skills workshop conducted by Mr.Ashok Lal of MDI, Gurgaon,India in my college recently. I instinctively liked it and found it very inspiring especially in today’s modern times. This nazm has actually prompted my interest in Urdu poetry and the like.

The meaning behind this nazm is pretty obvious ( i.e. if you understand a bit of Urdu ;) )but still I will state its meaning.

Having asked me how I feel, maybe you could have waited for my answer. It is true that you might have submitted yourself to a tale of my miseries but still its highly probable that I would have repeated the polite ritual of saying “I am fine, Thank You” with a forced smile.The true essence of the nazm lies in the fact that we all are very circumspect while communicating with others, tactfully modifying all our responses so as to make the other person feel cared about as well as keeping ourselves at a distance from their problems.

What I infer from this nazm is that, no matter what, we should try to be true to ourselves, more than to others, and make sure we don’t say something just for the sake of saying it.

Having said that, no matter how hard we try, we are sometimes put into situations where we can do nothing but compromise.

Thats where, I feel, lies the true beauty of this contemporary nazm.