Perpetually Perplexed

Simon was a popular game in USA in 80s and 90s.  The device has four colored buttons, each producing a particular tone when it is pressed or activated by the device. A round in the game consists of the device lighting up one or more buttons in a random order, after which the player must reproduce that order by pressing the buttons. As the game progresses, the number of buttons to be pressed increases. There are some apps in google play which try to replicate the game. So does my my app - memorypro. As this is also memory colorful and melodious (almost) memory. Here is me playing simon game in my memory pro - not so well.  Well, I personally like playing Simon game as it appeals to one more sense, that of auditory. You can see and decide by downloading the app from google play

Finally an endless trial and error of UIs, background, buttons, fonts is ever. This is not how I am supposed to announce the new release of my app, right? OK, I have renamed my app - Shataka to "Hundred- a number game". To appeal to more users. One major change (other than the name ) is the simplicity of the game. The initial levels have many solved cells. In level 1, Out of 9 cells, 6 are already solved for you. How is that for simple game? And also there is a tutorial. Not just text with images. The actual step by step instruction to play the game. Download the game at least now. I am sure you will love it.

When you are in a difficult situation, you need a friend. That's what every one says. And I have one. The books. They talk to me endlessly. In a language I am fond of. They converse in my wavelength. They do not  try to condemn and insult me. On the whole, they make me feel that there is some one who still understands me. So this book by Saul Bellow is about a strange closeness between the narrator and his uncle Benn. Kenneth has a womanizing father. Having put up with this nature for many years Kenneth's mother leaves him and goes to Africa as a volunteer. Rather than a Casanova father, Kenneth feels his unworldly scientist uncle understands him. So he leaves Paris and moves to America to stay close to his maternal uncle. His Uncle is caught in a Maya in the form of a woman. Kenneth wants to save his uncle but is unable. I have realized that I should restrict my reading to few authors whom I really like. And Saul Bellow is certainly one of them. I am still ...

I was happily writing my C programs. Then... Then at some bad moment I took out this. I thought I will make this app "Shataka " better. The app is already good. It is fun, it is good for your brain and is easy. But I only need to get more people to download it. :). Not an easy task. Don't you agree. Especially when I am the only person in the marketing team. Me!! So I thought I will make the app more user friendly and easier in the initial levels. So I started tweaking the app. And gave only 3 numbers to solve in level1. And 4 to solve in next level etc. That was not so tough, once I imported the app. The tougher part was UI. Some thing told me that the background and other colors are not standing out and as this is a game, they should. So I started experimenting. Lot of google image searches, some GIMPs, changes in xml file. Then run in the app on phone and see. Not happy.  Change some background colors, change some xmls and repeat. So this repe...

OK. Am I euphoric? Not so much. Should I be euphoric? We have a proverb in Kannada "aaru varshada hudugi muuru bele suttugondu tindidlante. Any how. So I today published the app Financial Calculator to google app market.  It all started after I completed my C++ app. I was running out of ideas. What apps can I develop with my limited resources and one woman team. So I asked suggestions from my family which is feasible for me? music player or FD manager. The unanimous vote was for the latter. This the app was originated. Then the app was moving on my typical snail-ish pace. It would have taken an year at least for me to complete the app. Not because it is very tough. Because I do not give my 100% to it. Then my friend helped immensely. She would give suggestions, ask me to work more and faster. I am extremely thankful to her for this help. Of course there are lot of improvements to be done. UI improvement, adding SIP, adding google and facebook integration etc. Have a...

Even I take a lot of time to solve this level. See the sum of rows and columns should be some 3 digit number. Not even thousand. Because rounding to zero is easier. And I decline to use a calculator for finding solution. I don't want to use pen and paper either. And I strongly believe that even though I am quite weak in many useful things, in arithmetic I am quite strong. So I shataka it out. Try out and let me know when you clear this level.

So now when I feel like watching TV, I instead start reading a magazine - any magazine. How many magazines do we buy? Zero. But I read them using my own app " Indian newspapers and magazines '. The Indian way - free. :) Most often I read current affairs magazines. India today, Frontline, Tehelka etc. Then some days I even try reading some fashion magazines. But I am not inclined towards them.  Too old to look fashionable    Then I even browse through newspapers, so as not to be seeing only one side of a news-story. If I have some time and I am in calmer mood, I even try to read some Hindi poems. I can say my life is some what enriched by this app. Though not riched :)

I wrote earlier two posts about my two games Shataka and MemoryPro.  Today I downloaded my older and more popular app - Indian Newspapers and magazines  . I am not at all enthusiastic about writing about this app. Because it is free and also ad-free. Very sad, but true. The app has different categories such as science and technology, business, entertainment. It also has a large collection of Indian English magazines and local language magazines. And of course all of these are completely free. Most of them do not even require registration. You can save the articles for off-line reading. So may  be give it a try and download it from here   And the app is less than 1 MB in size. But once I add advertisements, the size will be slightly larger. 

It has been a long time since I played my game Shataka Shataka is a number game which all brainy geeks will love. Aim of the game is to place numbers in cells like sudoku. But the difference is you need to place the numbers in such a way that the total of a row and total of a column is 100. Here is an example. In this image, first column needs one number. Can it be 2? It can not be. Because then the sum will be 61. Not 100. Can it be 9? No. The correct number in first cell is 41. This completes first column. 41, 23, 36. The total is 100 For first row, now we have 41 and 43. To complete 100, we need 100 - 41 - 43 which will be 16. So we drag and drop 16 in first row second column. You continue this way until all cells are filled. Currently I am at level 20. Ha. In this level, the total of rows and columns should be 1000 instead of 100. Way to go, genius!! You can download the shataka app here  .

There is no such thing is a free lunch. It is almost true. Figuratively at least. People give you free something and they will always expect something in return. Like politicians who want your votes. But literally? It may not be so. At least not in our country. There are free lunches available - no return favor expected. Example one: you go to any temple town in south India. (May be in north India too. I don't know) If you go during lunch hour and don't mind standing in the queue, you can eat healthy, hygienic ( and   prasada - religious offering to God) food. Free. No questions asked. Example two: Here I have to take you in a time machine 40- 45 years backwards. In our ancestral villages, if any one went to a house during noon time, he would be offered food. They would consider it a ethically wrong to send person without food during noon time. Remember we are talking about times where transportation was very difficult. Not every one had a car or a two wheeler. They ha...

Finally I have published C++ app. The name is "C++ notes". And you can download it here Unlike my C Interview questions app this app has short notes on each topic along with objective and programming questions.  Please remember that it is not a substitute for a good book. But can be used as a quick reference. So you or your kids need some help with C++, I am there. Sorry, my app is there. And one more thing. I have gone through the material many many many times. But still there could be errors and even typos and grammatical mistakes. Please send these errors to me at hegde002@gmail.com I need to start on my next ground breaking app. Ha ha.  

Finally, at last I have published the update to memory app. Well this certainly is a good app for keeping your brain active. There are 4 games in the app. One is for face memory. One is classic cards memory and the other two are patterns memory and Simon. Simon is one game I am fond of.  The game has 4 colored buttons which glow in a sequence. And each of these produces a unique sound. You need to remember the sequence and repeat it. May be because of music notes, it appeals to me. I tried adding some tabla sequences instead of the usual saa, re, ga etc. But it was not sounding good. And there were some glitches in face memory too. Initially I added some politicians and authors faces. Then was worried about any copy right issue. Finally I settled for cartoon faces. So they may not be cute or pretty.  In faces game, you will see a set of faces and then one face is replaced. You need to identify the changed face. What are you waiting for download the app tod...

We are all chauvinistic about our mother tongue. It does not matter that we do not watch TV shows from that language, do not read from our language, do not speak in that language outside our homes. But we are chauvinistic. So I decided our other brethren and sistern (!)  will feel same and decided to add paper names in their own languages. No, I do not know how to write all 13 official languages of India. Nor can I read them. But apna google hai na. Using its input tool for transliteration, I did write all paper names in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarathi etc. Next stage was testing. Not a very pleasant stage for any app. For this app, testing was horrendous (too strong?) I am supposed to click on paper name and view the paper on mobile screen. But when I do not know what is the name and what paper is shown on screen, what do I test for. All I can see is kaake kaalu gubbi kaalu (feet of crow and sparrow ). I would rather have my app not cool than have an app which shows wro...

The latest mode of attack seems to be ad networks. I am not talking about attack by our country. I am talking about attack in my life - real or perceived. I have one news app which has considerable downloads. And I used to get some ad revenue from that app. Some reward for all the effort I am putting. Till August. In august suddenly admob network by google decided to stop sending ads to my app. Writing multiple mails to them did not help. OK. Like any other frustrated person, I decided to leave google and use some other ad sdk. But funnily enough, after adding sdk and testing the ads for a day, this network too started showing an error in the dash board saying my app url is wrong. I am unable to fix that. So the attacker - hacker wants me to develop more magnanimity. He wants me to learn about nishkama karma - work without expecting any returns. So be it. So be it.

Happy days are here again friends. I finally completed Shataka and published it just now. Am I cricketer? If you ask that question, you have not seen me. Shataka is not in this case, a century in cricket game we all want in India-Pakistan match. It is my game - a simple puzzle where you need to add numbers to a shataka. This is release 2.0, so just tweaking. And that took me what appeared like ages. You see in the image that columns 2 and 3 have a total of 100 and row 2 also has a total of 100. By moving 23 to last row, that row will have total of 100. By moving 62 to first row, the game will be won!!   See the game is interesting. Hope you all will download the game and rate it according to your liking(at least 4 stars )

In Kannada when one challenges, he/she says "nanna hesaru ABCD nee alla" or "nanna hesaru badalayistiini."  if he/she loses challenge then his/her name will be changed. I did not lose any such challenge. But I am having identity crisis. Identity crisis - at 50? Instead of midlife crisis? (Or midlife crisis is only male phenomenon?)  (I think), people do not know what I do with my laptop the whole day. What would an old woman do with a laptop whole day? So I want to tell everyone that I am a developer and my apps are really in android app market.  So in the android market I have modified my developer name to Usha Hegde from Bilekal Hegde. Bilekal was never my name. Bilekal is a tiny village in  Karnataka, India where my fore-fathers lived.  So if you want to look up my apps (I hope you want to), search for Usha Hegde in google play. And do download the apps and give some helpful review and support me :)

We all love news. And juicier, the better. So to know the latest news on your android phone, download latest version of my "Indian newspapers and magazines". Well, the new version has many more magazines and many more science sites. It also has more regional language papers. Best feature is you can keep only those papers which you need, on the screen. Do I sound like those bold lettered, capitalized irritating advertisements we all hate? Kya kare, I need to advertise my app. As I am the whole and sole of hegdeapps . Manager, CEO, CFO, coder, team lead, ui designer, HR and sweeper. :) So check my app. And let me know your opinions.