Bus Navigation and Timing Using Google Maps

Are you new to Winnipeg,Canada?
Starting classes at the University of Manitoba or International College of Manitoba?

This post focuses on how to use google maps for bus navigation for mainly international students as in some countries google maps is hardly used for navigation but in Canada its the main source of navigation let it be for bus or cars. But first if you're a new student to the University of Manitoba you have to do a couple of things:

This Video Shows how to use google maps for bus navigation:

Initial Things To do at University of Manitoba :
*Get your student Id from-4th floor University Center
*Buy your bus pass if you're planning to use bus pass from -1st floor University Center
*Get your health card from-Manitoba Health Center-Address: 300 Carlton Street, Winnipeg,    Manitoba.
* Meet an advisor if you have any confusions about courses

Important Location of The University Of Manitoba:
*Admissions Office-4th floor University Center
*Registration Office-4th floor University Center
*International College Of Manitoba Office -5th floor University Center
*University of Manitoba Bookstore-1st floor University Center
*Food Courts-1st floor University Center
*Autopac Insurance-1st floor University Center

Important Addresses for New Comers:
*Manitoba Health Center-300 Carlton Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
*Real Canadian Superstore (For Groceries)-80 Bison Drive
*Cibc Bank Close to the University-2866 Pembina Hwy (204-944-5119) [Have to take appointment by calling if you're planning to open your bank account]
*Scotia Bank Close to the University- 9 Killarney Ave,Winnipeg,Manitoba (204-985-5196) [Have to take appointment by calling if you're planning to open your bank account]
*Victoria General Hospital-2340 Pembina Hwy, (204-2693570)

Random To Do List- Android App

As part of the dev programming club we implemented this app which will take all the task you want to do and will give you your tasks randomly which will make completing your tasks a little more interesting . We completed the app as a group and we did not use databases to store info, rather we used shared preferences as the amount of info needed to store wasn't huge and also at that time we weren't familiar with android sq-lite data base. The source code for the app is uploaded to git hub. Feel free to check it out and let me know if you could find any 
bugs.

Group Members:
Deep,Alex.

Git Hub

SQL Certification from Sololearn

As I started developing android apps I felt the necessity of storing data. But I had no prior knowledge about Databases. So started learning about My SQL  from Sololearn. They have a nice interface and a very friendly interactive learning platform. It usually follows the videos of  newboston but at the same time has quizzes to test the knowledge instantly. I've been at it for the last 2 weeks and managed to finish it .

Certificate Link: http://www.sololearn.com/Certificate/1060-1489426/pdf/



Some of the concepts I have learned about SQL from the course are mentioned below:

*Introduction to Databases
*SQL Statements: Select
*SQL Syntax Rules
*Selecting Multiple Columns
*Distinct and Limits
*Storing Results
*WHERE Statements
*Filtering with AND,OR
*IN,NOT IN Statements
*Custom Columns
*Functions
*Sub queries
*LIKE and MIN
*Joining Tables
*Types of Join
*UNION
*The INSERT Statement
*UPDATE and DELETE Statements
*Creating a Table
*NOT NULL and AUTO_INCREMENT
*Alter,Drop,Rename a Table
*Views

Extras:
*Quizzes from each of the topics
* Quizzes from a group of topics
*Challenges on all the overall topics

Marks Converter -Android App

Did you ever had to convert your exam marks to a different weightage for example you got 45/50 in your midterm but your midterm is actually 25% of your final so you needed to know how much you got out of 25?If you're a student you might have been doing these conversions of marks more often and it really becomes annoying when you have to do it often. So this app basically does it for you. Just enter your achieved marks & the total and sit tight and let the app do it for you.

The app will calculate it for you how much you got out of different totals. Just making life a little more easier and lazy.

The app is a very simple one but the concept is new cause I couldn't find any app similar to this.

Features of the App:
* The app converts one's marks to different weightages (Usually to the mostly used Totals) 
* The app also has the option to enter own modified totals to convert the marks weightage to.

* The app has a "Contact Us" tab for the users to contact the developer

* The app has an "About Us" tab which has information about the developer

You can help me By:

• Letting me know if you find any bugs
• Letting me know any improvements I can make for the app
• Ways of making the app user interface more user friendly
• New features that can be added to the app
• Any new ideas or concerns regarding the app

Google Playstore Link
Git Hub

Pokemon Go Alike-Beyblade Game Using Augmented Reality

People have gone crazy over Pokemon go through out the last couple of weeks. I tried out  the game and I have developed respect for the technology and the hard work put on the game. Though I don't play the game I can see various use of augmented reality in real life such as trying out new dresses or dresses from online shopping websites using augmented reality.Using this technology one can visualize how the dress would look on them without trying it out. The similar concept can be used for materials used to design the house. I'm pretty sure these technologies are already there and am guessing these uses are under testing and we'll be seeing them soon on the commercial market. 

Lets cut to the main idea of this post. As people liked Pokemon Go in our childhood there was another game which was popular known as beyblade where 2 spinning top toys fight with each other and there are built in powers in the toys from which different powers of beasts come out and fight with each other. As this game was popular and if implemented in augmented reality then people would love to fight with each other with the augmented reality effect and thus it'll also increase socializing among people which I believe Pokemon Go hasn't succeeded that much on. People playing Pokemon go might stand 2 feets to each other and still not communicate. But with the beyblade game they would battle with each other and therefore has to communicate with each other thus making life more social. I currently don't have all the knowledge and skills necessary to make this game but I'm looking forward to it when I have the skills I'll surely give it a try.

Android App-Simple Multi Counter

I have always had interest on android apps. Its a way for me to give physical existence to my ideas. 

I've been using android studio for developing simple android apps. I have developed some simple android apps but always was eager to see how publishing an app on Google Play-store works. So I made a simple counter app just to experience the app publishing system on play-store. 

My app is named under "Simple Multi Counter". The idea is pretty simple , 

Features of the App:

* There are 3 counters which one can use to count elements from passengers on a plane to laps in a         field. 

* Each counter displays separate total  and there's also a Total field which displays the total of all the      three counters.

* The app also features the reset button so that one can easily reset the counters to 0.

* I also added a "Contact Us" tab and a "About Us" Tab in the settings option in the app situated in        the top right corner. These tabs shows my ability to successfully migrate from one activity of the        android to another activity.

Though there are similar apps on play-store I found this app idea a simple one to get familiar with the process of publishing apps on play-store. So I made the app within an hour and tested it for another hour and published it on the play-store.

Feel free to check it out:
Google Plays Store
Git Hub

You can help me By:

• Letting me know if you find any bugs
• Letting me know any improvements I can make for the app
• Ways of making the app user interface more user friendly
• New features that can be added to the app
• Any new ideas or concerns regarding the app

Playing With Guitar-Sia-Cheap Thrills

Just another way I spend my leisure. Playing guitar relaxes my ind and helps me to take my mind off the day-to-day works.

Cheap Thrills By Sia one of my favorites. Tried playing it on guitar on a boring night. Hope you like it:

Made the video for instagram and the video duration limit on instagram is one minute that's why this video's duration is one minute. 

Sketches

Summary:

I'm no where close to being a good sketcher but what keeps me going is the happiness and smiles I see when I sketch someone. It amuses me how easily I can make someone happy by sketching within just a small period of time. To me sketch is the perfect gift to someone and what better way can I spend my leisure than sketching at the same time making others happy .

First to start with I was never an actual sketcher apart from sketching Dragon Ball Z characters and some cool cars. 

I started sketching people just right after grade 12. I got admitted to a university at Bangladesh and was living for Canada right after 2 months. But during my time at the university I made some awesome friends. As it was time to leave I wanted to give them something that would make them happy and also something that they won't be able to buy from stores.

 So I thought why not try and sketch them and gift it to them. So that's how my casual sketches started. Just to note that I tried sketching some of my male friends and lets just say those sketches weren't even close enough to being good cause in all my sketches hair is an important element  to make the sketch look similar to the actual person. So I just sketch females in general. I have sketched my mom, friends, aunts basically anyone I liked and wanted to make them happy.

Some of the sketches I have done :

Wireless Contact Info Transfer

For the last couple of nights have been having sleepless nights and suddenly yesterday night, hit up an idea of a new app. Though it'll be long before I can implement it as it would require a lot of time and a little more learning to do. So the summary of what the app will do is as below:

What will the app do:

As the name suggests it will transfer contact info to people thus helping people to socialize at ease.

Lets think about a situation:

Lets say there are 40 people in a conference or a restaurant and majority of them don't know the contact info of the others, so how would each get info about others? Well one can always go and ask others and note down their contact info right? But doesn't that seem too much work in this 21st century? At least for me I would definitely look for a better and easier solution.

So basically my idea consists of broadcasting a message including their picture over WiFi to share their contact and maybe with an optional security key with 1 digit and everyone present there can open the same app on their phone and receive the broadcast and will receive whatever the info that was sent so in this manner the large number of people could get connected to each other without much hassle where they don't now have to even share the email address manually and the app can be even modified to automatically save phone number from the e-contact card they received from others so that they don't even have to copy the number from the e-contact card and save it manually. This is generally the basic idea of what the app will do. Below mentioned are some of the alternative usage of the apps :

* Can be used to submit resume in a career job fair by just opening the app and finding the desired hot-spot name with the company name and just submit it without even knowing the email address too.

* Can also be used to transfer normal files among users other than just contact info.

* Shops can transfer their contact and address info through this app eliminating the need of business cards.

It make life just a little bit easier right? Well there's apps in the store like share it, zapya to transfer files over WiFi if the extra part which is generating an e-contact card and a better way to broadcast the message than we have a new app in our hand to make our life a little more easier.

Trip To Birds Hill Provincial Park

This is basically my 2nd summer here in Canada. So a trip to Birds Hill Park might be pretty obvious to Winnipeggers but it's been one of the best trips for  me so far. 

This is how I like to enjoy my leisure time not just sitting at home watching movies rather going out with friends and in the process socializing too.

Personally I like to visit places of natural beauty cause I feel peace and relaxed when I'm close to nature and this trip couldn't better. We were 14 people in total for the trip and we bought food before the trip and had our lunch beside the lake. We enjoyed our lunch a lot not because of the food but because of the environment and more importantly because all of us together were having such an wonderful time together gossiping with each other. This might seem a little weird for you depending on your culture but as we all were from Bangladesh we are used to having fun with friends just by gossiping and when we have such a beautiful lake around us what more could someone need?

We also played polo in the water and also swam for about an hour or two. I believe these small and wonderful times are what really matters in our life cause memories are immortal and maybe when I look back at this trip and all the pictures after 10 years the feeling I might get will be priceless and nothing can buy that, cause I believe these little things is what makes our life meaningful and complete.

So we should all learn to value the little things in our life cause all big things and  achievements are just a combination of small small achievements.

#One more awesome memory in the golden bank of memories. 

Efficient Battery Life for Android/Iphone/Windows

Summary: A process by which all the social networking apps like Facebook, viber ,skype can make a single request to the server to check for updated messages  as one so that individual requests for messages can be eliminated so that it'll save battery life of the phone.

Just had an idea today, as an android user I usually use a lot of apps like Skype,viber,whats app,snapchat,line,Facebook messenger and these heavy apps drains most of our smartphones battery. One of the major battery draining reason is synchronization of messages,notifications and for that the apps requests their determined server for data regarding any latest messages,phones or notifications. This is a common activity of all the major social networking apps. My idea is if there was a centralized system integrated to the phone so that for all these similar kinds of apps only a single request is enough to the server to know if there is any new messages or notifications in these apps like facebook,viber ....etc. In this way all the synchronization of messages can be done with only one requests and thus saving a lot of battery life and reducing the pressure of the phone.

Android App: Auto Course Planner

Summary:

The app will automatically compute for you the courses you need to do in the upcoming semesters 

in the most efficient way and relieving you from all the hassle of designing your graduation planning guide.

Saving Interest Calculator For Parents

I believe computer science is a field which can be used to help all categories of people which is one of the inspirations behind me choosing this field for higher studies.

During this semester break I went to visit my parents for a week in Mississauga and during my visit thought of helping my parents keep track of their life's saving by writing a program to manage all that.

So I  wrote a java application for my parents.

What it does?

* Reads bank account info from a text file 

( Can edit all the info's from the text file )

* Calculates the interest rate 

* Then prints out the summary of the amount of interest gained monthly from all the different accounts

* Also separates how much interest in total has been added from the primary amount up till the current date. (The program takes the computer's current date)

Note: The program might seem very simple but it has to take into account a lot of facts, below are some of the problems I faced while developing the program:

GitHub:
https://github.com/ohin94/Savings-And-Interest-Rate-Calculator

Challenges:

*As all the money were invested for bonds and different bonds had different time to maturity had to take that in account 

* As some bonds were bought before  and some were bought after one another so all the calculations had to be managed well to give the right calculation

* As the program was taking the current time from the computer and some bonds time period has already been finished had to stop calculating interest rate for those specific bonds also had to adjust the monthly interest rate as those bonds were not in play anymore.

Design:

* The program takes all the information from a text file so that my parents can change the info without having to change the code which wouldn't have been possible if all the values were hard coded.

* My parents have to just click the run button and enter 1 to generate the summary  text file containing all the updated info about the interest rate and the bank accounts implementing information hiding and encapsulation.

I want to help the people of the  world with my computer science skills. But everything has its beginning and the people I started helping  happens to be my parents and this is just the beginning ........

Java Programmes I wrote At Work

I started my first job at University of  Manitoba  Deft Media Lab in February 2016. The job was under the University of Manitoba Work-Study programme.

Programmes I wrote for the lab:

1. Barcode generator for the DVD's in the lab.
2. Database Management service for the DVD's.
3. Sorting DVD's in the lab.

Though the job was only 2.5 months long I have had an awesome experience working there and learned so many things. I also learned to work with real life data's and how to manage them efficiently. Thus this work experience has given me the taste of becoming a professional programmer.