[Finished] Scheduled downtime - 4am to 5am, 17th Aug 08
Posted on August 16th, 2008Dear users,
ApnaBill.com would be undergoing scheduled downtime from 4am to 5am IST on 17th August 08.
We request you to kindly plan accordingly.
Airtel Karnataka and Mumbai coupons are out of stock…
Posted on August 4th, 2008Getting back to the drawing board…
Posted on August 3rd, 2008
Drawing boards are so much more fun than paper’n pencil 
Head on with OpenSocial - Orkut Apps!
Posted on July 31st, 2008Pushing ApnaBill.com into a Zarro Boogs state suddenly gave me the much needed time to start tinkering with other things in the roadmap. Hence the next obvious destination for me was OpenSocial - about which I’ve been hearing for quite some time now, almost everyone I know is writing some sort of social apps (FaceBook or Orkut)… moreover, these apps can bring a whole new sense of visibility to ApnaBill.com.
Thanks to Rohan, I started off with an inclination towards Orkut apps.
I must say, Google has done nice job of documenting the OpenSocial API’s. The starting point was ofcourse Orkut developer docs
- OpenSocial tutorial for Orkut
- Anatomy of an Orkut app
- Orkut Developer Guide
- API’s : OpenSocial, JavaScript and Gadgets
Ofcourse, to use any of these - you need the Developer Sandbox access to Orkut
The docs and the presented examples seem all good - but if you are a first time OpenSocial developer, the disconnect would be very obvious to you - specially how the OpenSocial API’s and Gadget API’s and JS API’s are all connected.
What I understood from all the reading was that OpenSocial is a set of API’s which all conforming web services expose. Each of these web service (Orkut/Hi5/etc) is a Container and each container exposes some proprietary API’s as well. So if you are developing an app which is to be deployed across multiple websites, make sure you do not use any proprietary code.
And what was the best way of understanding the codebase? Read the Examples! All of them! The more you read them, the more you would be able to the connect between all ingredients of OpenSocial API’s.
OpenSocial apps are primarily HTML and JavaScript - styled using CSS. The HTML forms the display of your app while the JS (bulk of your app) helps you fetch and render the data to & fro from your web service (Orkut/Hi5/etc).
There’s something interesting to note here…
Orkut’s sandbox environment requires your app to be stored on a publicly accessible location. That mean, if you have a website where you can host your JS/XML/CSS - you are good to go instantly. If not, try the Google Gadget Editor and save your files on google’s server.
I was lucky when it came to app hosting. Tata Indicom in Pune, gives static public IP’s for postpaid broadband connections. That means if I run apache on my server and dump my app files on /var/www/orkut folder (Ubuntu) then I can edit the files on my local machine while Orkut sandbox environment can fetch them straight from my machine - awesome! Now I get to use my favorite editor… yay!
App’s main view - Canvas
Profile view of the app
As you can see, my app does nothing intelligent - just lists my friends and their details. But what’s interesting is, I can detect at runtime that which view is being rendered - is it app’s main view or is the app being shown in my profile.
Think of this in more productive sense. If I am building an app for ApnaBill.com (lets say), I can display summary or something on the profile view and a more detailed analysis of the same thing in the app view - isn’t that interesting
What’s next? - Giving purpose to my app! 
My example codebase - app.xml, canvas_view.js, profile_view.js
Please replace REPLACE_ME_1 with path to canvas_view.js and REPLACE_ME_2 with path to profile_view.js
Note - I am learning JS as I am proceeding with OpenSocial apps. Please use the above code at your own risk.
Zarro boogs found!
Posted on July 31st, 2008
This is the sweetest possible message Bugzilla can ever show a developer
Tonight, I’ll be syncing live ApnaBill.com with the most stable version we ever had - the operations are still getting formalized but the code-base looks awesome!
If you come across any bug @ ApnaBill.com, feel free to ping us at our support channel - who knows, you might just save the day for thousands of users
Airtel prepaid recharge for Mumbai, Chennai, Gujarat, Karnataka, UP(E) now available
Posted on July 30th, 2008After much wait - Airtel coupons for Mumbai, Chennai, Gujarat, Karnataka, UP(E) are now available.
Coupon listing for various circles is located at http://apnabill.com/operator/show_validity_coupons/airtel
ApnaBill.com is back up, all systems online!
Posted on July 30th, 2008The downtime mentioned in previous post is now over, ApnaBill.com is back online with full capabilities.
Scheduled downtime - 3 AM to 4 AM on 31st August 08 IST
Posted on July 30th, 2008ApnaBill.com would be undergoing minor upgrades from 3 AM to 4 AM on 31st August 08 IST.
More pictures from Proto.in
Posted on July 29th, 2008
Sameer leading ApnaBill.com pitch at Proto.in
Check him out - isn’t he just too much into the presentation?
Taking questions from the audience…
Finally the team together on stage - its so tough to get all 3 in one frame!!!
Sameer, me and Sandy
BTW - the ApnaBill.com Tee’s are ultra hot! I already have the next versions planned…
Requesting users to only use NetBanking for payments.
Posted on July 25th, 2008Lately, there have been some issues with PayMate option at our payment gateway.
Hence we request our users to not to use PayMate on our payment gateway.
We are working with our payment gateway to resolve the issue at earliest.
NetBanking is working perfectly fine - Please feel free to write to us at support[at]apnabill.com for any queries you might have.
