Re: Mobile Athan project

[Ahmad Khalifa <ahmad at khalifa dot ws>]

Abul Kashem wrote:
> as-salamu alaykom,

Salam,

Please use a more descriptive subject line, It only takes 5 seconds
to think about an appropriate subject line.

> I am an Bsc (Hons) Computing Student. I am in my final year and in the 
> process of starting my final year project. please find attached my 
> project proposal.

Don't expect much help if this project is only for your university.
Think about sharing it with everyone,
maybe here on arabeyes (hint hint ;) ?

> i have no idea how to start this project, i am looking at algorhrythams 
> but proven unsuccessful finding information.

I don't think your main concern is the prayer time algorithms, instead
you should be thinking about other high-level issues first like your
target platform, for example.

I have some experience with mobile applications and as I see it, here
are your choices...

1- Mobile website. This would be a website developed in whatever
   server-side scripting language (e.g ASP, JSP, PHP, ...) and produces
   XHTML or WML (similar to HTML but specifically for mobile phones).
   This choice would require a GPRS connection and is not suitable for
   an automatic alarm as in your requirements document. A user would
   need to connect his GPRS and surf to your website, enter the country
   and check the prayer times. Meor mentioned some websites that may
   already have this feature. This choice can be run on most mobiles,
   but costs money every time a user wants to check the prayer times.
   IMHO this is the easiest of the 3 choices.

2- Java Application. This would be an application developed in the Java
   language and would cost the user nothing to check the prayer times.
   It has a wide audience as most mobile makes and models now support
   Java. See http://java.sun.com/ and look for J2ME
   To my knowledge, you cant have a java application running in the
   background, so it can't behave like an alarm clock. You might want
   to either drop that feature or see the third approach. There are lots
   of Java sample code around and would be very easy to implement if you
   know java and can find a java implementation of the prayer time
   algorithms, I think arabeyes has a java implementation of the prayer
   time algorithms, Or was it the Quran library ?!?!?!

3- Platform Specific application. Use a certain platform's OS
   capabilities, if available. For example, Nokia has the Symbian OS
   running on most of its mid to high end phones. You could write a
   Symbian OS application (in C++ BTW) and it could contain all the
   features you wish for, and would allow you to use ITL as it is
   (probably with little modifications to make it compile). But this
   approach would not be able to run on any other mobile phone make
   other than Nokia, and not even ALL Nokia phones. My phone, the Nokia
   6170 does not run Symbian OS. IMHO most people have low-end phones.
   i.e the small ones that're not running Symbian.
   FYI, I heard about Symbian OS running on other makes than Nokia, but
   am not sure.


> I would appriciate any help you could provide to assist with my project.

I think the above should give you an idea about the high-level issues
you need to address first.

Addressing the above platform issues would allow you to be more specific
and concise about "*Distinctive features of the proposed product!*" and
your "Deliverables"


Please do consider starting this as an arabeyes project, or donating
it to arabeyes when you graduate (insha2allah :)
If you can't start this as an open source project and maintain it, then
consider writing an introductory document about mobile development in
arabic or another topic of your choice.

Good luck with your project. Try not to reinvent the wheel and develop
already available applications.

--
Salam,
Ahmad Khalifa