Magical Messages

"Once upon a time, a nervous student sat down for lunch with his/her lunchbox. As s/he opened the lunchbox, s/he found a piece of paper inside on top of the food. The paper said, 'Good luck on your exam!' The student began to feel much better about the exam and thanked his/her parents for the sweet note."

When I first read this story, I thought, "Wow, that's so sweet! I can imagine feeling wonderful after finding a surprise note like that, even more so right before an exam!"

I don't receive notes like these very often and I felt that writing my own notes wouldn't be as effective in terms of the emotional delivery when I opened my "surprise" notes.
People would benefit with more words of encouragement and positive messages in their lives, especially during critical times (before an exam, meeting, interview...etc).

Something that can automatically send positive messages to you and your loved ones out of the blue...that is what inspired Magical Messages, my first "code" project.

---

First, I started with a tutorial. The end product of the tutorial was similar to what I had in mind for Magical Messages -- when you're starting something new, using a tutorial that produces something close to your desired finished product is very, very helpful.

I finished the tutorial, resulting in a "Magic 8 ball" type app. Great! Now, the fun begins.

The most important thing -- obviously, the colors. Beige, black, and blue, much better than before. Cleeeeaaaaaaaaaan.

Get rid of the 8 ball messages and replace them with my personal words, lessons, and messages. Done.

Add a share button that lets users share the messages with their contacts. Ok, that didn't work. This also didn't work. Oh! I'll try this...I tried it.
Ah,
Got it.

Let's test it. Gotta send a message to my parents first so they know I'm putting my knowledge to good use.
Woah,
It
Sent.

Woah.

I have in my palm an app. An app that I just built. An app that adds positivity to this world. 

"This is what I was supposed to do."

One idea, a tutorial, lots of Google, many failures, not giving up, and nine hours later, Vivek Bhookya presents:
Magical Messages, the premier, highly-scalable (cough), homemade Android app!

---

Amazon Echo is a device that speaks to you. Reading positive texts is great, but hearing positivity takes it up several notches.

Creating the Alexa skill wasn't as difficult as creating the Android app. The hardest part was starting the project, however.

There were very little tutorials and code samples to follow from and it was quite difficult to understand what exactly the code was doing and how it worked -- but, what isn't confusing at the first experience?

I found a tutorial that reads out facts, rotated them for my premier, highly-coveted, deluxe suite of positive messages, and, 

"Alexa, magical messages."

---

Perfect. What else can I do?

---

The dreams we have are wonderful. Imagining them coming true brings such ecstasy to us, but some of them are difficult. Some of them seem impossible. Some of them, we are too afraid to even try.

After seeing what I envisioned in my head in my palm, I realized that anything imaginable is possible, at least in terms of software. We all must dream big, and pursue them with efforts greater than ever before. A n y t h i n g you visualize can be what you see in your true visuals...I stand by this statement after having brought several ideas of mine to life with much more to come.

Everyone might not like to code, but anyone can. If you have an idea that requires any software, you should do it, even if you don't know how. You will fail for sure and run into many "impossible" problems -- did you think it would be easy to accomplish the marvelous dreams that fill your wonderful mind? 
They aren't supposed to be easy. Let your vision drive you through the finish line. Imagine how good you'll feel knowing that you contributed something permanent to the world, something that can make the world a better place forever after now. 

Now, get to a point where you don't have to imagine anymore.

---

Thank you for reading! I will be writing more posts about my projects and the processes I've taken to bring them to reality.
I hope to hear from you in the future about something you've made.

All the best,
Vivek

{

Magical Messages on Android!

Magical Messages on Alexa!

}