progress dialog while computing

This snippet creates a ProgressDialog and a thread to execute something with an unknown duration (web service as an example). When this "thing" finishes, a message is sent to the parent of the thread to stop the ProgessDialog. 

final ProgressDialog dialog = ProgressDialog.show(this, "Title",

"Message", true);

final Handler handler = new Handler() {

   public void handleMessage(Message msg) {

      dialog.dismiss();

      }

   };

Thread checkUpdate = new Thread() { 

   public void run() {

//

// YOUR LONG CALCULATION (OR OTHER) GOES HERE

//

      handler.sendEmptyMessage(0);

      }

   };

checkUpdate.start();