I am about to begin a fairly simple application, but I want to make sure I structure the backend of the application correctly because I plan to expand on it greatly in the future. Here's my question:
I am creating both a Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 Store application. In this case, it is a unit conversion application where the user is given the ability to define custom unit conversion units. I would like to allow the user to essentially sync those custom units between the two platforms so that they don't need to define them multiple times.
What backend approach should I take?
XML storage coupled with SkyDrive, Azure, a local database that syncs over USB....There are a lot of options, and I'm not sure which way is preferred in the scenario I described above. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
As for actual data sharing I would suggest using Azure, which is a bit more reliable and also transparent for the user (as opposed to a local db syncing over USB) and cleaner than XML-files in SkyDrive (the user doesn't need to see these files anyway).
As for code sharing you could use two techniques:
Portable Class Libraries
Linked Files
I have recently written two articles on this:
http://www.kenneth-truyers.net/2013/03/27/portable-class-libraries-or-source-code-sharing/
http://www.kenneth-truyers.net/2013/02/24/patterns-for-sharing-code-in-windows-phone-and-windows-8-applications/
It doesn't actually have to be Azure, if you are shooting for lower price range. You can also choose a webhosting and use build a WebAPI service, which will help you sync your data and put them on all devices. Of course, Azure is being preferred as the ultimate solution, because it offers much more features.
I have used windows 8 roaming data support for one app. In my case, data is simply the history of user operations in the app and data size is < 1k. windows 8 roaming data support can support up to 100k of data as per documentation and is a good start for w8 apps with very low investment. it covers for all w8 devices. it is certainly good for simple key/value pair kind of data for user.
Now the caveats - currently, it does not support windows phone roaming currently. It is a feature ask for phone 8 - it can be voted up. Finally, this will not roam to android and other mobile devices.
Another way to think about it - when do you need to build it?
If it is simply per user data storage - backend need not come in place in first release. You can start with w8 roaming data support and in future release x, it can be moved from windows 8 roaming data to skydrive or your web api or azure. what I mean to say, it need not be built affront.
If the backend is going to allow sharing of data between users or experience over aggregated data from multiple users - then, it is all together different problem. in that case, roaming data is not a solution. a backend web api or service is must.
HTH.
Other references: guidelines for windows 8 roaming data.
Related
Last year, I developed a simple Angular-Express-SQLite based application for a local Warehouse(Logistics Hub) which was used to keep track of daily incoming and outgoing trucks with information like their weight, origin, etc. and I deployed the app on an offline desktop.
Everything went well until I came to know that the computer operator of the Warehouse resold the app to other Warehouses for a decent amount.
Now, the first Warehouse owner has contacted me again with some changes in the app with some crucial inputs as per the new guidelines from the government, I'm looking for some solution to prevent the app from getting stolen again.
I'm looking for a solution that is as light in size as possible because of the type of desktops the app runs on are way too cheap(with lowest possible configuration), hence the choice of SQLite instead of some other Database providers.
The app should be deployed in such a manner that it can't be copy-pasted from one machine to other. It could be achieved by simple, not so secure methods too as the operators aren't that tech-savvy and only know the bare minimum knowledge about Computers, like copy-paste.
So I came across a low-level workaround since I'll be the one who'd set up the application on the client machine.
While initialising the application, an encrypted entry in the database could be set up with the name of the computer by reading the environment variable using express/node.
process.env.COMPUTERNAME
Or using some other system variable unique to that particular Computer and then comparing the stored value and current value on every login.
As Joachim already said in his comment, if the App has internet access, you can check for a license-key or something similar on a server.
Perhaps something like PKG can help, which compiles your sources into a single executable file. PKG on npmjs
Other than delivering the windows 10 app in the Windows Store, is there any other way to deliver it?
The objective is that, when I turn on the laptop/device (out of the box experience), I want the Windows 10 app already factory installed, so the user does not have to "download" the app from the Windows Store.
Is there some "backdoor" that I can preload the windows 10 app while burning the windows 10 image to the laptop/device?
Thanks!
If you're creating the image that is applied to the machines at the factory you can include it when creating the image.
There are various types of apps and many types of licensing though.
Typically people ask for this type of thing as part of an enterprise deployment scenario. If that's what you're after then a provisioning solution once removed "from the box" is probably more appropriate. There are MDM and linked ActiveDirectory solutions for provisioning apps and device configuration. I suggest you start by looking for such.
Update
If not an enterprise scenario, how would you already have the apps on the machine when you take it out of the box? I think what you're really after is a way to set up the machine when you take it out of the box. For that I'd recommend chocolately as an easy way of getting a machine set up how you want it.
In terms of the types of apps you are installing there are different considerations for services, win32 apps and windows store apps. What you are installing and how you create an image can have different consequences.
There are many scenarios regarding licensing but consider an app that is licensed on a per machine basis. If you created an image for machines as they come from the factory (typically enterprises do this when buying a lot and want an easy way to have them preconfigured) then you can't put the same single use license on all machines.
I am looking to create a simple mobile agent system which will deal with 4 tasks, i.e 4 different mobile agents jobs: Database update, meeting scheduling, network services discovery and kernel update.
I have done my research and have seen different frameworks such as Aglet, Jade, agent builder etc. My question is which one should i use? Also i need to setup the base code for it to work, can someone point me to a site or help me to setup the basic functions of the mobile agent?
I've read about tahiti server for the Aglet model. I'm quite confused about how to set up the mobile agent system. Any help would be much appreciated.
I have also tried to it using RMI. I had created a method of type agent, but i couldn't pass it through remote method implementation. I was reading about tcp and udp socket programming. I was thinking may be it would be more fair to do it using socket programming. In this case, would this be called an agent? I was thinking about the server sending datagram packets to multiple clients.
You need to ask yourself why you want to use mobile agents at all. The notion of a mobile agent was popular in the agent research community in the early 90's, but fell out of favour because (i) it wasn't clear what problem it was solving, (ii) the capability to allow arbitrary code to migrate to a particular computer and execute with enough privileges to access local data and services is very open to abuse, and (iii) all of the claimed benefits of mobile agents can actually be achieved though web services (REST or otherwise) and open data formats such as RDF. Consequently, few, if any, mobile agent platforms have been properly maintained since the early experiments.
It also sounds as though you need to be clear which end-user problem you want to solve. Scheduling a meeting and updating my kernel are very different tasks - I'd be very uncomfortable with a program that claims do both. If your interest is in the automation of system maintenance tasks, such as DB tuning and kernel patching, on large networks you might want to look at the SmartFrog project, or read up on autonomic computing.
I use JADE and I agree with the first guy, agent systems usually take alot of overhead to going so if you can avoid it, please do. If however you choose to proceed choose a platform with alot of support and a big user group.
Jade has some neat features like a directory facilitator DF, which works like a yellow pages so other agents don't have to know what agents are running and what services are supplied they can simply inquire by the DF.
Also JADE ContractNetBehaviours help simplify communication.
I'm working on a project for teachers and students to be able to have a medium to interact with one another using Azure as a medium for content delivery. However, since this is basically a free service (and a non-profit site), not every teacher can buy a copy of Encoder Pro to encode their streams.
This is where I'm at a crossroads and not sure what path to go down. I want teachers to be able to stream their desktops and interact with students, probably using the MSN chat services or facebook chat services since it's infrastructure that I don't need to pay for. However, additionally the question is how do they capture their desktop? And would Azure be able to convert that into a "smooth streaming" file, so that people with lower bandwith connections can see the stream reliabily? I know Azure can function as a CDN, but I'm not sure if it can do the conversion to live smooth streaming so that students can actually make use of the service.
Any ideas would be helpful.. I'm kind of brainstorming right now and working on the client end of things, but I've slowed down until I can figure out this problem.
Thanks!
To answer part of your question, Azure recently added a Media Services component. It's still in preview mode (free for now). Think of it as a hosted Expression Encoder Pro exposed with a bunch of APIs. For more info https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/media-services/
I'm sure many of you are familiar with the IBM i5 series emulator (looks like this poop)
My company uses this religiously and there is no Biz logic in it so anytime somone in our finance dpt makes a human error it accepts it and adds it to the database. Not to mention its ugly, hard to use, not intuitive, etc....
I would like to create a frontend for this interface so that we can control the logic before its submitted to the system (we dont control the system itself) so in effect I need to make my own emulator app.
However I cant seem to find any information on how to interface with the i series, namely login, send commands, and view or gather data from the screens it would normally send back.
Any suggestions?
The problem is not the iSeries but the software package your company is running on it.
There ARE advantages to use green screens: it's fast and it's almost unbeatable at data entry, provided you get used to it.
But to answer your question, the iSeries is a J2EE enabled machine: a HTTP server comes installed and depending of the version of the iSeries, WebSphere might be already installed, or are entitled to install it. Then you can use JT400, which is the java toolkit for the os400 containing the jdbc drivers to connect the database and the necessary classes for calling programs.
If you prefer php, there is a flavor of the Zend framework made to work on the iSeries but I never tried it.
I'd recommend that you take a look at both the Attachmate Verastream Host Integrator (VHI) and IBM's Host Access Transformation Services (HATS) products. They effectively just screen scrape the green screen terminals to allow you to pull and push data and provide macro recording and editing tools to automate the process. App integration can be achieved via web services or html/jsp/servlet programming (plus .Net for VHI and EJB's for HATS). They do come with enterprise pricing however which may be an obstacle for some. They do have free trial offerings for evaluation purposes to help determine if they are an appropriate solution to your problem.
What software packages are they using? Most programs that I use in the 5250 emulator has some business logic that error checks the data before adding it to the database. Can you get us some more information so we can direct you in a better direction.
There are vendors that sell products that screen-scrape the 5250 data stream and produces a web front-end. Or you can write your own front-end in the language of your choice and just do SQL calls to the database.
THere's got to be some source code. Start by looking at the menu and menu option your users are accessing and figure that's running behind them.
Use command STRPDM to look for source code - look in different libraries (they are like folders)
You might have source code in a "member" called something like xxxMNUSRC xxxRPGSRC (rpg program source) or xxxCLSRC (cl programs), xxxDDSSRC (display/screen source, physical/logical file source)
Objects a "compiled" objects such as files (tables), screens, priter files (reports)
Stay away from Qxxx and #xxx libraries - those are system libraries.
http://systeminetwork.com/ is a good resource for iSeries related questions.