IS4401

1. IS4401 Project Technology Issues, Part 2

2. Introduction This seminar covers • Development Tools • Web hosting services • Payment processing • Mobile technologies • SMS Gateways • Bluetooth • RFID • GPS • ‘Phone blogging

3. NetBeans 5.5/5.5.1 • Integrated IDE for Java development • Supports Standard, Mobile and Enterprise Java • A lot of new tools for Mobile, Web Services and SOA • Available in labs • Loads of info available from:http://www.netbeans.org • Java SE 6 available from:http://java.sun.com/

4. I want to develop at home! • Visual Studio 2005 available free from BIS Tech Support • NetBeans 5.5 and Java 6 SE available free from Sun • Databases (Oracle 10i XE, SQL Server 2005 Express, MySQL 5.0) available free, as mentioned two weeks ago • If you want to run IIS, you need Windows XP Pro – not free! • But Visual Studio 2005 includes a small development web server

5. I want to develop at home! • Suggest you back up your PC or laptop before installing development tools or databases • Your PC will slow down and uninstalling can be tedious and messy • No harm to have 2Gb of RAM • NetBeans 5.5 is SLOW to start up • Especially in lab environment • Even on dual-core PCs!

6. Briefly… • PHP • Easier than ASP.NET 2.0, apparently • You can get LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) downloads free but you need your own PC • Ruby, Python and AJAX • Supported on many platforms • Available as free extensions to VS2005 • AJAX extensions installed in Labs • Perl • Dreamweaver, ColdFusion, Flex … • And lots more …

7. Plagiarism • A lot of the technogies discussed here require the use of APIs provided by 3rd parties • Students need to: • Discuss the use of external code with their supervisor in advance. • Supervisors will have veto rights if it is felt that the proposed contribution of 3rd party code outweighs significantly the work of the student

8. Plagiarism • Students need to: • Clear any s/w licence issues with Bob if it involves installing software on BIS hardware • Acknowledge in their documentation areas where they have used code from 3rd parties (such as mobile phone emulators, API's, mobile utilities etc.) and not try to pass it off as their own!

9. Web hosting services • Loads of hosting services available • Pick one that suits the technologies you want to use • Organise hosting early in your project • Examples • http://www.webhost.ie/ • http://www.brinkster.com/ • http://www.blacknight.ie/ • http://www.hosting365.com/

10. Web hosting services • What’s the cheapest? • Shop around – some services do basic hosting deals for €90 pa • Do a Google search on web hosting on http://www.google.ie • Keep your client’s needs in minds • Should be possible to upgrade hosting package if traffic volume increases

11. Web hosting services • Sample services and prices • Webhost.ie - €89+VAT pa for Windows 2003 Server +ASP.Net 2.0 + MySQL + DreamWeaver + FrontPage • Blacknight.ie - €35 pa for Linux + PHP + Perl + MySQL + FrontPage • Hosting365.com - €39.75 pa for Windows + ASP.NET 2.0 + MySQL. €39.95 for Linux + PHP + Perl + MySQL. • Brinkster.com – As little as $4.95 pm but check features carefully. Also $4.95 pm applies to 24month contract. • FREE Hosting • Check out http://www.aspspider.net/ • ASP.Net 2.0 + Windows 2003 Server + SQL Server 2005 Express • Low storage limits and traffic volumes

12. Web hosting services • Some hosting services, e.g. http://www.webhost.ie, will allow you to publish ASP.NET 2.0 websites directly using Visual Studio 2005 • Easy! • But it ties you to .NET technology • Demo follows …

13. Payment processing • Numerous service providers • Eg http://www.realex.ie • A lot require merchant accounts • Your customer has to have this already, otherwise beyond scope of FYP • Best option is probably PayPal • Merchant account not needed. • See http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_merchant-outside • Then click “Website Payments Standard”

14. Mobile technologies • SMS Gateways • Bluetooth • RFID • GPS • ‘Phone blogging

15. SMS Gateways • Clickatell • http://www.clickatell.com • Pros • HTTP and XML APIs • Cheap and works well • Cons • XML API is not well documented • Also XML implementation is non standard • Should be a proper web service • No developer support !!!!!  

16. SMS Gateways • Clickatell Demo • Using XML API • Need to do an HTTP POST of a quasi-XML document • Hard to find decent code for it • There is a C# example here: • http://forums.clickatell.com/viewtopic.php?t=292 • Should be easy enough to convert to VB.NET

17. SMS Gateways • Clickatell Demo • Small Windows App

18. SMS Gateways • Clickatell Demo • Small Windows App

19. SMS Gateways • Where can I get code? • C# code available from: • http://forums.clickatell.com/viewtopic.php?t=292 • Tested working – I used it • Provides method as follows: • public string SendSMS(string phonenumber, string message) • Returns a string with XML response • Use code from post at bottom of page

20. SMS Gateways • Clickatell – things to note • XML API provides all sorts of useful methods • Eg bulk SMS, MMS, ringtones • Two-way SMS will cost considerably more • Payment process is a bit clumsy

21. Bluetooth • What is Bluetooth? • Short-range two-way wireless technology • Mainly used in mobile ‘phones • Typical 10m-30m range • Pairing required prior to use • Not suitable for apps where transient, brief radio contact is required

22. Bluetooth • Programming withBluetooth • You need … • A Bluetooth dongle • A Bluetooth API • Java: https://btutil.dev.java.net/ • Python: http://lightblue.sourceforge.net/ • Other APIs available. Not all are free.

23. RFID • http://www.phidgets.com • RFID kitfor CAN$90 • USBinterface • .NET andJava APIs

24. GPS • Global Positioning System • Satellite Navigation • Typical 5-15m accuracy • Location-awareapplications • Vehicle tracking

25. GPS • Most GPS devices support the NMEA 0182/0183 protocol • See http://www.nmea.org/pub/0183/ and http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter/nmeafaq.txt • Connect to PC via serial port • APIs • For example: • http://www.sharewareconnection.com/titles/nmea-0183.htm

26. Sample NMEA Sentence GGA - Global Positioning System Fix Data GGA,123519,4807.038,N,01131.324,E,1,08,0.9,545.4,M,46.9,M, , *42 123519 Fix taken at 12:35:19 UTC 4807.038,N Latitude 48 deg 07.038' N 01131.324,E Longitude 11 deg 31.324' E 1 Fix quality: 0 = invalid 1 = GPS fix 2 = DGPS fix 08 Number of satellites being tracked 0.9 Horizontal dilution of position 545.4,M Altitude, Metres, above mean sea level 46.9,M Height of geoid (mean sea level) above WGS84 ellipsoid (empty field) time in seconds since last DGPS update (empty field) DGPS station ID number … Easy to decode!

27. Mobile ‘phone blogging • Use your mobile ‘phone to upload photos to a Web site • Supported by www.flickr.com • Requires Java-enabled mobile‘phone with internet access. • Or use ‘phone withmobile email account.

28. Amazon Web Services • Includes, but not limited to: • S3 (Simple Storage Service) • Really heap high volume online storage • EC2 – Elastic Compute Cloud • Easily accessible remote computing capacity • The Mechanical Turk • “… A marketplace for work that requires human intelligence. The Mechanical Turk web service enables companies to programmatically access this marketplace and a diverse, on-demand workforce. Developers can leverage this service to build human intelligence directly into their applications.” • http://aws.amazon.com

29. Other Ideas • Mashups • Aka hybrid web apps • A website or web application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience • Interesting combination of mobile and web technologies • Google Earth • Check it out!