Is it possible to have a free web-service that would check a page and email its HTML code to me? - email

I just asked a question about whether it was possible to write a web-page-checking code and run it from free web server, and one supporter answered and said that it was possible and suggested that I used Google App Engine service.
But he also said that there are no files there, so I would have to work with their database.
I wonder, if there is no such feature as creating files on that free web server, then is it possible to run from that free web server a code that would check a web-page every once in a while, record its HTML code, and mail it to my mail box?

It is totally possible on Google AppEngine.
I am not sure by you mean "no files" on GAE: there is definitely access to files but in "READ ONLY" mode.
What you have to do is fetch the remote WEB page (through urlfetch API) and use the email API to send it.

Related

How do open source/free software applications handle the client_secret in oauth? (Without a web server)

I am making a tiny desktop application for my personal use. (Also for a few of my friends.) As part of this application, I am using OAuth 2 to access some of Google's APIs.
I want to eventually upload this to a server where potentially anyone could download it. So I can't just bundle the client_secret with the application.
So, I would like to know, how do open source applications that share there entire source code deal with this?
I could just require users to get their own client_id from google. But that's a bit of a cumbersome process, and I would ultimately end up writing a scraper to do it automatically, defeating the purpose, also it would be very brittle.
Alternatively, there is this question where the answer is to run your own server to act as a middle agent. However, because this is only a small app I'm doing for me and a few friends, I don't really want to manage a server just for this, and even if I did, it certainly would be fairly unstable.
In short, are there any solutions here that
allow me to put my source code on the internet,
don't require me to run my own server, and
don't require my users to go get there own 'client_id' after they've already downloaded my desktop application, or require me to make a web scraper that does it for them?

fetching a file from a url for mobile app: How to manage server side running Joomla?

Im new to website development and design so apologize in advance if the question is redundant.
I have a program where a client, using a URL string fetches a XML file from a webserver. This would be no problem right if it were a simple URL with no security or no CMS (like Joomla) involved: Just put the exact URL string and the client gets the file from the web server, done.
But, how would the process work if the URL is on my site hosted on GoDaddy and using a Joomla CMS?
Im trying to understand how the same process of fetching a file works on a hosted server using a CMS. Since I just made the transition from my site being on my school's servers to having a Joomla website Im hosting on goDaddy.
I mean where would I put the file if I also want the file to be accessible only if the client authenticates itself first. Just to be on the safe side. I mean is this how normally things work in mobile apps? I have a client program thats a iPhone app and within the app I have a XML file which is used as a data source for my UITavleView, but I want to check some URL to see if an updated version of the XML file exists. My app side programming is mostly done, now Im trying to learn the server side things I need to do to make this process happen with Joomla and my own hosted site
I donot understand how would the process work in that case. I mean, what are the things I would need to do on the server side to and the client side to make this possible?
Please help me understand or if you could point me to some links where these steps are illustrated...or if you could give me some Google key words I can search for to learn about this process.
thanks a lot
The fact that you have a CMS does not generally change how you access a file within the file structure of your domain unless the CMS protects certain directories. In this case, Joomla does not so you can directly access any file you wish. Depending on the sensitivity of the information you are trying to retrieve, you can protect the directory through your domain management panel. If it's not particularly sensitive, the authentication can be done by the app since the URL you are accessing can be easily hidden from the user.
It seems like that would be the simplest solution since the app will have access to user information by nature of where it resides.

Generating an article from an email in mediawiki

I would like to be send an email to an address that mediawiki can pick up and have mediawiki take it and generate a new page from it as a starting point. More complicated stuff like categories can come later.
I have searched around on the web and not found anything obvious.
I have not developed against mediawiki before but am an able and willing developer.
Thanks for any assistance provided.
There is this extension - EmailToWiki
It relies on a POP3 account being available and has been in Beta for a long time, but it may be a good start for what you want to do.
Have a daemon of some sort running on the server that picks up emails from an account (through POP protocol presumably), use the Mediawiki API to generate stub page.
Instead of a daemon, you could just have a cron job of some form.

what language combination should I use to permanently modify a webpage?

I'm trying to make a page with 2 fields (email and feedback) and 1 button. When the user clicks on the button, a table on a page else where is filled in with the data, permanently.
Does anyone have recommendations of how I should do this? I'd like to avoid having a script send me an email, or writing to a database. But if I have to, which ever is easier to configure would be prefered.
Thanks,
Matt
So you want a comments system like you find on most blogs? You'll need to store those comments somewhere, probably in a database. As for how to do it, that would depend entirely on what you already know and what the site is currently written in. You could use PHP and MySql if you already have those skills, or ASP.Net/SQL Server, or if you want to be down with the cool kids you can use Ruby on Rails or Python/Django.
If you post what languages you already have experience in, and/or what the site is written in you might get a more specific answer :-)
There're 2 types of scripts: server side and client side. The client side script (JavaScript) stores info only for particular visitor on his computer and this can't be seen by anybody else.
You need a server side script to save feedback on the server. The language or technology depends on the hosting server you use. Not all hosting services allows server side scripts. You need first to find out what scripting languages and technologies are supported by your hosting provider. Then we can help you more.
ADD:
For an unexperienced persons I recommend to search for hosting services which has most needed functionality. Something like blogs, etc. On such services you could create pages that will have comments and feedback and many more.
While it may seem outdated it's not necessarily a bad design. You can use PHP or Perl (due to it's string parsing capabilities) and simply store the main page on the disk.
Here's your sudo code/design...
You'll need need an html page that looks as follows
<tr><td>email</td><td>comment 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>email 2</td><td>comment 2</td></tr>
<tr><td>email 3</td><td>comment 3</td></tr>
Then you'll need a php script page that will read this html file in and display it.
The php page will also contain code for dealing with a user submitted comment. When a user posts a comment you need to open the html page with the rows in it and append to that file.
You need to be careful with this design however because you may run into write concurrency issues if two people attempt to read the file at the same time. Add code to handle this gracefully accordingly.

VB app to web service

I know very little about web service but I assumed it would be the solution I was looking for. Basically I made an application in VB that I want to be ubiquitous for a lack of a better word. I need it to receive requests from multiple users and respond all at once. I was told "technically if you write a webservice you can provide as many results back to users as are connected."
Maybe there is another solution for me that will give me the results I want.
Here is an example of what I'm trying to do.
Lets say I make an application in VB that does math.
I now make a website. My website allows for a person to input 1 + 1
they click submit and my website then connects to my VB application running on my server
listening for a request. It accepts the request from my website, and then it solves the math problem and returns the answer back to the website "1 + 1 = 2"
That is only an example of the type of thing I need. My problem is that I can't have multiple people visiting my website all connecting to that same application running on my server so somehow I need the application to be where it can be accessed by multiple users. I was told a web service would be the answer but if there is another solution I'd like to know.
If the only solution is a web service, then how can I manage to either convert the VB app to a web service? Can I have to convert the app to asp.net or some other language? Is there an easier option?
Without knowing more about what you're actually doing, I might suggest that building an ASP.NET project around your existing VB code might be a good approach. It's going to be awkward to build any kind of "web service" around an existing (presumably GUI) application, so rebuilding your code inside ASP.NET would be the way to go.
How about doing it the push notification way.
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Windows-Phone-7-Push-Notification-QuickApp--Web-Service-With-Azure-Publishing-Instructions
You can inform users of your application via a push notification