Nic Raboy

Getting Familiar with Gulp for Workflow Automation

I’ve been developing web applications for as long as I can remember and there are certain repetitive tasks that I do between the development and deployment of each final product. For example, current web standards demand that web resources like CSS, and JavaScript be minified or images be compressed. We could easily do this by hand or with helper applications, but why would you want to?

Instead,…

Unit Testing a Node.js Application with the Jasmine Testing Framework

When building an application, regardless if it is mobile, web, or neither, it is a good idea to come up with a collection of tests that can be used in a continuous integration scenario. I must admit, I don’t have the best habits when it comes to writing tests, but I’m sure my applications would be significantly better if I did.

Previously I had written about unit testing in Golang as well as unit…

Request Android Permissions In NativeScript Using Angular

With every version of Android comes more security measures dropped into place. For example, in Android 6+ the user needs to grant permissions when doing certain activities, such as using the camera. These security measures are more aggressive than the previous form of asking permissions in the manifest file.

So what if we want to prompt the user to grant permissions at a time other than when…

TPDP Episode #15: Authorizing Access with OAuth

I am pleased to announce that the latest episode of The Polyglot Developer Podcast is now available to download from all the popular podcasting networks. In this episode titled, Authorizing Access with OAuth, I’m joined by Ryan Chenkie from Auth0 to talk about OAuth and how it can be used to authorize access to your data by third-party applications.

Episode #15 can be downloaded for free from iTu…

Determine Network Availability In A NativeScript With Angular Mobile App

When developing mobile applications, there is often a need to perform certain tasks when a network connection is available. Not only this, but sometimes you only want to perform tasks depending on the type of network connection. For example, what if you wanted to backup large photos only when the Android or iOS device is connected to WiFi rather than 3G or 4G? To accomplish this, we need to…

Consume RESTful API Endpoints Within A Golang Application

I am a huge fan of the Go programming language and have written a decent amount of material on the subject. For example, a popular tutorial I wrote titled, Create a Simple RESTful API with Golang, focuses on developing an API. However, I recently received questions on the subject of consuming data from other APIs from within a Go application.

We’re going to see how to issue HTTP requests from…

Use Fingerprint Authentication In A NativeScript Angular Application

More than a year ago, before I started using Angular, I had written a tutorial on the topic of fingerprint authentication in a core NativeScript application. Since then, I’m doing almost all of my mobile development with Angular which means that the previous article deserves an upgrade.

I recently released a mobile application called Solar Flare for Cloudflarethat protects your account with…

Apache Cordova And Ionic Framework Apps Are Not Native Mobile Apps

If you’ve been keeping up with my content since the birth of The Polyglot Developer, you’ll know that I was once a huge advocate of Apache Cordova development using frameworks like Ionic Framework. Having been a web developer and coming from native Android development with Java, cross-platform development using hybrid technologies seemed like a logical next step. Fast-forward to now, I’m no…

Display Local Notifications In A NativeScript Application With Angular

A while back I wrote a tutorial that demonstrated how to use local notifications in a NativeScript Core project, also referred to as a vanilla NativeScript project. Since writing that tutorial I had received several requests to demonstrate the same in a NativeScript with Angular project.

If you’re unfamiliar, local notifications are scheduled notifications rather than notifications sent from a…

Simple Login And Registration In A NativeScript With Angular Mobile App

Most, not all, mobile applications have some sense of users having accounts. This means that users need to register and sign into most mobile applications to get all the features the application has to offer. So how do you create an attractive and functional login and registration screen for your Android and iOS application?

We’re going to see how to create a registration and login screen with Na…

Validate Form Submissions In Node.js With Google reCAPTCHA

Anyone that operates a website or web application with a contact page knows how bad the SPAM problem on the internet is. Spammers, phishers, and other malicious people create bots that will crawl search engines for contact forms and send emails to the hosts, register accounts, or something else. There was a point in time that I was receiving more than ten emails a day from spammers that wanted to…

TPDP Episode #14: Object Storage for Application Developers

I am pleased to announce that the latest episode of The Polyglot Developer Podcast is now available to download from all the popular podcasting networks. In this episode titled, Object Storage for Application Developers, I’m joined by Krishna Srinivas from Minio to talk about what object storage is and the various solutions that are available.

Episode #14 can be downloaded for free from iTunes, P…

Handle Google Play Services Conflicts In NativeScript Mobile Applications

I’ve been developing with NativeScript for a few years now, but only recently have I started working with the various services offered by Google Play. Using a single Google Play service such as Google Analytics works great, but as soon as you start adding more, you’ll start noticing Android conflicts during the build process.

Different plugins have different requirements on the underlying library…

Convert APNS Tokens To FCM Tokens With Simple HTTP APIs

Not too long ago I wrote a guest post regarding push notifications with the Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) service at the Telerik Developer Network. While that previous article was directly related to using FCM within a NativeScriptapplication, it followed all the same rules that are required for any mobile development platform. There is a catch, however. The push notification plugin for…

Extend Legacy Java Android Applications With NativeScript And Angular

As some of you might know, before I started developing cross platform mobile applications using Ionic Framework and NativeScript, I was developing Android applications using nothing more than the Android SDK and Java. I still have one of my first applications, SQLTool, for sale in Google Play, and it was written with Java and Android. When building mobile applications, frameworks like…

Remove Untagged Docker Images From Your Docker Host Via The CLI

If you’re like me, when it comes to Docker, you probably build images non-stop.  I must admit that when I create images, I don’t create any special tags, even though I should.  Instead every build uses the latesttag because that is enough to meet my needs.  Regardless of what tags you use, you may find yourself building the same thing over and over.  When this happens, the previous image remains…

Add Two-Factor Authentication To A Golang RESTful API

When it comes to authenticating users for making use of your API, it is a good idea to add an extra step beyond standard username and password. This is called two-factor authentication (2FA) and it acts as a second layer of security for users making use of your application.

Not too long ago I had written about adding 2FA to a RESTful API created with Node.js and Express Framework, but what if we…