my client has a small fleet of vehicles and he asked me to figure out how to get waze accident data sent to his phone. He said someone who is a competitor has alerts set up when there is an accident reported to waze within a certain mile radius, they get a notification that shows them a list of all the accidents and addresses.
Can someone please point me in the right direction on how this can be done? Thanks
The only legal way of retrieving the alerts information from Waze would be through the Waze for Cities program. The Waze for Cities program is completely free and allows organisations to obtain certain types of information from Waze (alerts, traffic jams, unusual traffic notifications, ...). In return, these organisations are expected to give certain types of information back to Waze (road closures, alerts, ...). But as the name implies, this program is meant for public instances, not private companies. The past couple of years, Waze has no longer allowed any private companies to access this information as those companies generally give little in return for the data.
An illegal way of retrieving these alerts for you would be to scrape the data from the Waze livemap. I'm sure you'll understand why I'm not going to give any further details on how to do that though.
It's a long shot, but Waze also has a bunch of Twitter accounts that send unusual traffic alerts in their area. There aren't that many accounts though, so this is quite unlikely to work for you.
I know it won't help with creating alerts, but just for being as complete as possible in my answer I'd like to mention the ability to embed the Waze livemap on a web page. it is possible to generate the code for this via the livemap, but manually changing the parameters isn't that hard:
<iframe src="https://embed.waze.com/iframe?zoom=15&lat=51.493194&lon=-0.013390&ct=livemap" width="600" height="450" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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I dont know where to begin. Do I need to create an app? Do I need to use bots? I have tried finding docs online but don't know where to start. Any help with be appreciated.
I am trying to create a small form in a teams channel that my users will fill out.
User enters #projects
Web server responds with
User clicks submit and data gets posted to my web server.
You're correct that there are a few different kinds of applications in Teams, so finding the one that suits your needs can be a little confusing at first. For what you're trying to do, I would recommend a Bot, and when it received a message (which it will do when it receives your #mention), it can respond with an Adaptive Cards. Adaptive Cards, if you've not used them, are like small embedded forms inside the chat. The user can complete the card and click a button, and it will send the payload back to your bot to do whatever it needs.
Bots, incidentally, are basically just web services, so your bot can do whatever it needs once it received the payload, such as calling another API in turn.
You haven't mentioned what language you might want to work in, but here are some good starting point nevertheless:
https://dev.botframework.com/
https://github.com/microsoft/BotBuilder-Samples/tree/main/samples
https://github.com/microsoft/BotBuilder-Samples/tree/main/samples/csharp_dotnetcore/57.teams-conversation-bot (I've linked the C# version - you should know that Teams bots use the same Microsoft framework as -all- bots build for the Microsoft world, such as web chat bot or a Skype bot. As a result, you have to ensure that anything you look at is applicable to Teams as some content/samples are not)
https://adaptivecards.io/ (as with Bots, Adaptive Cards have a life outside of Teams, so some articles/content/etc. might not be applicable to your scenario)
I'm 100% sure that this isn't the right form to post a question like this, but I hope someone on here has the answer to my question.
Is there advertising platform that sends a true or false response dependent on if the user finishes the ad video to the server so I can add points to the users account.
(I don't need help adding points, or creating a point system, just an advertising platform that would be easy to integrate with the videos on my site)
I understand if this isn't the right forum for this, if someone could point me in the right direction. Before you say anything, yes I have googled, just can't find anything that suits my needs.
You need a video player that supports the VAST protocol
VAST provides a common protocol that enables ad servers to use a
single ad response format across multiple publishers/video players
This format allows to specify the so-called tracking elements - URIs that would be called once a particular events occurs. You can manually provide a VAST xml response with a tracking element for a video completion event.
Also consider using DFP to serve your video ads - it's free up until a certain traffic volume and would track everything you might need
I've had a Nest thermostat for a little over a year and it works well. I also have many other Home Automation devices. I'm a Software Engineer and I enjoy making my life easier by programming my own, personalized, solutions to Home Automation issues. For example, I have my own weather station which reports information to Weather Underground using my own custom software. I also have my own, home grown, web interface which integrates both the X10 devices in my house and also the Wink devices, on one page.
I would like to gather temperature readings from my Nest thermostat and integrate that information into my home temperature information, in order to get a better idea of what is happening in my house. I signed up to be a Nest Developer and jumped through all of the hoops to get an access token in order to use the REST API. They turned me down!
So, it sounds as if Nest is not allowing their customers to access the information from your own thermostat in your own house! I find this closed system unacceptable! If Nest will not allow me access, then I guess my only alternative is to replace my thermostat with some other model which is more open and accessible?
Have others run into this closed system? Is there a way to deal with it, or is Nest simply saying, "we want your personal temperature information history, but we're not allowing you to have it, yourself."
Apparently, you don't need to get approval. Just proceed with describing the program, etc., and get the pincode. It works fine for a small number of users (50, I think) without approvals.
I am developing a web for my university where users can create an account and upload images. Images are private and can only be seen by the person who uploaded them. For instance, is like a cloud file system.
Each user have a free account with 500MB. I am using Amazon S3 to store the images, that is to say storage implies costs.
How can I avoid that bots upload millions of MB? How can I avoid that a bot creates million of new accounts and upload 500MB per account without affecting the user experience?
On one hand I definitely don't want to put a CAPTCHA in the registration form because it negatively affects the conversion rate. On the other, I don't want to pay thousands of dollars because a bot upload million of dummy images.
Does anyone know whether Dropbox, Google Drive, etc, suffers from this (content uploaded by bots)? It seems that is not a problem because I couldn't find anything about it. All spam related problems I could read about only covered spam in forums. It makes sense also. Spam in forums can be read by other users. Spam in a service like Dropbox or Google Drive reaches no one. Nonetheless I have to protect it to avoid cost surprises.
As far as I can see, without using CAPTCHAs this can be done:
Set up monitoring systems that warn for specific abuse patterns (the same IP uploading lots of data and creating new accounts repeatedly).
Throttle users that follow those patterns; this will hopefully make them realize and make the process worthless. If this fails, then disable those accounts and have their owners mail/talk to you in order to explain what's happening.
Since you say it's a system for your university, make users provide proof of enrollment (e.g. an university e-mail address) in case of abuse.
Have this forbidden usage explicit in your terms of use.
Of course, a smart enough bot can work around all those problems.
For a more advanced solution, you might try some machine learning or AI that learns about normal and abnormal usage patterns, then applies that information to judge a possible abuser.
I would recommend to :
make users register using their email
don't allow multiple accounts for a single email
send them an email registration confirm, and deactivate the "unconfirmed" accounts after a short amount of time (eg 3 days)
AFAIK, Drupal embeds this kind of controls out-of-the-box or with little effort (and no programming).
This won't solve all your problems, but in fact it will reduce the risk of bot exploits.
As you said you need a registration, there are two points to tackle this problem - make sure no bots register and/or limit the number of uploads.
I personally would use both points. For the user signup, design a login form where the user has to enter its email address, send them a mail with a link in it and activate their account only after clicking this link. Or let the user solve a simple math question on signup.
For the second point, you can store the number of uploaded bytes per user and time. You can then set a quota on allowed upload usage per time, for example you may not upload more than 10MB per hour. If a user hits this limit more than n times, you can deactivate his account.
And: set up and alerting and monitoring system. For example monitor the number of non-activated users, monitor the amount of uploads etc. and set up alerts if these exceed a certain threshold.
The above mentioned methods may not be perfect and probably won't block out all bots, but they will at least make it way harder for bots to upload unwanted data. Also these methods are quite simple, so you can start of with your project and see if this is really a problem. And if you get bots to upload data, you will at least receive alerts and can invent a better solution afterwards.
I have a task to validate addresses entered into a system I am currently creating. The system requires that address entered are validated against a valid data source. In the UK the dataset comes from the Royal Mail and is expensive to access.
The data needed is post code info for the whole of europe to start with accessed by an API into the web application.
There are a number of companies that offer this service,
QAS
Capscan
Postcode anywhere
These all offer the service I require. However this is expensive and in some cases not a complete data set. e.g. not Ireland
I was also wondering if there would be a way to utilize the Google Maps API to validate this data via postal code and country.
Would the google maps method be possible or do I have to go down the line of one of these expensive companies? Any thoughts on what line I should take.
The answer probably depends how critical it is for you to receive support and possible customization for this service.
Google can certainly do this. Look into their XML and Geocoding API's. You should be able to craft an XML message asking Google to return Map coordinates for a given address. If the address is not found (invalid), you will receive an appropriate response. Here's a useful page: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html#XML_Requests
Note that Google's aim in providing the Maps API is to plot addresses on actual maps. While you can certainly use the data for other purposes, you are at the mercy of Google should one of their maps not exactly correspond to your legal or commercial address validation needs. If you paid for one of the services you mentioned, you would likely be able to receive support should certain addresses not resolve the way you expect them to.
In other words, you get what you pay for ;) . If you have the time, though, why not try implementing a Google-based solution then going from there? The API looks pretty slick, and it's free, after all.
Google's geocoding api does what want you want. As Xerus points out, as long as you are not using the geocoded points on a non-google Map, you should be good (terms of service). Specifically,
3.1 Use without a Google Map. Customer may use Google Maps Content from the Geocoding API in Customer Applications without a corresponding Google Map.
3.3 No use with a non-Google map. Customer must not use Google Maps Content from the Geocoding API in conjunction with a non-Google map.
I am both a web developer and a former employee of one of the companies you mentioned. I completely understand where you're coming from. Verifying addresses seems like a simple problem to tackle, but it's very much an iceberg. I suppose one workaround to the legal constraints of the Google or Yahoo! Maps APIs is to request your users verify their addresses on a map. If I were in your shoes, though, I wouldn't go that route.
The reason address verification services are so expensive is that they require licenses and ongoing relationships with grumpy, bureaucratic postal authorities (including the Royal Mail). Unfortunately, postal authorities are the best (and often the only) sources of data against which to verify addresses, so there really isn't any other way to go about it. The bottom line is you need to weigh the cost of bad addresses (usually a question of mail volume) against the cost of the software to verify them. Irish postal data is even more rubbish than Irish postal formats (which frequently omit building numbers), so there's little you can do about those addresses.
The answer depends upon the degree of confidence you place in the data and how your data is being used. For example, if you're using it for mailing or shipping, you'll want to be be confident that the data is correct. If you're just using it as another fraud-prevention mechanism then you could potentially allow a degree of error to creep into the data.
If you want any degree of real accuracy, you're need to go with a service that does real address verification and you're going to have to pay for it. As has been mentioned by Adam, address verification and validation at first seems simple and easy, but it's a black hole fraught with challenges and, unless you've some underlying data to work with, virtually impossible to do by yourself. Trust me, you're actually saving money by using a service. You're welcome to go down this road yourself to experience what I mean, but I can guarantee you'll see the light, so to speak, after even a few hours (or days) of spinning your wheels.
I should mention that I'm the founder of SmartyStreets. We do address validation and verification addresses and we offer this for the USA and international as well. I'm more than happy to personally answer any questions you have on the topic of address cleansing, standardization, and validation.
Another option is YADDRESS.
Validate it against FedEx's api. They have an API to generate labels from XML code. The process involves a step to validate the address.
Google basis (free) does not provide address verification (Geocoding) as there is no UK postcode license.
This means postcode searches are very in-accurate. The proximity search is very poor, even for town searches, often not recognising locations.
This is why Google have a premier and a enterprise solution which still is more expensive and not as good as business mapping specialists like bIng and Via Michelin who also have API's.
As a free lance developer, so serious business would use Google as the system is weak and really provides a watered down solution.
I know that this post is a bit old but incase anyone finds it still relevant you might want to check out the free geocoding services offered by USC College. This does included address validation via ajax and static calls. The only catch is that they request a link back and only offer allotments of 2500 calls. More than fair.
https://webgis.usc.edu/Services/AddressValidation/Default.aspx
You could consider using CDYNE's PAV-I API that validates international addresses. international-address-verification They cover over 240 countries, so it should cover all of the countries that you are looking to validate for.
A great blog describing 14 address finders:
https://www.conversion-uplift.co.uk/free-address-lookup-tools/
Many address autocomplete services, including Google's Places API, appears to offer international address support but it has limited accuracy.
For example, New Zealand address and geolocation data are free to download from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). When a user search for an address such as 76 Francis St Hauraki from Google or Address Doctor, a positive match is returned. The land parcel was matched but not the postal/delivery address, which is either 76A or 76B. The problem is amplified with apartments and units on a single land parcel.
For 100% accuracy, use a country-specific address finder instead such as https://www.addy.co.nz for NZ address autocomplete.