I am making an app for the iPhone in Xcode which needs to be able to send and receive excel data from a windows based machine. Making the app is no trouble but what would I need from a PC to access the app data?
Firstly, I wouldn't be using Excel as a data storage program. What you really should be using is a database hosted on a web server with a PHP interface etc. If you choose to go the database route, then you can easily use a Windows machine.
Though if you choose to stick with Excel, it would be theoretically be possible given that people have made apps to have full control of a computer remotely via an app. I just think that this approach is going to be very hard to set up, and will be a lot more clunky than any sort of web server set up. Don't forget that you can get free web server services if the data level is low.
As you mentioned, this PC won't have access to the internet. Assuming you aren't willing to fix that, I guess you'd be left with a Bluetooth or local wifi option. Having to plug it in would really defeat the purpose of an app, and I don't think that iPhones can even do that without mad hacks.
An alternative idea is to build an app that links in with some free web server service, then build VBA code to download it to your Excel sheet. When you plug your iPhone into your PC, use the hotspot to get internet access.
Related
I wrote a small application which needs access to Google API with OAuth2 and which is typically run on maybe a Raspberry Pie to reduce power consumption since it needs to run pretty much 24/7. The device my application runs on is typically connected a LAN at home.
The user controls the application using a web interface from a PC/Tablet/... in the same network. However the web application is reachable from the LAN only, it cannot (and should not for security reasons) be accessed over the Internet, because it hides behind a NAT and/or a firewall.
The documentation states that I have the following options:
Web server applications
This forces me to use a redirect URL which must be known in advance. Since my app is most likely accessed by a dynamic private IP address, there is no way I know the URL in advance.
Installed applications
Yes, that would work. I just need people to copy and paste the returned code into a web form of mine. However that is somewhat uncool.
Client-side (JavaScript) applications
This does not give me a refresh token which I totally need.
Applications on limited-input devices
Polling? Well... If it works... However it requires the user to match a code shown on the device with a code displayed in the webbrowser. If I use that I can just as well ask the user to copy&paste the code returned by the installed app mode.
As far as I can see the copy&paste the code with installed app is my best chance. Is it really? Or is there is possibility to get along without that bit?
We are currently planning to develop a suite of Windows Store Apps. They are independent and fully work alone, but they are related and act in concert. If a user has several of them, they should share some of their settings (and data), so that the user does not have to manually change these settings in every single one of them.
Is such a scenario even intented?
And how to implement it?
Registry: Does not work. Apps cannot access the registry.
ApplicationData (LocalFolder, LocalSettings etc.): Does not work. Apps cannot access the data of other apps.
Cloud services: Kind of works, but only when the machine is online. Our apps should work offline, too. And we would need to create/rent such a cloud service, which would cause additional costs.
KnownFolder.DocumentsLibrary: This –currently– looks like the only solution to me. The apps are already saving and sharing data there, so let's just save our settings there, too. But the name of the shared folder is one of the settings! And Windows Store Apps cannot create hidden files, so the user can see the settings file. This makes this solution a bit... "rough".
Any other ideas or additional information I have missed?
If you want them to sync with each other instantly, even when the device is offline, then that's your only option. Windows 8 Apps are not intended to share settings.
So much want of sharing.
Roaming API will only share with the SAME app, the SAME user, ANY W8 device.
SkyDrive will only share across ANY app, the SAME user, ANY device.
Using Azure (or any web service) will share across ANY app, ANY user, ANY device.
Don't do this
Don't use the register, the API is not supported
Don't use the file system, the boundaries cause your app to be brittle
Don't use ApplicationData.AnyFolder, this is restricted to a single app GUID
You had might as well get "instant" out of your language, man. That just doesn't happen. But you can have fast (let's call it near instant); you can use Sockets or SignalR to connect your client to some service out there with nearly instant responses. A less sophisticated approach would be to poll from your client, too. It has served developers for decades.
I have written an application in VB which reads and displays data from instruments
and change their settings. These instruments are in my lab, but and I want to access them remotely from my room or anywhere outside my campus LAN through a web server. After searching the net I realised the best thing to do would be to use an Apache server.
Should my VB application run within the apache server? Apparently there is something called an application server.
As an alternative approach, should I write an application within the server that takes data from the code I have written and then uses or modifies it?
Or is there any other approach to the problem I am failing to see?
I'm looking for a way to allow potential customers to try my application before they buy it.
The product is a windows forms application that requires an SQL Server database to operate.
Although I have a functional demo that the customer can install on their network, I want to make it easier for them by have them "play" with it at my environment.
I remember Microsoft had (has?) something similar. I was testing Visual Studio a few years ago in a virtual environment where I was connecting to a server at Microsoft.
They setup the environment this way so when a user logs off after using it rollback his actions. Or to explain it better: when a user logins it starts with a new, clean environment.
So any projects I've created testing Visual Studio were lost after I logged off.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Some solutions that come to mind:
Provide remote access
You could provide access to a running instance of your application via some sort of remote connection protocol, e.g. via RDP or via VNC.
For example, there is a Java VNC client which can run as a Java applet; you could put that on a webpage and have it connect to a VNC session you host on your servers.
Or use Windows Terminal Server, and allow connection via RDP.
Both solutions of course have the drawback that people need to open the appropriate ports, if they are behind a firewall. There might be ways around that, however (e.g. you can run VNC over HTTP).
VM image
A completely different solution: Provide a ready-to-run VM image (for VMWare, VirtualBox or similar) of your application, including server and everything. You would need a demo version of your app though, plus getting redistribution rights for all the proprietary components (Windows OS, SQL server) might get hairy.
Offer videos
Often people do not really need to actually use the app; they are mainly interested to see how it works. So maybe it is enough to host videos of the app in operation. That allows you to put in some advertising for your features, and lets you show the users what they might miss when testing on their own.
Does anyone know of an open source web service/wcf service that can stream media content to clients? In particular I am looking for something that could access my music collection and stream it to a client (could be a client browser, win mobile app or even iphone application).
I guess it would have to be WCF based as I'm not sure that webservices do streaming really well. Also Windows Media Streaming Services is not the best way to go as the service should operate from a vista/xp machine (preferably).
If not, does anyone know the best way to start going about creating something like this - I'm not sure I know where to start with this one, although I can see many many uses for such a service!
Even though it's not open source, Windows Server 2008 has a Streaming Media role that will do what you ask. Of course, you'll need to have a server to put it on.
I tried Orb and it is quite good, apart from the fact that it hijacked my tuner card so media center would no longer work. However I'm going to try and create a home grown version.
Orb (www.orb.com) will stream your media to just about anything with a web browser. I've been running it on an XP virtual machine for about a year. I love being able to stream my entire media collection to my phone while I'm working at a client's site.
While it isn't open source, it is free and relatively well supported. One of the best features is that the architecture is set up so that there are no special requirements for your firewall -- it just works.