Build A Ripple XRP Wallet For Android And iOS With Ionic Framework

January 4, 2018 Nic Raboy

A few days ago I released, what turned out to be, a very popular article around developing a Ripple XRP wallet. It was titled, Create a Cross-Platform Desktop Ripple XRP Wallet with Vue.js and Electron, and it focused on cross-platform desktop application development. A popular request on Twitter was around developing a mobile Android and iOS wallet for Ripple XRP coins.

We're going to see how to use Ionic Framework and Angular to create a Ripple XRP wallet for Android and iOS. Because our desktop application focused on the JavaScript stack, our mobile application will be able to recycle a lot of our code.

Create A Cross-Platform Desktop Ripple XRP Wallet With Vue.js And Electron

January 2, 2018 Nic Raboy

As you are probably aware, I've been interested in cryptocurrency and the blockchain lately. I haven't necessarily been buying anything, but I've been doing a lot of watching as it has all been very interesting so far.

I decided, a few weeks ago, to purchase some Ripple (XRP) because it seems like it could do great things for the banking industry. When it came to keeping track of my XRP, there wasn't really anything available. There is Ripple Wallet, but after having used it for a little bit, it seemed buggy. That got me thinking. What if I were to build my own wallet?

Ripple actually released a Node.js library called ripple-lib on GitHub which makes it very easy to interact with XRP. What makes things even better is that the cross-platform desktop application framework, Electron, uses Node.js.

We're going to see how to create a cross-platform desktop application using Node.js, Vue.js, and Electron to keep track of our Ripple and how much our wallet is worth.

My Activity Report For 2017

December 31, 2017 Nic Raboy

This marks the third year that I've been producing content for The Polyglot Developer and all of its channels. It's been a long year and I've accomplished a lot, some of which was different than previous years.

Below you’ll find my statistics that may help you if you’re planning on creating a blog or developing a course. It will give you an idea of costs and what to expect.

Deploying Native Node.js Dependencies On AWS Lambda

December 27, 2017 Nic Raboy

I was recently working on a Functions as a Service (FaaS) project using AWS Lambda and Node.js. However, I was running into an issue where my package dependencies found in my node_modules directory were for the wrong platform once deployed to Lambda. This is not the first time I experienced a problem like this. I knew the issue straight away because I encountered the same thing when trying to use a node_modules directory generated on Mac from a Windows computer.

When uploading a package developed with Node.js to AWS Lambda, the package.json file is not considered. Instead you are uploading a package that contains the node_modules directory and all dependencies. So how do you develop for AWS Lambda from Mac and Windows, but have it work once deployed?

We're going to see how to use Docker to get our Node.js FaaS project dependencies designed for Amazon's flavor of Linux.

Convert A Node.js RESTful API To Serverless With OpenWhisk

December 22, 2017 Nic Raboy

When it comes to serverless solutions, there are many options available. If you're a fan of the Microsoft cloud, you could create Azure Functions. If you've been keeping up, I wrote a tutorial called, Take a Node.js with Express API Serverless Using AWS Lambda, which used the Amazon Web Services cloud. Another solution is Apache OpenWhisk, a solution available on IBM's Bluemix cloud.

We're going to see how to convert the Node.js with Express application that I had written about in a previous article, and make it serverless with OpenWhisk.

Take A Node.js With Express API Serverless Using AWS Lambda

December 18, 2017 Nic Raboy

Not too long ago I had written about creating an API with Node.js and Express that accepted image uploads and manipulated the images to be Android compliant before returning them in a ZIP archive. This article was titled, Create an Android Launcher Icon Generator RESTful API with Node.js, and Jimp, and it was a great example of creating APIs that that did most of their work in memory. I even demonstrated how to containerize the application with Docker.

Applications that manipulate media will need to be able to scale, otherwise there is a risk of the application crashing from not enough resources, or too many resources can get expensive. For this reason, it makes perfect sense to take the previous example serverless with Amazon's Lambda and API Gateway offerings.

We're going to see how to use API Gateway to accept HTTP requests with binary image data and process that data with Lambda to return various sized Android launcher images packaged in a ZIP archive.

Containerizing A Node.js With Express Image Processing RESTful API Using Docker

December 15, 2017 Nic Raboy

Docker is a great way to package and deploy web applications. Applications that have been containerized can easily be created, destroyed, or even moved between servers, as long as the servers are using the Docker runtime.

Not too long ago I wrote about creating a RESTful API that could process images and generate Android compliant launcher icons. This article was titled, Create an Android Launcher Icon Generator RESTful API with Node.js, and Jimp and it was powered by Express Framework. The application could be served on any properly configured server with Node.js. The catch here is that server configuration is never easy or quick.

We're going to see how to package our web application into a container using Docker.