Tag: javascript

Validate Form Submissions In Node.js With Google reCAPTCHA

June 19, 2017

Nic Raboy

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 redesign my website. This kind of activity is incredibly annoying on my inbox.

This is where CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA form elements come into play. These elements typically require some interaction such as typing words from an image or solving a math problem. Adding this small amount of form complexity can go a long way towards stopping bots.

We’re going to see how to hook up a Google reCAPTCHA element into a client facing form and validate that element using a Node.js backend.

May 10, 2017

Nic Raboy

Not too long ago I wrote about authenticating within a Node.js API using Json Web Tokens (JWT). The basis of the example is around authenticating via a username and password and receiving a JWT for every future request against the API. While that example is incredibly useful and follows best practice, it doesn’t cover the scenario where you’d like to have a two-factor authentication (2FA) option for your users. In case you’re unfamiliar, 2FA is a second layer of protection for accounts made possible by a time-based token generated by a shared secret key.

We’re going to see how to add a two-factor authentication option to our Node.js API while continuing to use Json Web Tokens.

April 6, 2017

Nic Raboy

When building a mobile application, there are often scenarios where you need to storage files remotely and when I say files, I don’t mean database data. For example, maybe you want to develop an image manager or photo storage solution like what Facebook and Instagram offer? There are many solutions, for example you could store the files in your database as binary data, or you could store the files on the same server as your web application. However, there are better options, for example, you could use an object storage solution to store files uploaded from your mobile application. Popular object storage solutions include AWS S3 as well as the open source alternative Minio.

We’re going to see how to leverage Minio to store images that have been uploaded from an Android and iOS mobile application built with NativeScript and Angular.

March 10, 2017

Nic Raboy

When it comes to API development, there is often a need to protect certain endpoints or rate-limit the API in general. Because you are working with endpoints from clients possibly on a different domain, you can’t authenticate users with sessions and cookies. It would also be a bad idea to pass around a username and password with each request. Typically endpoints are protected with tokens that are passed with each request and these tokens are often JSON Web Tokens (JWT) that work very well.

We’re going to see how to create a very simple API using Node.js with protected endpoints that require a valid JWT in order for requests to succeed.

March 6, 2017

Nic Raboy

If you haven’t already gotten involved with it, you’ll probably know that TypeScript is becoming increasingly popular. Being able to use a superset of JavaScript in a typed language that compiles down to JavaScript is a great thing. However, if you’ve ever played around with TypeScript and tried to use JavaScript libraries, you’ll probably know that sometimes it can be a real pain. Often JavaScript libraries do not ship with type definitions which are critical when it comes to playing nice with TypeScript.

If you’ve been keeping up with The Polyglot Developer you’ll probably remember two posts that were created. Previously I had written about including external JavaScript libraries in an Angular application as well as adding type definitions to external JavaScript libraries in TypeScript.

We’re going to revisit these two articles and explore all the ways to include JavaScript libraries in TypeScript applications. These include applications built with NativeScript, Ionic, and Angular.

March 5, 2017

Nic Raboy

The recent Amazon S3 outage that took down much of the internet inspired me to talk about alternatives. Not too long ago I wrote about an open source object storage software called Minio and how I was using it on my Raspberry Pi for backups. The great thing about Minio is it shares the same APIs as AWS S3, but can be deployed to your own hardware, eliminating Amazon as a dependency.

This time around I thought it would be great to share how to use Minio as an object storage for a Node.js application that uses the middleware, Multer, for handling file uploads.

December 14, 2016

Tracy Lee

Observables. Native To The Web Platform?

One of the common misconceptions in the web world is that RxJS is an “Angular thing”.

What most developers don’t realize is that Observables are on their way to becoming native to the web, and if you aren’t already using them to handle asynchrony, you are not adequately preparing yourself for the future.

The Best Way To Handle Asynchrony

RxJS allows you to solve hard problems with less code, promotes maintainability, readability, flexibility, and composability. These are just some of the reasons RxJS is the hottest way to handle async right now.

Learning how to handle asynchrony the reactive way instead of using promises and callbacks will also greatly reduce the probability that you are leaking resources. And because RxJS works with any framework (angular.js, react.js, ember.js, vue.js), node, and even without frameworks, it’s easy to future proof your applications and have confidence in using this technology.

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