Uploading images to web servers - windows-phone-7.1

I am in a massive rush and have to decide on a phone platform for tomorrow. Please forgive my lack of research on my own part, I just don't have the time, and would appreciate one of you geniuses to answer my question.
I need to develop an application which will take a picture and upload it to a webserver. Can this be done on a Windows 7 Phone device?
I am a windows .NET developer.
In the past on the older blackberries we had major issues with finding the latest picture taken. So basically my question is, can I build an app with a button to take a picture, and it just works out the box and uploads it without any fuss.
I really have not had the time to research the windows 7 phone API's, and this is urgent.
Thank you so much, I know people who don't research themselves should be shot, but I just don't have the time.
Thank you again.

I need to develop an application which will take a picture and upload it to a webserver. Can this be done on a Windows 7 Phone device?
Yes.
If all you want is to be able to take a photo and not access the camera directly, you can use the CameraCaptureTask which has been around since the beginning. This is much simpler and all of the photo taking functionality is taking care by the built in photo application. The result is just a stream to the photo. Given from your description these seems like the answer for you.
Another option starting in Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) gives you much more direct access to the camera. Details / sample on MSDN. This is if you want to really make your own camera application from scratch.

Yes, offcourse. .Net is providing built-in classes to interact with the camera, take picture and then you can convert image to byte, and then you have to use a webservice (WCF is recommended usually), whihc will have interact with the database and save the picture in byte form in database. Database which will be used will be Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008.
This might help you :
Communication of Windows phone and WCF Service

Related

iOS App Backend Provider

I've recently submitted my iOS Quiz app to Apple but noticed that the file size for the app is pretty big (about 150 MB). Users would need to be connected to wifi in order to download it per Apple's rules. My quiz app is set up so users are given 4 choices and shown an image and must guess the correct answer from the image shown to them. How would I minimize the file size for my app so that it isn't so large? Is there a way I can host the images on a server without losing the functionality of my app? I heard of something like Backend Services but know nothing about it. If anyone can guide me in the right direction that would be awesome, thanks!
You can check out a free back end service like Parse, it could do the trick for you, especially because you dont have a lot (besides images I guess) that'll be on the server side.
This also helped me start with using it.
Good luck :)
I'm assuming you have all the quiz data (questions and images) within your app bundle?
You can shrink it next to nothing if you move all your questions and images to a backend server and serve the questions and images (links) using simple JSON Structure.
You can build your own backend (Java/PHP/etc..) or look into using Parse.
use JPEG images whenever possible. PNGs costs more space. Do not place jpeg to xcassets, since they will be converted to PNGs. If your pictures should be transparent - it is better to use Webp or JPNG format.
You may use CloudKit to host your data in a public database. You won't need any backend knowledge to do that. This tutorial will help you understand the basics. WWDC videos covers some more, i suggest you to look at WWDC 2014, Introducing CloudKit and WWDC 2015, CloudKit Tips and Tricks.

How to get everyone to see everyone else's photos in an instagram-like app

I am a first time iOS developer trying to build an iOS app from the ground up. It is for a photo-sharing startup that will have similar functionality to Instagram.
I am not sure how to approach the sharing/viewing aspect. Would I use something like Parse or Google cloud storage? It is an iOS only app, if that helps. Given that we are just a startup, a long trial or a cost per GB is fine, but I don't want to be stuck with something expensive if we start getting a lot of photo uploads.
Given that I'm the only developer, I'm hoping for something that doesn't require me to learn too many new technologies. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Parse.com, the API is fairly easy to use. The free plan has a lot of functionality and it scales up well.
That's really a tough question. You first want to research each company and weigh the pros and cons with selecting each service. The Google Cloud and Google App Engine (while they do work extremely well together) are going to be a little less "centralized" since they are essentially marketed as separate services. Parse does have that "centralized" feeling since all of their services are designed to work together.
Another nice thing about Parse is that it has build in support for iOS local datastore which means even if your users don't have an internet connection the request will be queued until a connection is made. If you go with a service like the Google Cloud then you would have to implement that on your own or just not have offline functionality.
While Parse looks like a good solution for you, it would be hard for someone to answer your question with a definitive solution as that is up to you exactly how you want your product to work. Just continue to research other solutions as there may be something better and more suited for your exact needs. You may want to build a small prototype on one platform before dedicating all of your development to that platform.

bluetooth communication in nxj

I'm nxj beginner.
I have some questions about bluetooth communication between PC and brick.
First, when bluetooth communication occurs, where is the birthplace processing this datas?
In other words, I want to know whether these datas will be processed on CPU or brick.
Second, what is exact roles CPU and brick in bluethooth communication?
That means what is processed on CPU and what is processed on brick.
I have searched almost web site but I can't find this anywhere.
Please help me. Thanks.
You can see it in the package structure.
lejos.nxt.*
This package contains classes running on the NXT-brick. All code in this package will be compiled for the brick and will run on the brick.
lejos.pc.*
Here the difference is not that clear. This is java-code you compile for personal computer. So most code runs on your computer. But some classes (e.g: RemoteMotorController) only send messages to the NXT-brick which gives commands to the motors.
lejos.pc.comm provides API's that allow you to communicate/control the nxt robot from the PC.
When importing the the libs to an Android project, it allows you to build an instance of the same environment used on a pc, but within android.
I agree it can be tough finding some things out. It would be great if there was as stronger lejos presence on SO
This question is months old and has remained un-answered I actually have a lot of questions about it myself, but I might be able to provide some insight for utter novices.
when using bluetooth with Android and NXJ robots, you use either lejos.pc.comm or lejos.NXJ.
Both provide APi's to do almost the same thing, but work a little differently. I don't know nearly enough about the NXJ api, but I do know that it is the one that lets you manipulate the robot much more effectively, such as outputting data to it's LCD screen, which you can't do with the pc.comm api
As far as I can tell, the pc.comm API uses both Android Bluetooth API's and it's own protocols to allow communication with Lego LCP commands.
(I want to come back to this, but I'm writing a dissert on the topic so I'll try to update it in a couple of days. Seems not many are interested though, shame)

Is it possible to take a picture from a smart phone in the browser and save to database?

I have an application that saves a user's webcam image using a pc/mac browser.
Is there a way to do the same thing using smart phone cameras within the browser?
I'm not really sure where I would begin. A google search didn't give me many leads.
All the best,
You should be able to do this on the iPhone using UIImageJPEGRepresentation.
This questions describes how to do the same thing on Android.
These are examples for two platforms. Are there any other platforms you are looking to develop your application for?

Microsoft/Ford Sync SDK

Just got a car with the Microsoft sync system in it. Did a quick search online and was curious if anyone is aware of any SDK that may exist, sample open source add-on applications, etc.
Thanks in advance.
UPDATE:
Looks like Ford has finally released their SDK:
https://developer.ford.com/
Ford has a website SYNC Mobile Application Developer Network but the SYNC SDK does not look to be available yet (their site mentions possibly later this year). It appears they are stilling working on the API before releasing it. All they are offering now is a way to register to be notified of new info as it becomes available.
From their About page:
Ford is hard at work developing an API
to allow developers to integrate their
Smartphone applications with SYNC. The
Developer Program website will educate
developers about the Ford SYNC
platform and how to interact with it
via the API. There will be a full set
of documentation, example
applications, reference libraries, and
even a developer forum so you can
reach out to the community for quick
help.
With the available SYNC API's, mobile
application developers will be able to
do some of the following:
Create a voice UI for your application using the in-vehicle
speech recognition system.
Write information to the radio head display or in-vehicle touchscreen
Speak text using text-to-speech engine.
Use the in-vehicle menu system to provide commands or options for
your mobile application
Get button presses from the radio and steering wheel controls.
Receive vehicle data (speed, GPS location, fuel economy, etc.)
The official API and full website
launch is set to be targeted for later
this year.
It looks like the SDK is coming very soon. The story was just posted on Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/18/ford-to-give-sync-some-app-store-flavor-opening-api-to-devs-in/
Now just imagine what you could do with access to your automobile functionality!
I don't think there is any. Its a closed ecosystem.
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/09/ces-2009-sync-could-one-day-add-app-development-like-iphone/
From what I understand it is based on the CE 6.0 platform using windows automotive 4.1, but I could be wrong. We really need a forum to get this going. Hurry up Ford! Release the SDK!
Given the way Windows automotive is there is only two ways of putting a ROM on Sync. Using JTAG to put your own custom bootloader (forget it), or though the USB. Which you will need to know how to sign the file so sync will think it is an OEM ROM. So at this point even if you were able to come up with your own custom rom by using Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ you would still have no way to get it on there.
BTW, the SDK they are talking about releasing will only be to develop apps for applink. (not modifying the OS). However, to upload the apps we might be able to find out how to sign the .bin file for sync to accept a ROM through the USB.
Then again this is just from my understanding... I am no great developer or anything.
Ford launched sdk in ces, check it out: http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/08/ford-launches-its-openxc-sdk-and-hardware-specs-to-let-developers-access-its-cars-sensors-and-metrics/

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