i've used contentproviders with DB.it has some data in it.i need to make those data available to all other applications.How? Usually the main use of content provider is to store and retrieve data and make it accessible to all applications. They’re the only way to share data across applications; there’s no common storage area that all Android packages can access.I used the code from below link..
http://ashwinrayaprolu.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/custom-content-provider-in-android/
Distribute your Content URI and define your API.
Provide the string of your Content Authority and the paths you recognize. Explain to your users how the tables in your DB map to your paths. Document what the columns in your tables are. Users with your content URI can read and write your databases using standard calls to ContentResolver and the insert/delete/update/query calls.
Provide access control in your <provider> tag in your AndroidManifest.xml. Look at The documentation especially with regard to android:exported, android:grantUriPermissions, android:permission, android:readPermission and android:writePermission. You'll need to decide how to use those based on your use cases. Also, the <grant-uri-permission> tag will give you even more fine-grained control.
Write other apps to use those calls you just documented and allowed permissions for.
Related
I am creating an application that does not store any data (other than basic user name, password, etc). It uses API calls to get data and displays them when loaded through Volley.
I know typically it is best practice to use content providers and loaders when you store things in SQLite. My question is: should I still be using content providers and loaders given that my app does not utilize a database. Does anyone have any best practices/tutorials on how to do so with Volley?
Thanks!
It depends on your use cases. But here, no there is no need. There are other callback mechanisms you can use like broadcasts, async tasks, handlers or even content observers. There is a nice official tutorial of how to communicate with the UIThread aka. the visible stuff from some background logic.
Also if you want to you also can use loaders without any content provider. See this so post for more informations.
I would like to sync a core data app with a user with a different iCloud ID and I am trying to figure out the most graceful way to do this. I do not want the data to sync with all users, but want to be able to sync among family members for instance. From the research I have done, I do not think I can do that using iCloud Core Data sync because it only syncs between devices with the same iCloud ID. I have looked at this stackoverflow answer and read a little bit about Ensembles, Parcelkit and TICoreDataSync, Parse etc., but it is not clear to me if any of those options will allow me to sync with multiple users. Does anyone have a good method for syncing a Core Data app with multiple users?
Ensembles and TiCoreDataSync might work. They can use Dropbox file syncing, so in principle they should work with Dropbox shared folders. I don't think these are the main intended uses, so I suggest contacting the developers and/or doing some good testing yourself before assuming this would actually work.
You'll need to think about the user experience, though. At a minimum, your users would both need Dropbox accounts and would have to set up a shared folder before beginning to sync data this way.
Parcelkit probably won't work. It uses Dropbox's data store API which, unlike other Dropbox services, doesn't appear to support shared data.
Services that do support this kind of sharing exist-- for example, Parse and Firebase-- but make sure to review their pricing carefully before using them. Also of course, there have been any number of projects that have their own custom server back end, but that obviously requires having someone on the team who can do that kind of work.
You need to think about other device types (Android at least) if you want your application to be reaching more users.
I'm doing the same now by the following way:
Setup an online database with proper web services (careful with implementation for security matters - DB should NEVER be exposed by anything other than the web services).
Create a Class for your communication with the server (using Class methods with security handling like authentication and authorisation).
Use the class in your app to communicate with the server (SQL operations are done on the server).
To integrate with CoreData you need to create the model in your app similar to the structure in the backend database. Then you need to create a similar class for the app that deals with only local CoreData.
A higher level class might be required if you want to make sure that operations done on both server and local data storage.
Besides, you have to implement a lot of conditions to make sure that data written in local ONLY after making sure that it is stored online (or create an engine for differed operations to run later).
Another Way if you are familiar with notifications:
Use structured notifications between devices for data operations in order to keep everything in sync with other users. The problem with this is the "Autonomy" of the operations. If two operations were done in approximately the same time, you have to find a way to make sure the order of the operations is done properly (maybe timestamp or something).
I'm looking into the same thing for my app and I 'think' you can do a fairly unsecured version of what you are after using using the public folder in cloud kit as mentioned in this question (no accepted answer at time of posting) : Private data sharing using CloudKit
You would need to find a way to differentiate between data that is truly public and those shared among the users you need and some level of authentication.
I'm going to try exporting a permission file with access permission in it to whomever I want to share with combined with a unique identifier located in that permission file.
Keep in mind, as mentioned in the comments of the linked answer, my implementation will be security by obscurity (thanks for that phrase) unless you find a way of adding proper validation to it but my data is relatively insensitive.
Hope this, or any ridicule in the comments, points you in the right direction : )
I am working on a website. Currently the website was targeted to serve users from a specific Geographic region. Now I would like to expand its userbase to another region. The need is to serve different contents to different regions with the same base functionality.
My initial thought (I might sound a noob here) is to host the content specific to different regions on different databases -> Redirect users to specific domains and thus map the users geographically. Do suggest if its the right way to proceed.
Also, I would like to know whether there is a need to localize my website for these regions (Current language used is English)
Please post your experiences in such scenarios and also your ideas to bring about the transition.
Thanks in advance.
How do you see users being matched to their specific regional content?
Will they be presented with an option to choose?
Will you use geo functions to determine location?
Will you use server based reverse DNS lookup to determine location?
Will each region get its own "entry" URL (aka different domains)?
The first three are fraught with their own specific problems...
Presenting a choice/menu is considered bad form because it adds to the number of "clicks" necessary for a user to get to the content they actually came for.
While geo functions are very widely supported in all modern browsers, it is still seen as an issue of privacy in that a large number of users will not "allow" the functionality, meaning you'll have to fallback to a choice/menu approach anyway.
Server based reverse DNS, while a common practice, is very unreliable because many users are using VPN, proxies, TOR, etc. to specifically mask their actual location via this method of lookup.
Personally, my experience is to use completely separate entry URLs that are all hosted as virtual domains on a single Web Server. This gives you a large array of methods of determining which entry URL was used to access your code, and then format/customize the content appropriately.
There is really no need to setup separate servers and/or databases to handle these different domains/regions.
With that said, even if the language is common across regions, it is a very good habit to configure your servers and databases to support UTF-8 end-to-end, such that if any language specific options need to be supported in the future, then you won't need to change your code to do so. This is especially true if your site will capture any user generated input.
I use my app to download file then I save into IsolatedStorage.
Can someone hack and get my files or folders from my app?
I do not know how IsolatedStorage protects its data? Do we have another ways to protect data in IsolatedStorage?
Yes your data is vulnerable.
If this data contains user details, like emails, passwords or even personal information then this should be made secure.
If you are storing information about a user's favourite colour or favourite car then this CAN be deemed as "not sensitive" and you will then have to decide whether you want to protect this.
Always assume that people can get at your data. It's just a matter of time before they can access it (just look at how people have jailbroken the iPhone and a vast array of other smart phones for that matter).
Remember Security is not obtained through Obscurity
The following link has good answers in relation to Isolated Storage on Windows...
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/5660/how-secure-is-isolated-storage-on-windows
From within a managed application it's not going to be possible to access the Isolated Storage of another application. However from native code that's another matter, and WP8 has support for native code...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj681687(v=vs.105).aspx
Plus The following article asserts that there's only a registry in the way of a hacker who wants to get unmanaged code on to WP 7.1...
http://www.wpcentral.com/let-hacking-begin-how-windows-phone-7-can-run-native-unmanaged-code
So on WP7 it's pretty clear your app shouldn't store any sensitive data in isolated storage on WP and on WP8 it's even clearer. If you can avoid putting sensitive data in isolated storage do so, otherwise you'll need to encrypt the data, and then of course you need to consider the security of the encryption and the keys used to decrypt and encrypt the data. The following looks like a good guide on how to do that best...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh487164(v=vs.105).aspx
At the end of the day security is nothing more than a series of hurdles for a hacker, ultimately they'll probably get access to the data if they're really determined and have the skills and resources available to do so.
I need to share some sensitive data among activities.
I have two EditText which are basically username and password
I am consuming a webservice which on the base of provided username and password return some user info (DataType:String). Like userid,useremail etc.. which is basically in CSV format
I need these piece of information throughout my application.But i can't figure out which is the better way.
-- One way i could found out so far is to use sqlite with MonoAndroid
-- Other way i found out is using Application class
I just started to learn android today , but i want to know if there are some other ways to share data ?
As you mentioned, a global Application class and the database are two good ways to share application-wide data. One thing to be careful with is that your Application class could be recycled when the app is in the background, so you would lose any data that hasn't been persisted to something more permanent.
In addition to the database, you can also persist data down to the filesystem as well. This recipe from Xamarin has an example of writing directly to a file. Most of the classes you'll need to do file access are found in the System.IO namespace. Mono for Android also supports isolated storage, which provides a higher level API for reading and writing files.
If you simply need to pass data directly between activities, you can do so by adding it as an extra to the intent. This recipe explains how to do that.
If you want to wrap up access to a particular resource in a more managed fashion that can be accessed by either other parts of your application or even external applications, you can look into implementing a content provider. Android itself provides several built-in content providers for resources like contacts and media, if you need an example of what it's like to use one. This recipe explains how to read from the contacts provider.