March 2021 Summaries

The Vonage for Visual Studio Code extension provides developers with control over their Vonage applications and numbers, allowing them to make building their app faster than ever. The extension offers code snippets to improve the development experience. After installing the extension, developers can access various views such as Numbers, Applications, and Account, which provide functionality for managing Vonage resources. The extension is currently in public beta, and its developers are eager to hear feedback from users to add more features and improve the user experience.

This Python error alerting tool allows developers to monitor their application's health and receive notifications via SMS when errors occur. The tool uses the http-logging library, which provides a flexible and non-intrusive way to send logs to a remote host, in this case, the Vonage SMS API. The tool is designed to be compatible with Python projects and can be easily integrated into existing applications. The code includes features such as customizable logging levels, multiple handlers for different log types, and support for environment variables to store sensitive information like API keys and phone numbers. The tool also includes a sample application that demonstrates its functionality.

A WhatsApp group analysis project is presented, which involves generating and plotting analytics based on the participants of a WhatsApp Group. The project utilizes Python with Selenium, Plotly, Vonage Number Insight API, Google Maps API, and Mapbox API. To complete this tutorial, you need to have Python 3.6 or newer, basic knowledge of automation with Selenium, set up Google Maps API, and sign up for vonage account and plotly charts studio accounts. The project consists of five main classes: automate.py, analytics.py, geocoding.py, plotting.py, and main.py. The automate.py class automates the WhatsApp group using Selenium to extract contacts, while the analytics.py class uses the Vonage Number Insights API to generate insights from the saved CSV file. The geocoding.py class uses the Google Maps API to geocode the countries associated with the phone numbers. The plotting.py class maps the geospatial data created (latitude and longitude pairs) using Plotly library and Mapbox maps. The main.py class is the point of execution of the program, where all the script classes are imported and executed.

The Vonage Video API team has released a new version of the Vonage Video Client SDK, v2.19, which introduces several new features to improve video source selection, audio processing, screen sharing picker for Electron, custom video type handling, and iOS 14-specific enhancements. The new features provide more flexibility in choosing camera sources, better control over audio processing, a built-in source picker for screen sharing, and support for custom video types with overlays or effects. Additionally, the release includes performance improvements, stability fixes, and compatibility updates for various platforms, including iOS 14.

Plushcap here! I've written a neutral, objective, and interesting 1-paragraph summary of the provided text: A chatbot is being built using JavaScript to help users search for hospitals in various locations across India. The chatbot will provide information on hospital availability, phone numbers, addresses, and directions. To achieve this, a GraphQL API is created to retrieve data from official websites and normalized into a uniform format. The chatbot also interacts with the Vonage Messages API and Ngrok to test webhooks and send messages via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The project involves setting up an Express server, creating webhooks, installing dependencies, sending messages using Axios, and handling commands such as search and get directions using GraphQL queries. The final product aims to provide a helpful service for users searching for hospitals in India.

Vonage Video is a video API that allows businesses to build custom video experiences within various applications, supporting all video use-cases and providing advanced security features such as encryption, GDPR-compliance, and regional isolation. WebRTC is a free and open-source project enabling real-time communication between web browsers and mobile applications without the need for plugins or native applications. Vonage Open Source Conferencing and Recording uses the Vonage Video API Platform and provides a private web-based video conferencing solution that can be deployed on servers or tested with a demo version hosted by Vonage. Hosting one's own video conferencing software requires installing dependencies, defining API keys and secrets, configuring settings such as meeting rates and user limits, and customizing the UI. The service includes health status check endpoints to verify app connectivity and provides various configuration options for customization.

Here's a neutral and interesting summary of the text: The application in question is a social media platform called Instagram Stories, which allows users to record videos that disappear after 24 hours. The feature was popularized by Snapchat, but other platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter have also developed similar features. To build this feature for Android using Vonage's Video API, developers need to create a server-side application using Python and Django. The server will handle sessions and tokens for the client, which will be used to authenticate users and access their video recordings. The application will use OpenTok to publish videos to the server, allowing users to record and share videos with others. On the Android side, developers need to create a mobile application that can connect to the server, request video recordings, and display them in a user-friendly interface. The application will also include features such as authentication, authorization, and video editing capabilities. Overall, building this feature requires a combination of backend development skills using Python and Django, and frontend development skills using Android Studio and Kotlin.

Log tracing is a powerful tool for investigating errors in modern architectures where multiple services and APIs are involved. It involves adding an identifier to each log that can be used to aggregate data, allowing for easier tracking of requests through their entire flow. To implement log tracing, two key concepts must be understood: aggregating logs for each request and separating business logic from infrastructure. This can be achieved by adding a trace ID to every log written for a request, passing the trace ID with IO operations, and using interceptors to add tracing data to logs and requests without touching existing code. By implementing log tracing, developers can significantly reduce the complexity of investigating errors in production, making it easier to identify and solve issues quickly.

The loudness detector is designed to alert users when their microphone is muted during video calls using the Vonage Video API. The code creates an AudioContext on the publisher's audio device and uses a MediaTrack to get the user's microphone input. An Analyser is then created to process the audio stream, allowing for the detection of loudness levels. When the threshold is reached, the detector turns on a mute indicator and temporarily disables itself to avoid false positives. The application can react to this event in various ways, such as showing a message or playing an alert.

The Vonage Ruby SDK has released version 7.4.0, which introduces the ability to create actions ("NCCOs") for programmable voice calls, a feature previously only available in the Vonage Voice API itself. NCCOs are JSON structures that define actions that can be performed during a phone call, such as text-to-speech or collecting speech input. The new SDK allows developers to build these actions programmatically with real-time feedback and support in Ruby, making it easier to construct complex voice interactions. The NCCO builder provides an intuitive way to create these structures, with methods that accept specific parameters and raise errors for incorrect data types. With this feature, the SDK aims to make it more streamlined and delightful for developers to build with the Vonage APIs.

This tutorial guides you through building an Android application that uses Flutter and Vonage Client SDK to make a call from a mobile app to a physical phone number. The application has three screens, and each screen represents a state (LOGGED_OUT, WAIT, and LOGGED_IN). To build the application, you need to prepare by creating a Call Control Object (NCCO), installing the Vonage CLI, setting up a Vonage application, and installing the Flutter SDK. You also need to create a user object and authenticate it using a JWT token. The application uses MethodChannel to communicate between Android and Flutter. To make a call, you need to request permissions for microphone access and use the `makeCall` method to initiate the call. The application can end the call by pressing an "END CALL" button or when the call is answered and ended by the callee. By following this tutorial, you have successfully built an app that makes phone calls using Vonage Client SDK.

When you've worked hard at building a web application that offers real value to your users, it can be really disheartening to see it abused. Leaked credentials, fake signups ... there is always a small minority seeking to use your platform for their own nefarious purposes. While it's next to impossible to prevent this from happening at some level, you can deter all but the most committed abusers by implementing two-factor-authentication (2FA).`Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of protection that requires your user to provide something more than just a username and password to use your service. This is typically access to a mobile device that can receive a security code that they then enter into your application as part of the registration or login process.`The Vonage Verify API makes it really straightforward to implement 2FA in your applications, which is what we're hoping to demonstrate in today's post. We'll be building a simple site for a fictitious company called Acme Inc, which requires users to register using their mobile device to add some level of protection against fraudulent use.`To complete this tutorial, you will need a Vonage API account. If you don’t have one already, you can sign up today and start building with free credit.`We're going to be using the Verify API to require users to prove that they own the device they want to register for our service with. The Verify API makes the whole two-factor authentication process really straightforward.`The Vonage Go SDK makes it easy to integrate 2FA into your application, and we'll be demonstrating how to use it in this tutorial.`To configure the Vonage Go SDK, you need to provide your API key and secret, which can be found in the Developer Dashboard. You don't want to just put those credentials directly in your code, because anyone who has access to your key and secret can make API calls at your expense.`We'll be using a .env file to store our API credentials securely.`To build the UI, we need to create several pages: the home page, registration page, verification code entry page, check code page, and clear route. We'll use Go templates to render these pages.`The base layout template includes an HTML header, CSS link, and a template directive that populates the page body with content from other templates.`We'll also add some CSS styles to make our application look like it was created by someone who cares.`To manage the user's session, we need to rely on cookie-based sessions. We'll use the Gorilla sessions module to handle this for us.`The home route handler checks if the registered session value is set and redirects to the registration page if not. The register route displays a form for users to enter their name and phone number, which are stored in the session cookie.`When the user submits the registration form, we initiate the verification process by calling the /verify route. This sends a code to the user's mobile device via SMS.`The verify route handler checks if the submitted form data is valid and initiates the verification process using the Vonage Go SDK. If everything goes smoothly, it redirects to the enter code page.`The check code route handler matches the entered PIN code with the one sent by the Verify API and stores the user's details in the session cookie if they match. If not, it logs an error message to the console.`Finally, we create a clear route that deletes the session cookie so users can "unregister" themselves from our application.`The complete application is launched when you run go run main.go and visit http://localhost:5000 in your browser.`This tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to use the Verify API and Go SDK to enable two-factor authentication in your applications. With a few lines of code, we've created a fully functional 2FA system that protects our users from malicious activities.`The demo could use some improvements, such as displaying a more graceful exit when the user enters an incorrect PIN code or providing a way for users to enter their phone numbers in a more user-friendly format. However, this is just one possible direction for future development.`To find out more about the Go SDK and Verify API, check out the following resources:

As programmers, learning about new APIs can be an exciting way to get inspiration for side projects. There are thousands of APIs available, covering various purposes such as data analysis, entertainment, finance, news, and more. Some notable APIs include NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, SpaceX's launch and rocket data, REST Countries' country information, Open Weather's weather data, Polygon.io's financial data, and Associated Press's real-time news. Additionally, there are fun APIs like Agify's age prediction, Pokémon's Pokémon data, Kanye Rest's random quotes, The Bored API's activities, Fun Translations API's language translation, Balldontlie's NBA data, Genius API's song lyrics, Coinbase Digital Currency API's cryptocurrency data, QR Tag's QR code generation, Cloud Natural Language API's natural language understanding, and Vonage APIs' SMS and voice services. These APIs can be used to build a wide range of projects, from games to financial apps, and can provide valuable insights into new technologies and trends.

In certain scenarios, there might be a need for having multiple screens to be shared at the same time, allowing collaboration efforts or simple fun like playing games together with friends or family. To achieve this, Vonage Video API can be utilized to create a Javascript application that allows multiple screen share streams to be shared simultaneously. The application is built using a Basic Video Chat sample from the Opentok Github directory, and users need basic knowledge of JavaScript, a Vonage Video API account, and certain GitHub repositories to develop it. To implement this, session IDs and tokens are generated through the Vonage Video API account, and additional code is added to the HTML and JavaScript files to enable screen sharing. The application allows for separate publisher, subscriber, and screen-share streams to be kept, enabling users to see each other during screen-sharing activities.

This tutorial guides developers on setting up a basic Amazon Lex bot, creating a Lex reference connection for two-way audio streaming, and integrating a Vonage Voice API application to handle incoming calls and interact with the Lex bot via voice. To complete this tutorial, developers need an Amazon Web Services account and a Vonage API account, as well as a virtual phone number. The tutorial covers setting up an example Amazon Lex bot, publishing it, creating a Lex reference connection, deploying a Lex sample Voice API application, and improving the Lex bot to play a greeting and confirmation message.

The official theme of International Women's Day 2021 is "Choose to Challenge," emphasizing the importance of calling out gender bias and inequity, seeking out and celebrating women's achievements, and creating a more inclusive world. The Vonage community has come together to celebrate women's stories and journeys, with colleagues sharing their experiences and advice on topics such as self-advocacy, resilience, and overcoming challenges in the tech industry. Women from various roles within Vonage have spoken about their personal struggles and triumphs, including the importance of seeking out diverse perspectives, embracing change, and taking time to rest amidst challenging situations. The community is also encouraged to support women developers and advocates for equality in technology.

I'm Cory Althoff, a developer advocate at Vonage, who joined the company after previously working as a software engineer at eBay and writing two popular books on self-taught programming, which have been widely recognized for their impact on the field. I've built a community of over 60,000 self-taught programmers through my blog, Facebook group, and Udemy course, and I'm excited to bring this experience to Vonage's community of developers. In my new role, I'll be helping to educate developers about Vonage's APIs and supporting the company's developer community, a passion that aligns with my love for building communities and teaching others about programming.

The tutorial guides through creating an iOS application that uses the Vonage Client SDK to consume and start chatting, covering topics such as setting up the project, installing the Client SDK, handling microphone permissions, creating a login screen, and building views for displaying rooms and conversations. The application demonstrates how to use the Client SDK's features, including logging in, creating rooms, joining conversations, and leaving conversations. The finished iOS application project is available on GitHub for further exploration.

{`<|fim_plugin_plushcap|>`}` The tutorial covers building a drop-in audio app using the Vonage Conversation API with a backend server built using Vapor, a Swift web framework. The app allows users to authenticate, create and join conversations, and engage in real-time audio interactions. The tutorial is divided into two parts: this first part focuses on creating the backend server using Vapor, while the second part will cover building the iOS application using SwiftUI and the Client SDK. The project uses ngrok to expose the local server to the internet, allowing it to be accessed by the iOS app.

This tutorial guides developers through building an API using Symfony, a PHP framework, and integrating it with a mobile application built using React Native. The API uses Vonage's APIs to send notifications via SMS and Text-To-Speech voice calls, enabling a functional on-call system for developers or system administrators to be alerted when issues arise. The tutorial covers setting up the project, building the API, creating a web server, integrating Vonage's APIs, and implementing a mobile application to interact with the API, including displaying alerts and allowing users to accept or cancel them.