Thanks to @reedcouk ‘s API we’ve just relaunched our Job Searcher App on iOS with a new version. 

It’s a £0.99 download, and well worth it, if it helps land your next job !

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/job-searcher-app/id464568239?mt=8&at=1000l9tW

A new version of our app for iOS “Book Searcher”, has just been released at

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/book-searcher/id464083711?mt=8&at=1000l9tW

It’s a $0.99 cent download, but allows access to thousands of books 🙂

Transliteration is where you convert one alphabet into another while maintaining the phonetics in as much as possible.

Visual Transliteration is much more niche, and it about maintaining the visual representation of one alphabet in another, for example  “Н” in Russian is pronounced “N”, but looks visually identical to a Latin “H”.

This code is for VISUAL transliteration, and NOT audible transliteration.

private static string VisualTransliterate(string russian)
{
var map = new Dictionary<string, string>
{
{“а”, “a”},
{“б”, “b”},
{“в”, “B”},
{“г”, “r”},
{“д”, “A”},
{“е”, “e”},
{“ё”, “e”},
{“ж”, “x”},
{“з”, “3”},
{“и”, “N”},
{“й”, “N”},
{“к”, “k”},
{“л”, “n”},
{“м”, “M”},
{“н”, “H”},
{“о”, “o”},
{“п”, “n”},
{“р”, “p”},
{“с”, “c”},
{“т”, “T”},
{“у”, “y”},
{“ф”, “o”},
{“х”, “x”},
{“ц”, “u”},
{“ч”, “u”},
{“ш”, “w”},
{“щ”, “w”},
{“ъ”, “b”},
{“ы”, “b”},
{“ь”, “b”},
{“э”, “3”},
{“ю”, “H”},
{“я”, “R”},
{“А”, “A”},
{“Б”, “B”},
{“В”, “B”},
{“Г”, “R”},
{“Д”, “A”},
{“Е”, “E”},
{“Ё”, “E”},
{“Ж”, “X”},
{“З”, “3”},
{“И”, “N”},
{“Й”, “N”},
{“К”, “K”},
{“Л”, “N”},
{“М”, “M”},
{“Н”, “H”},
{“О”, “O”},
{“П”, “N”},
{“Р”, “P”},
{“С”, “C”},
{“Т”, “T”},
{“У”, “Y”},
{“Ф”, “O”},
{“Х”, “X”},
{“Ц”, “U”},
{“Ч”, “Y”},
{“Ш”, “W”},
{“Щ”, “W”},
{“Ъ”, “b”},
{“Ы”, “b”},
{“Ь”, “b”},
{“Э”, “3”},
{“Ю”, “H”},
{“Я”, “R”}
};
var strOutput = “”;
foreach (var c in russian)
{
if (map.ContainsKey(c.ToString()))
{
strOutput += map[c.ToString()];
}
else
{
strOutput += c.ToString();
}
}
return strOutput;
}

SMTP.JS is a script that allows you send email from Javascript

By default, the SMTP connection is secure (STARTTLS) and over port 25. If you
need to use an SMTP server that does not accepts secure connections, or in on a non-standart port, like 587, then use the button “Encrypt your SMTP Credentials” to store advanced configuration.

Javascript has always limited the ability to make arbitrary web requests to third parties, this has generally meant that projects required a server side component, even if its only purpose was to ferry data from a third party to the client.

CORS changed this somewhat, it allowed API service providers indicate to Javascript clients that it was OK for arbitrary web requests to be made to them, and the fact that any related security concerns were unimportant. – After all, any statically authenticated API would have the api key exposed in client code.

However some API providers don’t declare a CORS header. This can be down to security concerns, ignorance of Javascript clients, or just misconfiguration. That’s where a CORS proxy comes in. This is where a third party will do the connection for you, and it will declare the CORS header saying it’s OK to connect to them.

You can always develop this yourself, but a free public service is  https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com – which is open source on github here- https://github.com/Rob–W/cors-anywhere/

All you need to do it call https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/<url> where <url> is the third party API. It passes basic authentication headers through, but you need to call it via AJAX, you can’t just paste it into a browser. This is to prevent service abuse.

Thanks Rob-W, whoever you are 🙂

We’ve just packaged our Swift Module as a Cocoapod, and listed it on Cocoapods.org, you can access the GIT repo here https://github.com/infiniteloopltd/CarRegistrationPod

CarRegistrationPod

Example

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the Example directory first.

Requirements

A wrapper for the Car Registration API in Swift. You will require a username and password from http://www.vehicleregistrationapi.com This API returns car details from a car number plate in many countries worldwide, including the UK, USA, Australia, India. A full list is shown below.

Installation

CarRegistrationPod is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod "CarRegistrationPod"

Usage

import CarRegistrationPod
...
let dict = australia_lookup(registrationNumber: "YHC14Y", state: "NSW", username:"***your username***", password:"*** password ***")

label.text = dict["Description"] as? String

Other members of the car_registration package are

• australia_lookup
• usa_lookup
• europe_lookup

Both australia and usa accept four parameters, registrationNumber, state, username and password, and returns a [String: Any] europe_lookup does not require the state parameter, but instead, requires a endpoint parameter, which can be one of the following strings;

• Check (UK)
• CheckBelgium
• CheckCroatia
• CheckCzechRepublic
• CheckDenmark
• CheckEstonia
• CheckFinland
• CheckFrance
• CheckHungary
• CheckIndia
• CheckIreland
• CheckItaly
• CheckNetherlands
• CheckNewZealand
• CheckNigeria
• CheckNorway
• CheckPortugal
• CheckRussia
• CheckSlovakia
• CheckSouthAfrica
• CheckSpain
• CheckSriLanka
• CheckSweden
• CheckUAE
• CheckUSA
• CheckAustralia

Author

Infinite loop Development ltd, http://www.infiniteloop.ie

License

CarRegistrationPod is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.

You can install two instances of SQL server on the same machine, for example if you really needed to have two different versions of SQL server, or wanted to create a logically separated database where you could keep a near-identical copy of your main database.

Anyway, for whatever reason, if you do install two instances of SQL server on one server, you will quickly find that the default port number 1433 is occupied by the first SQL server, for local connections this doesn’t cause a problem, but for remote connections it does.

First, you have to pick a new port for the named instance. Open SQL server configuration manager, then select SQL Server Network Configuration, then SQLExpress (Or whatever you named your second instance), select TCP/IP, enable it, if it isn’t already. Then right click properties. Select the IP Addresses tab, and scroll to the IP (ALL) heading, remove the 0 from TCP Dynamic ports, and enter a number such as 1444 into the TCP port box. Open up services, and restart the service associated with the SQLExpress instance.

You may now need to open up TCP port 1444 on your firewall, and adjust your connection strings to <IP Address>\<Instance Name>,1444

To help Swift developers integrate our API easily into their app, with just two lines of code, we’ve just published a wrapper for our Car Registration API on SwiftModules here

https://swiftmodules.com/infiniteloopltd/swiftcarregistrationapi

SwiftCarRegistrationAPI

A wrapper for the Car Registration API in Swift. You will require a username and password from http://www.vehicleregistrationapi.com This API returns car details from a car number plate in many countries worldwide, including the UK, USA, Australia, India. A full list is shown below.

Usage

Package.swift

import PackageDescription

let package = Package(
    name: "MyApp",
    targets: [],
    dependencies: [
        .Package(url: "https://github.com/infiniteloopltd/SwiftCarRegistrationAPI.git",
                  "1.0.1")
    ]
)

main.swift

import car_registration

let dict = australia_lookup(registrationNumber: "YHC14Y", state: "NSW", username:"***your username***", password:"*** password ***")

print(dict["Description"] ?? "error");

Other members of the car_registration package are

• australia_lookup
• usa_lookup
• europe_lookup

Both australia and usa accept four parameters, registrationNumber, state, username and password, and returns a [String: Any] europe_lookup does not require the state parameter, but instead, requires a endpoint parameter, which can be one of the following strings;

• Check (UK)
• CheckBelgium
• CheckCroatia
• CheckCzechRepublic
• CheckDenmark
• CheckEstonia
• CheckFinland
• CheckFrance
• CheckHungary
• CheckIndia
• CheckIreland
• CheckItaly
• CheckNetherlands
• CheckNewZealand
• CheckNigeria
• CheckNorway
• CheckPortugal
• CheckRussia
• CheckSlovakia
• CheckSouthAfrica
• CheckSpain
• CheckSriLanka
• CheckSweden
• CheckUAE
• CheckUSA
• CheckAustralia

Another language in the series, is Perl, where I’ve written some code to call the CarRegistrationAPI.com API – which is a JSON based REST API. Using Perl.

So, here is the perl module

package InfiniteLoop::CarRegistration;

use LWP::UserAgent;
use MIME::Base64;
use JSON;

use Exporter qw(import);

our @EXPORT_OK = qw(usa_lookup australia_lookup europe_lookup);

sub usa_lookup
{
my (%params) = @_;
my $server_endpoint = “https://www.regcheck.org.uk/api/json.aspx/CheckUSA/&#8221; . %params{‘registration_number’} . “/” . %params{‘state’};
%arguments = ( ‘url’ => $server_endpoint,
‘username’ => “” . %params{‘username’},
‘password’ => “” . %params{‘password’});
lookup(%arguments);
}

sub australia_lookup
{
my (%params) = @_;
my $server_endpoint = “https://www.regcheck.org.uk/api/json.aspx/CheckAustralia/&#8221; . %params{‘registration_number’} . “/” . %params{‘state’};
%arguments = ( ‘url’ => $server_endpoint,
‘username’ => “” . %params{‘username’},
‘password’ => “” . %params{‘password’});
lookup(%arguments);
}

sub europe_lookup
{
my (%params) = @_;
my $server_endpoint = “https://www.regcheck.org.uk/api/json.aspx/&#8221; . %params{‘endpoint’} . “/” . %params{‘registration_number’};
%arguments = ( ‘url’ => $server_endpoint,
‘username’ => “” . %params{‘username’},
‘password’ => “” . %params{‘password’});
lookup(%arguments);
}

sub lookup
{
my (%params) = @_;
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $encoded = encode_base64(%params{‘username’} . ‘:’ . %params{‘password’});
my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => “” . %params{‘url’});
$req->header(‘Authorization’ => ‘Basic ‘ . $encoded);
my $resp = $ua->request($req);
if ($resp->is_success) {
my $message = $resp->decoded_content;
my $json = JSON->new;
my $data = $json->decode($message);
return $data;
}
else {
print “HTTP GET error code: “, $resp->code, “\n”;
print “HTTP GET error message: “, $resp->message, “\n”;
}
}

Copy that perl module to perl/vendor

And here is a perl script to call it:

use InfiniteLoop::CarRegistration qw(usa_lookup australia_lookup europe_lookup);

### code examples

%params = ( ‘endpoint’ => ‘Check’,
‘registration_number’ => ‘Po14ryh’,
‘username’ => ‘** your username **’,
‘password’ => ‘** your password **’);

$data = europe_lookup(%params);
print $data->{Description} . “\n”;

%params2 = ( ‘registration_number’ => ‘hij934’,
‘state’ => ‘pr’,
‘username’ => ‘** your username **’,
‘password’ => ‘** your password **’);

$data2 = usa_lookup(%params2);
print $data2->{Description} . “\n”;

%params3 = ( ‘registration_number’ => ‘490JLN’,
‘state’ => ‘QLD’,
‘username’ => ‘** your username **’,
‘password’ => ‘** your password **’);

$data3 = australia_lookup(%params3);
print $data3->{Description}. “\n”;

You’ll obviously need your own username and password to call this 🙂

This code will hopefully shortly be up on Github and CPan.