With recent multiplication of cloud telecom provider like Twilio, Plivo, Tropo, Nexmo, TelAPI, Apifon…. and many more popping out every day, I had this idea about how easy it should be now to build a calling card solution based completely in the cloud and on one of the provider’s rich API. A weekend or so of coding, thought I and it should be ready for production! But little did I know about what it takes to create something as simple as a calling card service.
Tag Archives: grails
What is FindRoomRent.COM and why I built it
Grails Reviews Thoughts Web Design
Update: I have shut down FindRoomRent.COM, and domain is available through Godaddy. The project did not spin off due to numerous factors. This article is kept here to illustrate the idea and implementation.
Dealing with people is always hard – different characters, likes, lifestyles and a ton of other variables. It gets more interesting when you are trying to find a roommate. There are of course no ideal ones. But while you search you get to meet a lot of interesting individuals. And hopefully you won’t get scammed, or even robbed as some shady people like to “preview” places before they break in…
Craigslist comes handy, but they warn you every step of the way about possible fraud…there are as well a few other sites, but hey, what an ugly 90s design they have:
Integrating Twilio text messaging service with Grails
GrailsWhile working on a first big project of mine written in Grails I needed functionality of sending a text message to the user in order to verify their identity. The choice was either go with Google Voice API, use email-to-text-message service of a particular wireless provider or look for something else.
Google Voice’s API is great, but because Google Voice itself is free you can’t really rely on it for web applications. After reaching a limit of 250 texts a day it will stop letting you send more. An alternative to it would be email to text solution – something like your-number@vtext.com for instance for sending texts to Verizon Wireless customers. However, you want to make your customer think less and therefore an extra question as to what is your wireless provider is not a great option.
After some research, I’ve found numerous sites offering API for sending texts and later on decided to go with Twilio for my needs. A piece below describes the process of creating Grails service for sending text messages via Twilio. continue reading »