I just completed a pretty extensive Guide to Using Redis with Node.js. In this guide, we explore using Redis, a fast in-memory database that persists on disk, in conjunction with Node.js. We work through real examples to help equip you to: Install Redis Use Redis as a standalone tool Build Node.js applications that interact with Redis You can check it out here.
In our last article, we learned how to create Node.js microservices using Polybit’s stdlib platform. We created a fabulous (IMHO 🙂 ) GPS service that enabled us to retrieve the name of a city based on its GPS coordinates. Today, we’re going to learn how to consume data returned from this stdlib GPS microservice using several methods. While the information presented here is specific to consuming Polybit stdlib microservices, many aspects of this article will be generally applicable for consuming Web API JSON data from any http endpoint. Strap on your seatbelts as we embark on a whirlwind tour to learn about consuming JSON data from a variety of contexts…and I’m Read More
In a previous tutorial, we learned how to send email notifications Using Nodemailer and Gmail. In today’s session, we will learn how to play sounds using Node.js. As a bonus, we will learn how to continue to play a sound until our notification has been acknowledged by pressing a key on the keyboard. How does that sound? 🙂 Enough bad puns! 🙂 Let’s get started!
Microservices and serverless architectures are all the rage in the software industry. After working with Polybit’s amazing stdlib platform, I am clearly seeing the value of this promising technology! Today, I will introduce you to stdlib. I encourage you to work alongside me as we leverage stdlib to build a microservice that we can consume in a variety of contexts. Let’s get started with this fabulous technology!
I’ve received questions from readers of my Beginner’s Guide to Installing Node.js on a Raspberry Pi wanting to know how to upgrade to more recent versions of Node.js on the Raspberry Pi. The steps are quite easy and can be adapted to other Debian variants as well including Ubuntu. I’m assuming you followed the steps in my Beginners’ Guide, especially under the “Install Node.js” section where we update the Raspbian/Debian package repository to include the Node.js binaries provided by NodeSource. Let’s get started!
It’s here! The Node.js Foundation has released version 7 of Node.js, an open-source, cross platform JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js provides an event-driven architecture capable of asynchronous I/O and allows us to build a gamut of software from highly scalable networked applications to CLI (Command-line Interface) applications. It’s a great fit for building IoT systems, and there’s never been a better time to get in the Node game with the Raspberry Pi! Our friends at NodeSource host a package repository that makes installing and maintaining Node on the Raspberry Pi easy. Keep reading to learn how to get started.
We all want to be in the loop and notified when certain events occur within our Node.js programs. For example, email notifications can be very important for creating situational awareness with IoT systems we develop that interact with our physical world. Email communication can be used to deliver messages to our inboxes as well as to deliver text messages in order to enable us to take more immediate action. In today’s tutorial, we’ll walk through the steps of using the amazing Nodemailer package which has become the de facto standard for sending email messages in the Node.js world. Let’s get started so we can start seeing our own custom messages Read More
In this tutorial, we harness the power of YAML for use within Node.js. As described on the official YAML site, YAML (YAML Ain’t Markup Language) is a “human friendly data serialization standard for all programming languages”. YAML and JSON are closely related. In fact, all JSON syntax is valid YAML as of the YAML 1.2 spec, but not all YAML syntax is valid JSON. YAML is a superset of JSON.
The ability to log data is an important capability in IoT applications. In this tutorial, we learn how to use Node.js to log data by utilizing built-in Node modules. There are certainly excellent logging modules available including pino and Winston (see my Winston tutorial here); however, our goal today is to deepen our knowledge of Node by implementing some simple logging code ourselves in order to become better Node developers.
In preparing for an upcoming Node.js IoT tutorial focused on creating notifications based on sensor values (for example, audible alerts), I wave of brilliance came over me. 🙂 Wouldn’t it be awesome if these notifications could be interactively acknowledged and silenced from the console? Lo and behold, I discovered that Node.js CLI (console) applications can indeed respond to keystrokes, ushering in a whole new realm of possibilities. In today’s tutorial, I will teach you how to build interactive Node.js console applications that listen for keypress events. We’ll build a simple stock quote application to bring this interactivity to life.
