As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I've just finished a little application using node.js and socket.io. I would like to put it on the Web and I don't know which server to take. I am searching for a free one. I've already found appfog, nodester and pusher but I do not know if we can use them with socket.io and the use seems complicated.
If you know a simple or well-documented one it would be cool.
If you are new to Amazon Web services, you can get a micro.t1 ECS instance free for a year.
More details here. I am hosting a node.js/socket.io app on one myself currently atop Ubuntu.
You're going to need a host that either gives you system-level access to build/deploy software, or you'll need a host that provides a compatible environment for you.
I personally have used Slicehost for years, but am switching to Linode soon. I prefer having complete control over my installations.
You could look at running an EC2 instance from Amazon, http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/. Lots of instance sizes to pick from, tons of pre-configured AMI's to pick from. Or just pick a basic one and setup whatever server you need.
Some other solutions are like Heroku and nodester. Socket.io works fine with all of these.
In general, you pay less for servers you configure yourself and you have more flexibility with what you can do. If you're less interested in that, then spend more money and try finding someone else's platform that does what you need.
You could try signing up for a Windows azure account.
They have nodejs support and you get up to 10 free websites (limited in some way by resources)
This should sort you out till you are ready to pay (hopefully when you have more traffic).
Related
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I am new to Javascript frameworks and nodejs. Recently, I came across a requirement which made me think if I can use them.
Requirements:
--A lightweight website which can be run off a usb stick (kind of portable webapp) without a need to install a complete webserver on client machine.
--The website should be available to users on the local network. The webapp will be maily used for (a)capturing user responses to a questionnaire (b) showing graphs, data, reports (c) showing clickable diagrams
I want to build a very responsive, rich-client kind of webapp.
From whatever I searched on the Internet, I think I should use node.js (as webserver) + express.js (MVC framework) + Twitter Bootstrap (for building nice UI).
I am not sure, if my choices of frameworks/tools is correct, so want to know what experts recommend.
Thanks.
The only requirement is to download a portable version of node.js. For example, windows x64 v0.8.18. All the distributables are located here.
That's all. All your modules need to be installed locally.
I have just downloaded and compiled node.js to evaluate. Great tool, builds and runs nice also under Ubuntu and is also supported on Mac OS and Windows. Very interesting possibilities. Surely can be recommended.
To have it really cross platform, you can simply drop several nodejs executables for different platforms into NTFS formatted USB stick. Linux guys may need to tweak mounting permissions but they are used to.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
i have a few questions about real time applications.
Comet vs Websockets, what is better? For example checking the online users, chat etc.
How does running any of these processes (comet server, websockets) affect normal server functions performance (Page load, php, operating with databases)?
How can i actually install websockets / comet to my hosted server and not just having it on localhost.
Im sorry if some of these questions are stupid, but im quite new to this, so i have to start somewhere :)
Once again, this is a question that is only answered by "it depends on what you're doing". Also, a simple SO and/or Google search will give you several results that I suggest you should read for a better in-depth view.
Both techniques will deliver data "real time", and both can be used to check online users, check etc. Also, Comet is an umbrella term and there are many "Comet Servers" that use WebSockets as the transport mechanism when possible. Comet servers don't just use AJAX, XHR Long-Polling, Forever-Frame etc. They now use WebSockets and fallback to other transport mechanisms where required.
Depending on what kind of back-end technique you're using, ASP.NET SignalR is pretty awesome too.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I'm thinking about developing an app which will make a strong use of geolocation (mongodb will be my choice), and strong upload of photos (and viewing too).
I was just wondering if you could help me with framework election. I've been using node.js for months and I'm very comfortable with it, but because of its one-process nature, will it be bad for locking when uploading big photos?
The other solution I'm working on is rails.
Which one will you choose? Any other ?
Thanks
With Streaming you can support more then one client during a upload, since the upload will be broken into different parts. I sure expressjs has some good streaming examples.
... but because of its one-process nature, will it be bad for locking when uploading big photos?
Take a look at the cluster module, this should help with leveraging more cores. In fact one of the node.js clients on the front page are these guys: Transloadit who focus on handling images.
I'm thinking about developing an app which will make a strong use of geolocation (mongodb will be my choice)...
I've done a lot of work with MongoDB and I recommend reading up on the limitations of MongoDB's geo-location tools. The product does provide some functionality, but it does not match the features of Postgres. You will want to ensure that MongoDB covers all of the features you require before beginning.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 11 years ago.
I'm wanting to create a web app where people can collaborate with a specified image.
For example, if you take a look at this basketball app
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.canica.apps.basket&hl=en
I'm envisioning something similar where people can log in, draw plays etc,
I want updates to happen in real time, so that other people logged in as a team see what others are 'drawing'.
I was thinking of extending a html canvas drawing app and adding network communication, but I'm not sure where to start looking.
My question is - What technologies should I be looking at for pushing the data out to the users?
Does anyone have suggestions?
You've almost answered your own question, especially with your use of HTML5 and JavaScript tag.
You should take a look at WebSockets (what, what and why).
WebSockets allow for bi-directional communication between any client and server. Originally only available in web browsers via JavaScript but there are now a number of WebSocket client libraries available which mean that whilst you can develop with browsers in mind there's no reason why you client can't be any device.
A quick search came up with this example. There is also this iPad/iPhone application.
There also appears to be a video tutorial that uses node.js and socket.io here:
http://wesbos.com/html5-canvas-websockets-nodejs/
If you don't want to worry about installing and maintaining your own realtime infrastructure that also deals with fallback techniques for older web browsers then you might consider using a hosted realtime web service.
XMPP might be something to look into. A great book about interacting with XMPP servers from the browser is Professional XMPP Programming With JavaScript and jQuery.
It's a pretty soft introduction and I think there might even be a chapter in there that covers implementing something similar.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I want to build a IRC client in Javascript, maybe using jQuery, but I am struggling a little in getting started.
I have looked a little at http://qwebirc.org/ and how they are doing things, but they have A LOT of code doing specific things only to their project.
I have searched the net for a short example, that lets me start, so I could build further. Any suggestions on where to look, or someone who can come up with an example?
The backend is a more important consideration than whether or not you use jQuery or anything like that. As you may be aware, you can't really write a full browser-based IRC client in Javascript; the JS merely uses XMLHTTPRequest to collect data from an IRC-connected server-side socket implemented in something like PHP.
To that effect, you might have a lot more luck looking for some kind of PHP IRC library (like this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsmartirc/) and then setting up the client frontend separately which will alleviate, to some extent, the "LOT of code doing specific things only to their project".
Here's an open source project that has made some progress to making a AJAX IRC client:
https://github.com/naneau/node-irc-client
Elliott, the backend no is more important consideration than interface frontend, but your sugestion is a good ideia for a expert programmer begin a Ajax IRC Client!
PHP Smart IRC is a package PEAR that aims to implement IRC Protocol communication via PHP sockets.
The advantage is that the implementation of commands is ready, there is no need to start this class from the begin.
Any attempt will merely be using AJAX as an intermediate step between an IRC client/server running on the hosting web server.
Using jquery.ui.chatbox as the interface with messages being sent and received via AJAX would give you the flexibility to implement it in any number of ways e.g.:
IRC
XMPP
PHP/MySQL