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When machines need to communicate with one another and exchange data, they require certain formatting for specific data types. That’s where SOAP API and REST API come into play. They allow for communication and transfer of data, but each is different in several ways. From implementation to their required resources, various attributes separate one from the other. By Mark Smallcombe.

The article then describes the following:

• What is REST API?
• What is SOAP API?
• Differences outlined
• How API services work

Compared to REST APIs, SOAP APIs are more specified in their use cases and are necessary for fewer instances. However, SOAP protocols are still required for some business processes, but for true flexibility, they aren’t as capable or nimble.

If you want ease and versatility, REST APIs are the best solution for businesses who want to connect to multiple platforms and websites without issues or complex specifics. They are widely used and easier to work with than SOAP APIs. Good read!

As with any Web Service, the microservices need to be protected from unauthorized access. So how do you protect each of your services? How does one share the token that is received from the Auth service?. By Anu Viswan.

Exposing your microservices directly to the client and allowing them to directly communicate with all your services would have its own problems, so in this example, we will also add a layer of API Gateway which would be the single point of contact for all your clients.

The Gateways, in addition to providing a single point of access, also adds a security layer over your microservices. It could also support load balancing and reducing round trips when the client requires calls to multiple microservices. With regard to authentication, the gateway could pass the authentication token to the downstream paths. In this example, we would be using Ocelot for building our gateway.

The article main parts:

• The working
• Auth service
• API gateway
• UserService
• Client

In this article, we addressed how to authenticate the different individual services in the microservice architecture. We also used the wonderful Ocelot library for building API Gateways. The services and the gateways are loosely coupled with each other, while the client is having a single point of contact in the gateway. Good read!

GraphQL is a great technology for microservices because you can use it as a data layer for these microservices. One use case is to combine the data from all these services into a single, unified API. By Roy Derks.

But building this data layer can be very time-consuming since you need to connect the microservices into one schema. In this post, you’ll learn step-by-step how to build a data layer for microservices with GraphQL in a declarative way.

The article main points are:

• Why use GraphQL for microservices?
• Building a data layer using GraphQL
• Setting up the project
• Creating schemas for microservices

There are many ways to create a data layer by creating a custom GraphQL server, but this is very time-consuming and error-prone. Luckily, the tool StepZen makes it easier to create a GraphQL data layer (or server) by writing GraphQL SDL only. Good read.

No-code is a set of tools that allow you to create websites, apps and software all without writing a single line of code. By Bobi Robson.

A proof of concept (POC) is something that is built to test an idea and to prove that it is worthy of investment. It is different to it’s sibling, the minimal viable product (MVP) in that it doesn’t have to be built on. Both share the trait that they should be created at the lowest cost (in both effort and money) possible.

We connected a few no-code tools to help us to deliver the testable version (proof of concept) of the tool. The tools that we used for this case were, Typeform, Docupilot, Google Sheets, Google DataStudio, and Zapier.

Typeform is a powerful no-code form tool. It looks great straight out of the box and is easy to adjust to brand guidelines. It also responds well to different devices and changes the form size to fit their screens. The tool needed to produce a non editable document that outlined the results. To do this, we connected the Typeform results (saved in Google Sheets) to Docupilot to produce a unique PDF of the results each time all steps were completed. Google Data Studio is a pretty powerful data visualisation tool that you can use to create reports from a google sheet. In this case I used it to highlight the key insights we’d decided on. Nice one!

The semiconductor chip crisis is real, and it’s had a serious impact on our lives. Cars are more expensive and harder to build. Computer makers are rushing to keep up with an insatiable consumer demand for remote work and school devices. Expect low stock and high prices to last until 2023 for GPUs, consoles and many other gadgets. By D. Hardawar @devindra.

While it’s an issue that affects practically everyone, the chip shortage has been particularly painful for gamers. A year after the PlayStation 5’s launch, it’s still practically impossible to order one. As Forrester Analytics’ Glenn O’Donnell tells Engadget, the issue is mostly a simple supply and demand problem.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang echoed that sentiment in a recent Yahoo Finance interview, saying he doesn’t think there are any “magic bullets” when it comes to dealing with the supply chain. Huang also noted that NVIDIA’s own group of suppliers is multi-sourced and diverse, so the shortage shouldn’t dramatically affect the development of new products.

In the US, there’s a glimmer of hope that the Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), which includes $52 billion in funding for the CHIPs for America Act, could spur on more semiconductor production. Good read!

Imagine having a business meeting where you are given puzzles instead of information. To get to the KPI dashboard to round up your performance, you need to piece the puzzle together. Sounds funny, right? Well, in reality, meetings or preparing a report often consist of pure efforts to obtain and interpret the right data.By Blaz Abe.

Furthermore, just having the data communicating nicely doesn’t necessarily prompt the change you need to improve your business. But what if the clear picture, that also inspires action, is right in front of you the whole time?

The article then describes:

• Actionable Reporting put into practice
• Why dashboards fail
• Where should I direct my attention to
• Scaled charts help you understand what is happening
• Proper KPI dashboard example
• How to design actionable KPI dashboards
• 7 components of a great landing page in Power BI

One of the things we see most often when it comes to report pages is that people do not make them actionable. They tend to focus on key performance indicators, like total amounts, gross profit margins, cost of goods sold, quantities, and others. Good read!

Whatever tool you are looking for, there are plenty of open source software alternatives to choose from. By Lauren Maffeo.

2021 was another year spent largely online, but that’s nothing new for the open source world. The ability to work from anywhere is in our DNA, preceding the pandemic that ushered remote work into the mainstream.

If you think Microsoft Project is your only option, fear not. Frank Bergmann shares several open source alternatives for single users to plan and track large, single projects. Redmine, ProjectLibre, and TaskJuggler are among the open source alternatives covered in this list.

Tha article then focuses on these categories:

• An open source alternative to Microsoft Exchange
• Manage your budget on Linux with this open source finance tool
• 5 open source alternatives to Zoom
• Why choose Plausible for an open source alternative to Google Analytics
• Try Chatwoot, an open source customer relationship platform
• Get started with an open source customer data platform
• Try Dolibarr, an open source customer relationship management platform

Still, all that time in front of screens this year made our community consider open source alternatives. Regardless of the tool type you need, many of the most popular vendors are not your only option. Good read!

Built a serverless application as a weekend project to help me save money on my heating bill. In doing so, I experienced something great about building websites in 2022. By Cameron McHenry.

While there’s absolutely a learning curve to getting started, once you’ve got momentum, modern web development feels like having rocket boosters. The distance between idea and execution is as short as it’s ever been.

Simeon Griggs, There has never been a better time to build a website

When faced with a problem, one did what any software engineer would do: build a full-stack web application deployed to the edge using the hottest JavaScript framework.

That meant author needed to pick:

• a scraping tool (for fetching the current gas level)
• a database (for storing the data)
• a framework (for interacting with the database and rendering pages)
• a host (for hosting the whole application)

So, author decided to use:

• Scraping: Browserless
• Database: Supabase
• Web framework: Remix
• Hosting: Fly.io

Something author did not expect is that this project cost hom nothing at all, except for the time it took to develop it. The framework is free. All of the libraries used are open source and free. The application hosting on Fly.io is free, and we got a free randomly generated fly.dev domain name with HTTPS. Even the database and scraping tool are free for the amount that it was used. Excellent read!

How much money is your organization leaving on the table by not being more effective at leveraging data and analytics to power your business? This question is becoming more and more relevant for all organizations of all sizes in all industries as AI / ML capabilities become more widely available. And nothing highlights the costs of not becoming more effective at leveraging data and analytics to power your business models then a recent study by Kearney titled “The impact of analytics in 2020”. Posted by Bill Schmarzo.

Tha article then reads about:

• Understanding the data & analytics business maturity index
• The roadmap for mastering data & analytics
• Cost of being an analytics Laggard summary

What author found interesting is how the importance of Data Management and Analytic Capabilities – which are critical in the early phases of the Data & Analytics Maturity Index – are replaced in importance by Business Alignment (think Data Monetization) and Culture (think Empowerment).

The Data & Analytics Business Maturity Index provides a benchmark to not only to measure how effective your organization is at leveraging data and analytics to power your business, but also provides a roadmap for how your organization can become more effective. Nice one!

NeAppSheet in Gmail, a new feature that lets you use custom-built no-code applications, created in AppSheet, directly in your inbox as a dynamic email. Too often, daily workflows are spread across multiple applications, slowing productivity as we navigate from one app to another and back again. By Mike Procopio.

The article then walks you through:

• How AppSheet in Gmail works
• Create your first dynamic email in AppSheet

Setting up a dynamic email takes only a few minutes. You’ll start by setting up an automation, which allows your app to detect certain conditions and then take appropriate actions. In our example, we’ve created a bot that detects when a new Travel Request is created by a user, and then automatically sends an email to the approver with key details. Nice one!