How to update Google Sheets with JSON API

Google Sheets is a well-known service and online spreadsheet. Google Sheets can be more than just a spreadsheet, it can be used as a back-end or a database for applications. For example, Glide uses Google Sheets as a database for its mobile applications. Glide allows to build a mobile application without any code connected to Google Sheets. It’s incredible how fast you can build a real app, .

I was building an app in Glide that displays the latest news using News API. I connected the app to a Google Sheets spreadsheet where I entered a number of news stories manually. The app looks like this:

Glide app

This is how the Google Sheets spreadsheets looks:

Data for Glide app in Google Sheets

If I need to update any news I can manually edit the Google Sheets spreadsheets and the Glide app will be updated.

This manual update is not ideal of course.

Continue reading “How to update Google Sheets with JSON API” →

Video: Building a no-code application to text positive news with Parabola, News API, Watson NLU and Twilio

Earlier I published two blogs posts where I share my experience building a no-code application that texts positive COVID-19 news:

I also recorded a video that shows how I built the application:

Hope you will find it useful. Let me know if you have any question.

Tutorial: building a no-code application to text positive news with Parabola, News API, Watson NLU and Twilio

I wanted to take an app build with code and rebuild it using no-code tools. Gwyneth Peña built a wonderful app that sends a daily positive news article about COVID-19 via a text message so I decided to build this app using no-code tools. I shared a high-level overview of the app in an earlier blog post.

In this blog post I will share a more step-by-step how I built the app. You should be able to follow the steps and build it as well.

Tools you need

You will need the following tools to build the application. All four services offer a free plan.

  1. Parabola – no-code platform
  2. News API – news service
  3. Watson NLU – sentiment service
  4. Twilio – SMS service

Parabola

Parabola is a no-code tool where I built the app. Parabola is a drag-and-drop workflow builder. You build a flow with multiple steps (nodes) and connections between steps. Each step has input and output. Output from one step is passed as input to the next step. You can also look at it as a serverless application – where each step represents a serverless function. But, instead of writing code, each step is dropped onto the flow and configuring. This is how the application flow looks:

Application flow in Parabola

Register for a free Parabola account.

Continue reading “Tutorial: building a no-code application to text positive news with Parabola, News API, Watson NLU and Twilio” →

19 online meetup recordings you should watch from April 2020

IBM Developer team hosts weekly online meetups on various topics. Online events are one of the best ways to scale your Developer Relations program and reach developers anywhere, anytime and for a long time after the event.

🎟 Register for our upcoming events.

Interactive Lab: Building Blockchain Applications with JavaScript
Watch the recording

How to Build Your Business on IBM Cloud: AI
Watch the recording

Learning Pandas 2-part series: Introduction & Beyond the Basics
Watch the recording

Watson AI technology 3-part series: Build, Run and Manage your AI Models
Watch the recording

Continue reading “19 online meetup recordings you should watch from April 2020” →

Parabola, Watson NLU, News API and Twilio – tools I used to build a nocode application

One thing I wanted to try is re-build an app built with code using no-code tools.

Gwyneth Peña built a wonderful app that sends a daily positive news article about COVID-19 via a text message:

I thought this is a great app I should try to build using no-code tools.

Continue reading “Parabola, Watson NLU, News API and Twilio – tools I used to build a nocode application” →

Developer Relations: online events and content series

If you are in Developer Relations space: online events and content scale, travel doesn’t scale. The following are of articles to help you scale: run online events and write content.

And this is my all-time favorite. It coves both types of events (in-person and online) but still gives you great ideas on how once piece of content can create a lot more content.

I hope these articles are useful during COVID-19 pandemic. Once we go back to normal (and we will), these resources should be as important as these activities will allow you to scale you Developer Relations program.

The value of no-code is clear: build faster and allow a lot more people to build

I shared earlier how no-code can help build solutions faster and allow a lot more people to participate in building solutions. I shared how the community stepped up to help fight COVID-19 by building various applications with no-code. For example, one such application is to allow restaurant owners to build an online menu for delivery or takeout:

The value of no-code is easy to understand:

  1. Build solutions faster
  2. Allow a lot more people to build solutions

A few days after I published my blog post, CNBC published a great article on demonstrating the two points above: Next frontier in Microsoft, Google, Amazon cloud battle is over a world without code. I want to share a few quotes from the article.

[NYC] created a COVID-19 crisis-management software platform in a matter of days, and without writing one line of computer code. Time is of the essence.

CNBC (https://t.co/Y1MCdQY4dj)

NYC used a no-code solution from Unqork to build this application in 48 to 72 hours. I think the time it took to build this solution is incredible. For many applications there is no need to focus on frameworks, libraries, integrations and servers. No-code allows to focus on a problem and building a solution.

Microsoft expects 500 million new apps to be built in the next half decade, which is more than all the apps built in the last 40 years

CNBC (https://t.co/Y1MCdQY4dj)

If this number is true, then this is an unprecedented demand for new software solutions. Today there are about 24-25 million developers. It’s impossible to meed this demand with this number of developers using traditional coding tools. No-code allows a lot more people to build software solutions. No-code democratizes software development. Imagine if we enabled millions more people to build solutions. These people will come with solutions, ideas, inventions that we were not possible or imaginable before. Imagine what solutions first reponders could build to help fight COVID-19?

The value of no-code is clear: build faster and allow a lot more people to build.

AI and ML Online Developer Summit (April 14, 2020)

I’m a big fan of online events as they allow you to scale. IBM Developer SF has been running online events for almost two years. Next week we are hosting our first online conference: AI & ML Online Developer Conference. We have five talks and a hands-on workshop.

Check out the full schedule and register at: https://aiml-developer-summit-online.splashthat.com/

🗓 Schedule

🎈8:45am – Welcome

🌟 9:00am – Improve Communication Apps with Machine Learning! – Lizzie Siegle (Twilio)

🌟 9:20am – Explainability in neural networks – Lavanya Shukla (Weights & Biases)

🌟 9:40am – Hands-on workshop

🌟 10:10am – Testing Machine Learning Models in Production – Eric Schles

🌟 10:30 – Predict the Future with Watson Studio AutoAI – Jenna Ritten (IBM)

🌟 10:50 – Realtime Object Detection in the Browser with TensorFlow.js – Nicholas Bourdakos (IBM)

Check out the full schedule and register at: https://aiml-developer-summit-online.splashthat.com/

13 online meetup recordings you should watch from March 2020

IBM Developer team hosts weekly online meetups on various topics. Online events are one of the best ways to scale your Developer Relations program and reach developers anywhere, anytime and for a long time after the event.

The following are online meetups we hosted in March 2020. Register for any future events on Crowdcast.

Deploy Deep Learning models as Microservices using Open Source tools
March 4, 2020
Watch the recording

Interactive Lab: Building Blockchain Apps with JavaScript
March 11, 2020
Watch the recording

Removing Unfair Bias in Machine Learning
March 16, 2020
Watch the recording

A Developer’s Intro to the Architecture of Containers & Orchestration
March 16, 2020
Watch the recording

Serverless Workshop with Python and JavaScript
February 18, 2020
Watch the recording

Deploy Microservices on the NEW Red Hat OpenShift 4.3
March 19, 2020
Watch the recording

Deep Learning Master Class IV – Intro to RNNs, LSTMs, and GRUs
March 20, 2020
Watch the recording

How to build your business on IBM Cloud
March 23, 2020
Watch the recording

Women in Data Science NYC @ IBM
March 23, 2020
Watch the recording

Intro to IBM API Connect Test and Monitor
March 25, 2020
Watch the recording

Around the World in 80 Ways – Deploy a Microservice on Red Hat OpenShift
March 25, 2020
Watch the recording

Create a real-time object detection app using Machine Learning
March 25, 2020
Watch the recording

Journey to Kubernetes Security
March 31, 2020
Watch the recording

🎟 Register for our upcoming events.

What can you do besides online events?

With most of the world in lockdown due to Coronavirus (COVID-19), most organizations switched to running online events. IBM Developer SF team has been running online events for almost two years so the switch to online-only was simple for us. I shared before how online events allow you to scale.

Not everyone can or wants to run online events. You might be in a place where internet connection doesn’t permit to produce live high-quality events. You simply might not be comfortable doing live events. And that’s fine. The good news – there are other things you can do.

Continue reading “What can you do besides online events?” →