Servoy TIP: How To Automate Sending Mail from Gmail

I recently needed to create some functionality to send mail via my Gmail account from within Servoy. It sounds pretty straight forward, but it turned out that there was one parameter that tripped me up. If you don't include this line of code - it won't send email, no matter what you try:

mail.smtp.starttls.enable=true

Took me a little while of digging on the Internet and trying stuff to get it to work. So, for this week's tip - I thought it might be a good idea to share the code:

function sendEmailUsingGmail()
{
       var properties = new Array();
       properties[0] = 'mail.smtp.host=smtp.gmail.com';
       properties[1] = 'mail.smtp.port=587';
       properties[2] = 'mail.smtp.auth=true';
        properties[3] = 'mail.smtp.username=';
       properties[4] = 'mail.smtp.password=';
       properties[5] = 'mail.smtp.starttls.enable=true';
       
        var msgText = 'test message';
        var success = plugins.mail.sendMail('tosomeone@gmail.com', 'fromsomeone@gmail.com', 'subject', msgText, null, null, null, properties);
        if (!success) 
        {
              plugins.dialogs.showWarningDialog('Alert','Failed to send mail','OK');
        }
}

Enjoy!

No Soup For You! Read Your Terms Of Service On Social Media Sites

Back in the days of heady telecom deregulation I had a landline (a "landline" is slang for having a telephone that is hard-wired into your house) - I had AT&T for both my long distance carrier and the provider for my sweet Motorola v551 (it had a COLOR screen and you didn't have to pull out the antenna before you started talking!).

I was either traveling or my desk was just unorganized (I don't remember which) and anyway, I forgot to pay my home phone bill. In those days you got a "nag letter" about the fact that you missed payment and they usually gave you a grace period to get your money to them (a "grace period" is when the company you owe money to waits for 10 days to receive your payment - by check - in an envelope - with a stamp on it... a "stamp" is... oh, forget it).

When I got the nag letter, I decided to just call them, apologize and give them a credit card and that would be that. Only, when I went to call them on my cell phone, I found out that they had cut off my service. So, then I tried the house phone, dialed the local (toll) number - and found out that my long distance didn't work (I could call locally).

OK... so I went to a neighbor's and used their landline to call the mothership. I got a non-outsourced person on the phone (back in those days, they hired Americans in America to answer the phone for their customers in things called "call centers") - explained what happened, gave them my credit card number, etc.

While I had them on the phone I mentioned that I needed to talk to their tech support department because my cell phone seemed to be on the blink... "No, I show all the towers in your area working fine. The problem, Mr. Cusick is that when your long distance bill was not paid, we suspended your mobile account as well."

What the ?

Long story short - it turns out in the Terms of Service for AT&T long distance was that in the event of non-payment, they had the right to suspend or terminate any other AT&T service you may be using as well (still applies today).

Apparently, the same thing is happening with Google and their Google+ service. It seems that if one runs afoul of the terms of service for Google+ - they have the right to not only terminate your G+ account, but your Gmail account - and any other Google account as well (Docs, YouTube, Beluga, etc).

Case in point - there was recently a case where the 10 year old son of a programmer got an invite to G+. He (along with the rest of us) signed up with glee - entering his birthday as part of the process.

Oops.

Denied! He was denied access to G+ because of his age (which I sort of understand)... but it turns out he was then also completely locked out of his 2 year old Gmail account as well (yeah, I know, who lets an 8 year old have a Gmail account? But that's for another time...). This made him very upset. This made his dad very upset.

Now, to be fair to Google, the boy did violate their terms of service, but one would hope think that a person should be given some kind of grace period to retrieve "their" emails and contacts - right? Nope.

I understand the need for safeguards and for the "appearance" of being a responsible company "looking out for" young people (read: covering our Google-butts) and all. However, we are living in a digital age. The digital social media sites are the equivalent to hamburger joints in the 50's. It's where kids go to hang out, talk to each other, see whose online, and put stuff like "I'm bored - someone text me" in their status updates.

Rather than encouraging our younger generation to become familiar with technology and get in touch with their "inner geek" and learn proper online etiquette (and offline etiquette for that matter) - the mainstream companies are blocking access to the next wave of digital consumers. Kids will (and do) gather. Be it on Skype, IM, group texting, ooVoo - or any one of a hundred other outlets - they will find a way to communicate with others (and the world).

It's the parent's job to parent. It's not Google's.

Short Rant: Adobe - Patch THIS! (UPDATED)

Holy crap. Really? ANOTHER set of patches for Flash? This is the second time in 9 days that Adobe has issued a "zero-day" patch that affect Flash (and also, Google's Chrome browser that includes Flash). Oh yeah, and it also updated Adobe Reader and Acrobat fixing 13 MORE vulnerabilities at the same time.

If you use Gmail - you REALLY, REALLY need to make sure that you've got the latest patch - because on June 5th Adobe issued an "emergency" patch to fix a vulnerability that would allow nefarious baddies to steal your Gmail login credentials.

I don't know about you - but I have more than one device that uses Flash. I use Google's Chrome browser at work (3 Windows machines), at home (2 Macs + 6 virtual OS instances) - and I'm just getting pretty damn tired of updating all this stuff - all the time. But yet, if Adobe comes out with a "critical" patch - and you ignore it - your machine might get hacked - or your identity stolen.

Really? Identity theft from a browser plug-in used to play media or display a PDF document?

I'm especially worried about those "less technically savvy" people in my life - since I'm the "family IT guy." If they don't patch, it means I'm going to have to do all kinds of stuff to un-gunk their computers - because (technically inclined brethren) you KNOW they DO click on every single "pretty picture" on every single site they visit on the inter-web.

Now, I love PDFs - don't get me wrong - and because reader is now installed on 95%+ of all computers in the world - getting away from using it will be a challenge.

For those of you who are really smart out there - why don't you come up with a PDF to HTML5 converter that would just bundle up the PDF into a double-clickable HTML document? At least then we could be free from the eternal Adobe Patch Cycle...

... until someone hacks HTML5 readers... sigh.

UPDATE June 17, 2011 - Well, it seems as though the good folks over at Mozilla are SICK of the buggy Adobe Reader as well - and are going to build an extension (and eventually put into the codebase)... wait for it... a 100% HTML5/JavaScript PDF rendering engine! Hot off the wire from ComputerWorld:

Mozilla is working on a project that will add PDF rendering to Firefox using HTML5 and JavaScript, eliminating the need for users to run Adobe's own plug-in.

We can only HOPE the other browser folks get behind the open-source pdf.js project as well! God speed Mozilla folks!

Microblog: Gmail Is Only Human

Nothing in the world works 100% of the time. That's a fact of life.

Why is it then when Gmail goes down for two hours - or the Twitter "fail whale" comes up - people go crazy? Hey - people - do YOU ever do anything 100% of the time - every day, all day, every day of the year?

Neither do I.

Why, then do most people just expect all software, hardware and Internet connections to be up 100% of the time? Well, I guess because we're starting to come to see them as utilities like electricity and phone. They're just supposed to "work" all the time.

And, when they don't - we get a little panicked. Do you remember the last time the electricity went out?

It also means that if you have only a single source for your email (or social networks or whatever) - then you're choosing to put all of your eggs in one basket. That means - that WHEN (not IF) your favorite service goes down (and they ALL will at some point) - take a chill.

Pull out some paper and jot down your notes with a "pen" - or save them in a text file so you can immediately flame the company and have your inflammatory blog post all ready to go when the service DOES come back up.

That's what I do...

Boo Hoo - Don't Bitch About Free

I'm sick and tired of reading stories where people are pissed off because of the gMail outage. Yes, I agree that companies who host things in the cloud - especially with something as important to productivity as email - should do everything in their power to ensure uptime.

But hey - even the folks at Google are human. Servers fail. Protocols get messed up. Windows crashes. Some idiot hits a phone pole with fibre in it.

Stuff happens.

Especially in "the cloud."

People who pay for services (and some do pay for Google services) - should still have a reasonable expectation of service failure. Yes, it sucks, and yes, it's inconvenient - but hey, it's a miracle the thing even works at all.

There are so many ways that a hosted solution (even with a multi-million dollar redundant uber server facilities) can fail. No one, not Salesforce, not Apple, not RIM, not Google, not Microsoft - NO ONE is immune from downtime.

That is part of the price you pay for the "convenience" of not having to manage your own servers. An oh, by the way, if you do manage your own servers - you will STILL have downtime. There will be times your ISP gets hosed, or DNS goes down, or a drive fails, or the new intern wipes your active directory store.

It WILL, for 100% SURE, happen. It's the nature of technology.

If you don't like it - sell your Google stock. Maybe you should do what we did in the old days - buy and Exchange Server and download and manage your own damn email. Or POP rather than IMAP the stuff.

I'll bet your uptime with your own managed, on-premesis server is about the same as a solution hosted in the cloud. Technology is a really good thing... WHEN it works.