by Niklas Heidloff 

Introducing Blue Cloud Mirror, a Fun IBM Cloud Showcase  

By Niklas Heidloff | 1/23/19, 11:15 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Blue Cloud Mirror is a game where players need to show five specific emotions and do five specific poses in two levels. The faster, the better. Play the game. It only takes a minute. All you need is a webcam and a Chrome browser.

IBM Think 2018 Highlights for Developers  

By Niklas Heidloff | 3/23/18, 10:17 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Last week IBM hosted the Think 2018 conference in Las Vegas which is IBM’s flagship conference that combines previous conferences like InterConnect and World of Watson. Below is a list of announcements and news that I, as a developer, like most.

Presentation how to create Alexa Skills with IBM Watson  

By Niklas Heidloff | 2/2/18, 3:52 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Last week there was a webinar Create Alexa skills with Watson Conversation where I was supposed to present. However since I couldn’t make it, my colleague Mark Sturdevant jumped in on a short notice and did a great job. You can watch the recording, read the pattern documentation and read the slides.

When to use Serverless? When to use Kubernetes?  

By Niklas Heidloff | 2/1/18, 8:20 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

A question that I get asked very often these days is: Should I use Serverless or Kubernetes to build cloud native applications? Both computing options have pros and cons and it depends on your needs which option you should choose.

Integrating Applications without writing Code  

By Niklas Heidloff | 11/14/17, 8:41 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

IBM App Connect is an IPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) to connect different applications without having to write code. Similarly to IFTTT users are typically business users or citizen developers from line of business departments. App Connect provides currently roughly 50 connectors to integrate applications like Salesforce, SAP, Slack and Gmail.

How to write your own Slack Chatbots in Javascript  

By Niklas Heidloff | 10/16/17, 12:11 PM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Last week Ansgar Schmidt and I gave a session at Codemotion How to write your own Slack Chatbots in Javascript. Below are the slides with screenshots of our demos. We demonstrated how to write a Node.js application that uses Botkit to connect with Slack and that uses IBM Watson Conversation as natural language processing service.

Node-RED Samples for IBM Watson IoT Hackathon  

By Niklas Heidloff | 9/11/17, 7:31 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Recently I gave an one hour webinar to help developers to prepare for a hackathon related to IBM Watson IoT. I demonstrated Node-RED and coded live some sample flows.

Accessing Bluemix Services from Client-side Web Applications  

By Niklas Heidloff | 8/7/17, 6:45 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Bluemix is IBM’s cloud platform to build and host applications which can leverage more than 100 services, for example databases and cognitive services. The services provide APIs which require credentials. Applications which are hosted on Bluemix as Cloud Foundry apps or Docker containers can access these credentials from environment variables. This article describes how to invoke Bluemix services from client-side web applications.

My Thoughts on the Next Generation of IBM Domino App Dev  

By Niklas Heidloff | 4/5/16, 5:48 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Before I started to work on Bluemix I had worked 15 years in the IBM Collaboration Solutions space, especially on application development. Below are my personal thoughts on how app dev in IBM Domino could evolve, both on-premises and in the cloud.

Invoking the Insights for Twitter Service in Bluemix from Swift  

By Niklas Heidloff | 9/9/15, 2:43 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

"Hear the Buzz" is a sample iPhone app which finds tweets with positive or negative sentiments for certain topics via the IBM Insights for Twitter service in IBM Bluemix. Below is a short description how this service is used from Swift. As a starting point I used the sample app from my colleague Frederic Lavigne.

IBM MobileFirst Platform Server available as Trial on Bluemix  

By Niklas Heidloff | 8/26/15, 3:23 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

IBM Bluemix provides several services to build backend functionality for mobile iOS, Android and hybrid apps. There are mobile services to store data server and client side, to handle authentication, to send notifications, to monitor particular apps, ways for users to provide feedback and more.

Accessing Bluemix Services from Liberty Java Applications in Docker Containers  

By Niklas Heidloff | 8/25/15, 3:43 PM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

IBM Bluemix allows developers to host their Docker images and to run their Docker containers in the cloud. In addition to hosting Docker in the cloud, Bluemix also provides more than 100 services that developers can use to build applications.

Deploying Docker Containers via Bluemix DevOps Pipelines  

By Niklas Heidloff | 8/20/15, 1:03 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

In addition to the Docker and IBM Containers CLIs (command line interfaces) you can also use IBM Bluemix DevOps pipelines to build images and run containers on the server. DevOps pipelines have multiple stages. Usually in the first step you build your application code, for example via Maven for Java applications.

Deploying Web Applications generated by Yeoman on Bluemix  

By Niklas Heidloff | 8/18/15, 7:17 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

My colleague Ryan Baxter pointed me to a nice tool to set up new web applications. The tool is called Yeoman, the "web's scaffolding tool for modern webapps". The tool helps especially developers who often create prototypes and first iterations of new projects.

Docker Tooling in Eclipse to build Liberty based Images for Bluemix  

By Niklas Heidloff | 7/22/15, 8:23 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

While some developers prefer command line tools, I often use graphical tools if available since I cannot memorize all the different commands. That's why I tried the relative new Docker Tooling for Eclipse. The plugin is relative new and there is certainly room for improvements but it helps with managing images.

Maven Plugin to install Web Resources in Bluemix Java Projects via Bower  

By Niklas Heidloff | 7/21/15, 2:55 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

Similarly to the dependency managers mvn, npm, cocoapods, etc. Bower is a nice dependency manager for web resources to pull down JavaScript, CSS and other files. This makes it easy for developers to find and install certain libraries. Plus the same functionality can be integrated in the build process.

Bluemix Selfie Drone now available as Open Source  

By Niklas Heidloff | 7/16/15, 4:46 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

The Bluemix Selfie Drone is now available as open source. Get the code from GitHub. The project contains an application to take selfies via a Parrot AR Drone 2.0. Via navigation buttons in a web application the drone can be steered and a series of pictures can be taken.

Cloud Foundry Maven Plugin to build and deploy Bluemix Applications  

By Niklas Heidloff | 7/15/15, 9:34 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

For some people this is old news, but I just used for the first time the Cloud Foundry Maven Plugin to build and deploy a Bluemix application and it made the deployment really easy. Below are some of the key concepts I used. I built a Java application that leverages the AlchemyAPI service.

Having Fun with the Bluemix Selfie Drone  

By Niklas Heidloff | 7/14/15, 4:51 AM | - | Added by Oliver Busse

Recently I had some time to build another IBM Bluemix demonstration which showcases the Internet of Things functionality and cognitive Watson services. With the "Bluemix Selfie Drone" application you can take selfies via a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 drone and tweet the portraits on the pictures.

Visualize Sensor Data from IoT Devices in Bluemix  

By Niklas Heidloff | 7/8/15, 2:05 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

Recently I learned about a nice application to visualize data from sensors (and events) of your Internet of Things devices that you've registered with the IoT Foundation in IBM Bluemix. This can be useful to see live changes of your data and it's also possible to see historical data.

Usage of Cloudant NoSQL Databases in XPages Applications  

By Niklas Heidloff | 7/7/15, 6:00 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

IBM Bluemix provides various database services, one of them is the Cloudant NoSQL DB. Cloudant provides a REST API and many client libraries to access the service. In the past I've used the Java API Ektorp for other projects. Today I tried how to use this API from XPages which is a JSF based runtime running on IBM Domino.

Getting started with Internet of Things in Bluemix with Texas Instruments Boards  

By Niklas Heidloff | 6/24/15, 5:03 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

Last week at the hackathon at Devoxx we handed out some SimpleLink Wi-Fi CC3200 LaunchPads that developers could use for their hacks. These devices are rather cheap (around 40 Euro), have a built in Wifi and provide various sensors: temperature, accelerometer, buttons, network quality.

New Version of the Video from David Barnes: Getting started with IBM Bluemix  

By Niklas Heidloff | 6/16/15, 1:12 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

14 months ago my colleague David Barnes created the most viewed Bluemix video (47k views). At that time BlueMix was still in beta, there was no Docker support yet and many other services were missing. Yesterday David published a new version of this video covering also some of the new capabilities.

Using Business Rules in your Bluemix Applications without hardcoding them  

By Niklas Heidloff | 6/10/15, 11:26 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

IBM Bluemix provides a service to define business rules external to your application code. This allows changing rules more dynamically without having to recompile and redeploy the complete application. Below is just a quick summary for what this service can be used and how to leverage it in Bluemix.

Bluemix Android App to steer Sphero Balls available as Open Source  

By Niklas Heidloff | 5/26/15, 8:46 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

Next month my colleagues and I from the IBM Emerging Technologies team will host an IBM Bluemix Internet of Things hackathon at Devoxx in London. As part of this effort we're open sourcing some of our IoT demos. I open sourced the simple Android app that communicates to Sphero balls via bluetooth and to Bluemix via MQTT.

Embed Reports and visualize Data in your Bluemix Applications  

By Niklas Heidloff | 5/21/15, 8:03 AM | - | Added by John Oldenburger

Here is a quick introduction to another powerful service in IBM Bluemix - Embeddable Reporting (beta). With this service developers can easily build reports using a graphical tool (or API) to visualize data and embed the reports either as HTML or JSON in their web applications.

Host Docker Containers in the Cloud via IBM Bluemix  

By Niklas Heidloff | 4/27/15, 4:02 AM | - | Added by Johnny Oldenburger

Over the last weeks I've attended two bigger Java conferences in Germany - JavaLand and JAX. It felt like most of the sessions at these conferences were about Docker and microservices. For people who haven't had a chance to learn more about Docker I describe below on a high level what value Docker provides.

Don't reinvent the Wheel - Use Bluemix Samples as Starting Points for your Apps  

By Niklas Heidloff | 4/16/15, 6:00 AM | - | Added by Johnny Oldenburger

When implementing new applications or new functionality I always try to use an existing piece of code as starting point that comes close to what I'm looking for. Even for simple functionality this has proven to be a good practice for me since I don't loose time trying to find the right APIs and dependencies.

Two cool Bluemix Keynote Demos  

By Niklas Heidloff | 4/13/15, 5:11 AM | - | Added by Johnny Oldenburger

I've the pleasure to work in a team of awesome people in IBM's Emerging Technologies group. Below are two short videos of demos my colleagues David Barnes and Mark VanderWiele have given recently that show some of the capabilities of IBM Bluemix. In the following video David demonstrates how to quickly deploy a chat application to Bluemix.

Manage your APIs with the new IBM Bluemix Service  

By Niklas Heidloff | 3/12/15, 10:01 AM | - | Added by Johnny Oldenburger

There has been and is a lot of talk about the API Economy. APIs provide new business opportunities for companies, new ways to provide services and new ways to sell and promote products. Watch the video from Sam Ramji for a great introduction to the API Economy. Here is how the IBM website describes API economy.