Snailmail

What?

A demonstration of connecting Twillo, Lob, Redis, Heroku and Sinatra.

This app takes a incoming phone-call, the caller's selections, and a recording, then will generate and mail a postcard with the contents of the recording on the back.

Why?

I made a joke on an IRC channel about a service that could take voice-mails and mail them to you. This is a proof of concept that such a service could actually exist.

Also it's fun.

How?

Requires:

• Ruby 2.1
• Redis
• ffmpeg on $PATH
• Lob API key

Heroku setup:

heroku addons:add redistogo
heroku config:set PATH=/app/bin:/app/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.1.0/bin:/app/vendor/bundle/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:vendor/
heroku config:set LOB_APIKEY=YOUR_LOB_API_KEY_HERE

Optional (if you want email alerts when someone uses the app):

• Sendgrid

Heroku setup:

heroku addons:add sendgrid:starter
heroku config:set ADMIN_EMAIL=YOUR_EMAIL_HERE

To get it running, follow the instructions on Heroku.

The only way to communicate with the app is via the Redis database, and the admin console. To get access, just bundle exec pry (heroku: heroku run pry)

Once inside the application console, add a new user with:

user = User.create({
  name: "Name that will appear on Postcard and in UI",
  address_line1: "Mailing Address Line 1",
  address_line2: "Mailing Address Line 2",
  city: "Mailing City",
  state: "Two letter state code",
  country: "Mailing Country",          # Optional
  short_code: "String of digits, 0-9"  # Code that references this instance on the keypad
})

# The app keeps track of uses to prevent abuse,
# so each user has a :uses_remaining field that
# will lock a user out if it drops to 0, so add
# some uses!

user.incr(:uses_remaining, 10)

# Postcards need to go someplace, so also add
# one or more recipients.

Recipient.create({
  name: "Name that will appear on Postcard and in UI",
  address_line1: "Mailing Address Line 1",
  address_line2: "Mailing Address Line 2",
  city: "Mailing City",
  state: "Two letter state code",
  country: "Mailing Country",          # Optional
  short_code: "String of digits, 0-9"  # Code that references this instance on the keypad
  user: user                           # User this Recipient belongs to
})

Last step, in your Twillo App settings, add an incoming call endpoint to POST to your heroku instance's hostname telephony/incoming route.

Then call your Twillio number, enter in the short-code of the user you generated above, the recipient short code, and await your postcard!

Who?

Paul Bergeron wrote this.

Images for postcard fronts from Unsplash.