Inspiration
Moore's law always applies at the most important times, especially when you need to access your email. And in that situation, your phone is on 2G data and you can't connect to your email. But no worries, Parsly solves this issue, by allowing its users to retrieve important email data with only 1 bar of 2G data.
How it works
Parsly's backend is powered by and designed around the Context.io API (for it's ability to retrieve and parse emails). We have an Apache and PHP web server and website hosted by Linode running in the background, waiting for commands send from your phone. The website also has features which allow you to easily unsubscribe to mailing lists, or access details of your future events. We accomplish these features by filtering emails by tags such as unsubscribe, eventbrite, and itinerary.
While everyday life occurs, the PHP server in the background constantly polls for any text messages from your phone number. And if it detects a valid command such as 'amazon' or 'itinerary' it will parse through your emails and send you the details that you want see.
Challenges I ran into
The most time consuming challenges we ran into involved setting up the mail server for our services hosted on Linode. And multiple problems with spotty wifi, which prolonged our development time.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We take pride in creating an application that provides an enjoyable net experience even if the user has dial-up speeds. Simply put, parsly.rocks.
What I learned
Our team members learned how to properly use a REST API, troubleshoot web server errors, and explored areas outside of our usual comfort zones.
What's next for Parsly
All of us on Team Parsly truly believe that it is a great idea that could be expanded; therefore, we will continue to develop its functions to suit our needs, and possibly allow for other users to sign up for our service via our website: parsly.rocks
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