public function sendRequest($url, $args)
    {
        $ch = curl_init();
        $curlConfig = array(
            CURLOPT_URL            => $url,
            CURLOPT_POST           => true,
            CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
            CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS     => json_encode($args)
        );
        // print the array that was sent
        //echo "<pre>";
        //var_dump($args);
        curl_setopt_array($ch, $curlConfig);
        $result = curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close($ch);
    }