Forever Geek » Programming

Colorize your passwords for more accurate entry

Andy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:53:26 +0000

Here’s a really interesting idea for those irritating (but reasonably necessary) password forms you have to fill in.

Assuming you haven’t got all your passwords stored in some kind of manager, when you do have to type in a pesky passphrase, how do you know you’ve got it right?

Chroma-Hash to the rescue. Still in an experimental stage, it’s a jQuery plugin which would allow a web site to display a series of colors for any run of characters the user types in, based on the MD5 system.

Mattt, a hacker from Pittsburgh, explains the system, including security concerns and possible improvements for future versions.

The system would only be really useful if it were implemented consistently across various sites that required passwords, but nevertheless it’s an interesting use of visualisation in order to make one aspect of data entry easier.

Now, if it could be implemented as a client-side plugin, such as a browser add-on, that would be cool.

Twitter “Good Morning” plotted on globe

Andy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:09:47 +0000

Saying “Good Morning” on Twitter undoubtedly helps the naysayers maintain their viewpoint on the uselessness of the microblogging platform.

However, there are plenty of people saying it, as this visualisation map shows:

Jer posts an interesting description of how the maps and videos were created, including trying to create a “wave” of greetings.

GoodMorning! First Render from blprnt on Vimeo.

Via

How Geeks Propose

Dora — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:34:45 +0000

Listen up all of you – you just might learn a thing or two about romance from geeks! In keeping with the theme of the season – it’s the love month, in case you’ve overlooked that tiny fact – let’s take a look at some of the geekiest marriage proposals ever. Never mind that they’re geeky – they worked!
Wired.com recently did their own feature with 5 Geeky Marriage Proposals That Worked. This one’s my favorite: the hacked version of Bejeweled. Bernie programmed his own version of Bejeweled, which was his girlfriend’s favorite game. What happens in this game was that when a player reaches a certain score, the screen clears up and the ring comes down instead – obviously a marriage proposal. Whether Tammy, the girlfriend, was impressed with Bernie’s programming skills or the idea of marriage, she said YES.

For Twitter fanatics, here is another great proposal by Sean Bonner to Tara Brown. Take a look at the screenshot to see for yourself. I don’t know about you guys but this is awfully cute, isn’t it?

Here’s another one on Twitter. The proposal:

The reply:

Ahuh – and who said that only men give proposals?

Last, but not the least, is the proposal to Kathleen Fent. This one took all of 15 minutes to get a yes, but get a yes it did!

And who said geeks were boring? Eat your words, people. These geeks have proven that proposing marriage the good old fashioned way doesn’t come close to what they can come up with with a little help from their friends (Twitter, Nintendo DS, and whatever other gadget or technology you prefer.)

Google releases Chrome browser

Mel — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:40:58 +0000

I am posting this blog using Google’s latest app – Google Chrome.

The search engine giant has finally released the long rumored web browser that it has been developing over the last two years. Google Chrome, according to its engineers, the open source browser is not a content viewer as much as a window manager for web pages and applications. I dunno exactly what that means but the result is a zippier web experience. Pages that I frequent with both IE and Firefox load much faster in Chrome. This has got me really excited as another alternative in the browser space is very welcome. I also love the very minimalist UI of Chrome. There are no space-eating icons and bars. It’s a pure web browsing experience.

Let’s see if the upcoming Safari 4.0 will further heat up the browser market.