Software, Fitness, and Gaming – Jesse Warden

Blog

  • Flash as Captcha

    Editing my bio over at OpenARP, and noticed Aral’s using a Flash movie for a Captcha test in his Wysiwyg Wiki. This is the 2nd time I’ve seen Flash used in this manner.

    I use it for my comments so blog spambots cannot directly hit my mt-comments.cgi without knowing the key. Since the key is just a variable hidden in my SWF, and no blogspammer has yet written a Perl spambot to rip open my SWF, introspect the variables, and thus carry this key to my server… I remain protected from blog spam.

    I’ve noticed over the past 3 years, Captcha’s have gotten more and more elaborate. The one used when signing up for an Microsoft Passport, used in Windows Messenger, is nigh unreadable (even after 5 page refreshes), and I’ve got 20/20 vision.

    Aral’s using it to confirm a human is in fact making an edit to the Wiki just by a simple animation (a lot more readable than the Salvador Dali’s I’ve seen generated). Smart thinking, Aral! Another great niche use of Flash.

  • Java DevCon 2005: RIAs w/ Flex & J2EE

    Dan Glauser, Leif Wells and I will presenting at the all day Java DevCon 2005 this Wednesday. Leif and I personally won’t be there all day as we have work to complete, but will we answer questions, group & individually.

    Leif and I will be showing how Flex is the phatest presentation tier ever invented. We’ll be going over what we feel the enterprise Java community wants and needs to see based on reactions from the last AJUG meeting, my readings from community lists, and from talking with various developers. Case in point:

    • What Flex is, where it fits into your workflow, and why you should care.
    • What Flex has to offer, how it trumps other presentation tier frameworks, and all the nitty gritty stuff like the components, validators, and good ole’ xml tags and code.
    • How Flex talks to the backend.

    Dan will take off in the 2nd half where Leif and I leave off, filling in the technical gaps from a Java developer’s perspective, describing what is going on in the backend.

    If you’ve got questions about Flex, please come and talk to one of us. I personally love to chat about technology, want to spread & describe the coolness that is Flex, and look forward to learning from others in the field.

    Hope to see you there!

    Da 4-1-1!

  • JXL Baton Mix: Music Baton

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    Open Mix in seperate window

    Total MP3 Volume: 10GB

    Last CD Bought: Hyper – Wired

    Song Playing Right Now: RaveTrax Radio (iTunes > Radio > Electronica)

    Five songs I listen to a lot:

    1. One, Two Step – Ciara featuring Missy Elliot
    2. Burn For You – Kreo
    3. Get On – Moguai (on “Wired” album by Hyper)
    4. Name of the Game (Hybrid Remix) – Crystal Method
    5. GIS – Final Reckoning and Riset Radio Cuts

    Passin’ Baton To:

    Passed from Bee-otch Who Kizz-nodes.

  • CaptivatePlayer Article & Upcoming Features

    Macromedia graciously gave me the opportunity to write an article about my CaptivatePlayer, now up on DevNet, which is used to help Captivate users easily deploy their content to the web.

    I’ve received feedback from a variety of Captivate users asking for specific features. That said, when things calm down towards the end of June, I can hopefully add these 2 requested features to it.

    • Global Navigation vs. the per demonstration navigation that Captivate generates currently. Something akin to a DVD player’s chapter controls so you can jump to other demonstrations.
    • Ability to have the presentation automatically play the next demonstration, and have this ability be controllable through the XML and through the interface.

    CaptivatePlayer DevNet Article

    Thanks, Macromedia!