Is this what captchas have become ?
According to wikipedia,
which in plain English means that, whenever you want to register with some site or avail its service, the guys who run the site wants to make sure that its you, and that its not a bot(computer program created to automate / impersonate a human accessing that particular site)
Usually, this procedure involves, showing some images containing words in it, and asking the user to type those words. But as computer programs started to imitate these things too(using image recognition softwares) captchas started becoming more complex.See an example below,
(Captcha from a famous file hosting site)
The funny thing about this captcha ^^ is that, you are supposed to find the letters where a cat is supposedly sitting and type those in a text box. Also while looking at the picture, one wonders whether, it was a 2 or Z, 0 or O and so on. If you get it wrong once, the process repeats again.
While talking about this, I am reminded of a funny cartoon post from geekandpoke.
The make/break world of captchas
You can find a lot of technical aspects of captchas from the wikipedia page. Currently(while you are reading this) a lot of research is still in progress by people who want to break the captchas while another group finds newer and tougher(awkward?)ways to make it harder to break them.
At the end of day, its the end user who is at the receiving end.
A simple search for captcha in google is good read for an afternoon.
Accessibility problems for visually challenged
Captchas also cause serious accessibility problems. Even the audio these sites provide as an alternative is so hard to understand, let alone to make any sense of it(at least for me; but I would urge you to check out some sites for yourself to understand the situation better)
You can find an amazing blog by a visually challenged person at Blind Access Journal. I also came across a Great Accessibility Blog Roundup.
I guess, more research is needed in this area, and I believe all of us CAN contribute to make websites accessible, for all of us. Do post your suggestions and alternatives to captchas in the comment section.
Bye guys.
A CAPTCHA (IPA: /ˈkæptʃə/) is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer
which in plain English means that, whenever you want to register with some site or avail its service, the guys who run the site wants to make sure that its you, and that its not a bot(computer program created to automate / impersonate a human accessing that particular site)
Usually, this procedure involves, showing some images containing words in it, and asking the user to type those words. But as computer programs started to imitate these things too(using image recognition softwares) captchas started becoming more complex.See an example below,
(Captcha from a famous file hosting site)The funny thing about this captcha ^^ is that, you are supposed to find the letters where a cat is supposedly sitting and type those in a text box. Also while looking at the picture, one wonders whether, it was a 2 or Z, 0 or O and so on. If you get it wrong once, the process repeats again.
While talking about this, I am reminded of a funny cartoon post from geekandpoke.
The make/break world of captchas
You can find a lot of technical aspects of captchas from the wikipedia page. Currently(while you are reading this) a lot of research is still in progress by people who want to break the captchas while another group finds newer and tougher(awkward?)ways to make it harder to break them.
At the end of day, its the end user who is at the receiving end.
A simple search for captcha in google is good read for an afternoon.
Accessibility problems for visually challenged
Captchas also cause serious accessibility problems. Even the audio these sites provide as an alternative is so hard to understand, let alone to make any sense of it(at least for me; but I would urge you to check out some sites for yourself to understand the situation better)
You can find an amazing blog by a visually challenged person at Blind Access Journal. I also came across a Great Accessibility Blog Roundup.
I guess, more research is needed in this area, and I believe all of us CAN contribute to make websites accessible, for all of us. Do post your suggestions and alternatives to captchas in the comment section.
Bye guys.
Labels: accessibility, captcha, computer, internet
Flock rocks
(Screenshot of me using the latest flock browser)Yesterday I downloaded the latest version of Flock web browser from here. The new browser just looks awesome and it has some really cool features that will keep you glued to it from some moths to come!. It has instant blog option - that is, You can create you blog posts off line and save it in your pc- if you want to , and finally upload it to blogger with one single click.
It displayes the latest images from flickr and videos from youtube and also update you on the latest news from various domains from several website. Adding your own content to these sites is also very easy -with just one click!. All these are available from the "My world" button(see the pic)
It has so much features, that you need some time to get used to all its features. Even for beginners, the browser offers a lot than just surfing the sites. Anyway, I consider it as a "Must-download" for any tech enthusiast :)
IRC rocks
(Pidgin to the rescue again)
I have been using Pidgin for a long time now to chat with my friends both in Google(gmail) as well as in Yahoo using this single super cool client. The usual trojans and boot-ins, that is so common among Yahoo messenger users, wont simply, just work in Pidgin, and thats the beauty of it.
Now the IRC story
I had heard about IRC, a long time ago - the intial impression I had was that, it was a place where hackers met. And 6 months back, one of my friends namely Mr.Manu Unni - who was chief project lead in localization of Open Office in Malayalam, again told me about the great world of IRC and told me to look our for my Linux queries there. As soon as I came back home, I installed a shareware IRC client, but to my dismay, found it rather intriguing and not so easy to use and I gave it up altogether.
Fast forward to today, I just Googled for IRC, came across an wiki entry on the same. But it was pretty boring(its not usually like that,though - wiki entries are one of my best sources of info), but I got a pretty interesting link referring to rfc(Request for comment) of IRC. Next I got a list of free IRC's from wiki. And i was surprised to see our dear own Pidgin there.
I googled for configuring Pidgin and IRC and got these links
- IRC for beginners : Just beginner stuff, to get you started
- Aussie Linuxchix : Joining the IRC channel - a nice guide to installing and using Pidgin
- The IRC Prelude: A detailed view, on IRC communication, including jargons and ways to talk and so on.
Currently I am logged on to the server irc.linuxchix.org and its really cool feeling to know that, you are part of a whole new world of gurus and students alike.
Rather that just burst in, I plan to learn the netiquettes of IRC cha tfirst and then proceed further.
It worked !!!!!!!
As mentioned in my previous(last) post, when disabled the feature - "turn off usb device on standby" , I am able to connect to the Internet even after the pc is back after a stand-by session. Hooray!!
(Before I had to log-out and then log-in after each standy!!)
Labels: hacking, internet, IRC, modem, net connection, pidgin
Along the memory lane
Trip to Vellayani back waters
Today I and Nithin went for a cool ride to the backwaters of Vellayani , 12 kms (approximately)
from the city of trivandrum. It was not preplanned, but it was really great indeed. We had a great time there, and we took over a dozen photos which I will be uploading to my site soon. I am also planning for a complete revamp of the site soon.
By the way, I have also changed my profile pic in my blog, thanks to the suggestion of one my friends at NIIT(the place where I study currently)
Problem with Rconnect
I had accidentally disabled the 'telephony' service in XP resulting in complete blockage of my net access. And note that when re-installing the driver for the modem/phone, u need to uninstall the previous modem driver, located under device manager > modem. And finally when re-enabled the 'telephony' service, everything was O.K
Passing away of someone very close to me
Last Sunday(3 Jun) my grandfather's brother who was a priest passed away. He was very close to me, and had visited our house couple of times. He was also one of my spiritual guides.
Today I and Nithin went for a cool ride to the backwaters of Vellayani , 12 kms (approximately)
from the city of trivandrum. It was not preplanned, but it was really great indeed. We had a great time there, and we took over a dozen photos which I will be uploading to my site soon. I am also planning for a complete revamp of the site soon.
By the way, I have also changed my profile pic in my blog, thanks to the suggestion of one my friends at NIIT(the place where I study currently)
Problem with Rconnect
I had accidentally disabled the 'telephony' service in XP resulting in complete blockage of my net access. And note that when re-installing the driver for the modem/phone, u need to uninstall the previous modem driver, located under device manager > modem. And finally when re-enabled the 'telephony' service, everything was O.K
Passing away of someone very close to me
Last Sunday(3 Jun) my grandfather's brother who was a priest passed away. He was very close to me, and had visited our house couple of times. He was also one of my spiritual guides.
