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CAPTCHA presents a user experience problem.
Are there alternatives to CAPTCHA that deal with most attacks?
We have already tried and am currently using JCaptcha. We are considering reCaptcha - however it is problematic because it requires a connection to the internet to perform catpcha verification.
To better help you, can you elaborate on what it is that's being spammed? E.g. registration form, login form, mailing list registration etc. Would it be feasible for the user to click on a link in a confirmation e-mail before the action is preformed?
Don't use any type of captcha. In third world countries there are services were it costs $1 to solve 70 captchas.
Use a honeypot, where an input field is hidden so no user (i.e. actual person) would fill it in but a spambot would. If the form is submitted with a non-empty field then you know it's spam.
There are other measures that can be taken too. ASIRRA, by Microsoft, is an alternative where you select pictures of cats or dogs and if you selected all correctly you are not a bot.
I've seen things like, "Drag only the apples to the basket". Might be a bit more overhead though.
If you are a small enough target, probably any test that is not already out there will work. It is generally not worth someone writing an automated way of beating your test, just for your website.
One method I've heard of is to use google images to download, say, 100 pictures of trees, 100 of shoes, 100 of ducks, and so forth; then pick 5 random pictures, each from a different category, and ask "please select identify the subject of each picture", with a dropdown list with "trees, shoes, ducks....". Make sure you don't give away the answer in the html, of course. Black & white Line drawings work better for this than photos, since the colour might give the answer away for trees. Make sure you limit the rate someone can answer. Randomly matching 5 pictures has a 1/3125 chance of succeeding. If you download the pictures in advance, you won't need network access.
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Currently I am working on porting a benchmark application to another system. I am working alone, so I am frustrated about which software methodology I really have to use. Please give me some ideas.
I am going to assume you're wondering which Agile approach to use on your project as you tagged your question accordingly.
Agile is mainly about:
Delivering working software continuously and regularly
Aiming at technical excellence and avoiding technical debt
Improving the way we work and retrospecting regularly
I'd say whatever you use, even your very own approach to software development, if you can check those three items from the list, then you're pretty much Agile to me. Some people need strict guidelines and artifacts and that's fine, they help people become Agile but are far from being mandatory despite the dogmas out there.
Here's how I would approach your situation.
Take a step back and try to identify the most important features or abilities of this benchmarking application. By most important, I mean those features that the people using it in the end cannot live without. Once you have a list of those, put them on post-it notes, index cards, trello, jira or whatever tool you want to use.
Split each of those features into full-stack chunks of functionality that are business driven. I'm not talking about technical tasks here, but smaller features usable by actual people. I usually opt for the "Grandma Driven" approach here, asking myself "would grandma be able to understand what I'm trying to do?". It's just to make sure I'm focusing on a full stack feature and not a technical task like "populate database". One way to see this is also by applying dimensional planning to each of the features you identified (http://www.xpday.net/Xpday2007/session/DimensionalPlanning.html).
Set yourself an iteration length (I usually go for 1 or max 2 weeks when I'm working alone) and get to work one small item at a time. Don't write code for later, only what you need to solve the problem at hand. Quality is not an option. Focus on good coding and testing practices.
At the end of your iteration, check how many features you implemented and put that number somewhere on a chart, in a google spreadsheet or whatever. This will help you see if you're on track. Get feedback from colleagues or any potential users of the system and reflect on that feedback. It's not because you're porting to another platform that you can't make it better.
If you end up not having small enough granularity with what's left or not enough stuff in your list of things to do, spend some time repeating steps 1 to 3.
At the end of each iteration, keep tracking how many items you did just to see if you still have a good enough pace. If not, ask yourself why and change something in the way you work or get help. Again, your main focus is to make progress and deliver software that works at the end of each iteration.
It might not answer your question and I know I didn't give you an answer of the type, use kanban, scrum or whatever but I truly believe it's not appropriate in your specific case and would only generate overhead and boredom for you.
Hope that helps anyway, good luck with your project.
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Of all the annoying buzzwords, "functionality" is the worst when I am in the middle of writing a specification (as I am now): "these requirements define the functionality to be included in version 2"..."as part of the download functionality, we need to capture blah blah blah" (Don't get me started on "capture")
"Functionality" is too cumbersome, and makes it sound like you are trying to make something sound more important than it is. "Capability" works sometimes, and sometimes "function" itself works; "subsystem" might work at times too...but we need a simple word for the concept of "set of related functions", preferably in 3 syllables or less. Any suggestions?
Features.
How about that? Simple, to the point, not spin.
How about:
The user manager page is where all of the user management functionality love nuggets reside.
or what about:
The portal features a budgeting subsystem, wherein all of the budgeting functionality goodie gum drops can be derived.
or even:
By clicking on the submit button, you'll be showered with all of the wonderful functionality hot mommies that one could hope for.
These have all worked well for me when specifying the functionality that will be in my new projects. YMMV...
Ooh, this is a tricky one. For smaller items I often use the very buzz-wordy "widget", which works pretty well for self-encapsulated systems.
"Functions" as a plural also works in some contexts - as can "actions" (as in 'the application needs to be able to perform the following actions...').
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So if a user story is a something nebulous like:
As a sales rep, I would like to capture the contact information so that I can follow up later on.
I'm not even sure if that's a valid user story but I'm sure it's close enough.
Then there are details/tasks for implementing that user story.
And I'm sure "The sales rep should be able to tab from one textbox to another." is one of the requirements. How do we capture/track this? Is this part of the user story or is it something that's to be considered separately?
A user story captures the essence of a feature, not the details, a story is a support for the discussion.
So, to answer your question, details are transmitted orally during a discussion, because face to face discussion is the most effective communication media. If you feel the need, details can be captured as notes on the back of the card (if you are using cards) or... in a "notes" field if you are using an electronic tool. Actually, I usually use a "how to demo" field too to capture a high-level description of how this story will be demonstrated at the sprint demo and use very brief "notes" for any other info, clarifications, references to other sources of info, etc (credits to Henrik Kniberg's famous Index card generator). If find this very handy, especially when using executable specifications.
PS: your story is perfectly valid and its a good practice to include the benefits in your template ("As a role, I want action so that benefits").
User stories should be short statements in 1 to 3 sentences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story
I want to be able to tab from one textbox to another is another user story.
You can track these things in a tool like www.rallydev.com, or just any type of task tracking tool (SharePoint, Excel even ... etc.).
Next thing you do is prioritize.
Just taking a rough stab...
As a sales rep,
I want all data entry and navigation to be accomplished using the keyboard
so that I don't have to take my hands off the keyboard
(and so that we comply with accessibility guidelines).
Or
As a business,
We want all our products to be fully usable using only keyboard input
So that we can sell to customers who require accessible software.
The first part belongs to a "business requirements" document (usually written by a business analyst). The first generations of this document are quite high level, but the final versions (several iterations later) are pretty detailed.
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/6089
The second part (about tabbing) is part of another document - "UX spec" (shows all screens and describes user interaction). This one is usually written by a different person/team (Product or UX team).
http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined-2
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/05/sharing-ownership-of-ux.php
Yes, that is problem we also have a lot. On the one hand, user stories need to be conscise, on the other hand all the nitty gritty details must be put somewhere.
We use XPlanner, and we solve this by putting the short description into the text body of the user story. Then we use XPlanners "notes" feature (arbitrary text or files that can be attached to a user story) for the details.
That way we can add as much information as necessary to a user story, without cluttering up the user story text itself. You can also refer to external documentation, if you don't want to have everything in XPlanner.
This approach works quite well for us.
Agree with others, that this is viable story, but capture the (derived) requirements may be better captured elsewhere.
Software Developers and Business types are familiar with different terminology some what may simple to understand by one (data structures) may mean nothing to another. The User Stories is a tool or a means by which business user can convey a message as a starting point which is expanded on (with tests, details, etc).
Oral Communication can be effective, but the effectiveness is dependent on the receivers ability to hear and comprehend the meaning of the message. This is where oral communication can fail. Different types of communication offerring more or less formal forms of communication. Vocal communication is an "informal form of communication" which risks the message being misheard, misinterpretted, and misunderstanding. Just like the game played as a child, where one child whispers a message to another child, who tells another, until all have heard it...When the last child tells the message to the group it usually has been misinterpreted then misinterpretted again, causing a degraded message.
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Please feel free to move this to meta/superuser if this is the wrong place. But this is a developer related question.
I have a smallish company with about 10 employees (developers). Often when I am browsing the internet, I come across various techniques and methods which I would like to share with them. Now one way is to simply point them to those links, but that's not too effective as sometimes the link dies, our connectivity is down, people may want to add some comments/thoughts etc.
I am wondering what is the best way to organize all this data. Couple of questions:
Should I use a SO clone? Wiki? Digg clone?
Personally I dont want to use a wiki. I find it to be a pain to create links manually. I just want to post stuff and links and select an appropriate category and people can then view and comment etc.
How to get everyone involved in this process? SO does it well by giving points to users.
How does your company manage information?
Thank you for your time.
I quite liked a process once upon a time.
Start a knowledge base within the company using Blog/Wiki/SharePoint. SharePoint is nice in the fact that it is basically setup and go. You can modify to specific needs down the line. With this you should allow your staff to add posts or blog entries etc, and then once a week/month/whenever you should have a half day "learning" session.
In this session everyone can share idea's and "nice-finds" and then share with their fellow staff; alternatively, you give each member of the team the opportunity to "teach" a session whereby they can share a technology they've found and basically pitch it to the team.
This gives the following:
Adds to teamwork
Gives opportunities to change the way they work, by introducing new technologies
Active learning is always better than passive
The problem comes with people who are introverted, non-confident or simply do not have the time to give lessons, all of which can be overcome by lowering load, allow some to do written presentations, etc.
Hope this helps.
Use a wiki or a blog. Preferably one with both. That way they can search for things and you encourage them to post their own information. Its not easy to get everyone on board but keep trying.
I find the best way to get people involved is by example. Post good stuff and not just 'stuff I found to day about blah....' I read pages out there that all do it link to some new announcement or another - waste of time I think. Better to post somethings of relevance, but not just links. Put some comments along with links.
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OK. This problem is doing my head in. And I don't know if there even IS a definitive answer.
We have a website, lets call it mycompany.com. It's a UK-based site, with UK based content. Google knows about it, and we have done a load of SEO on it. All is well.
Except, we are about to relaunch my company, the GLOBAL brand, so we now need mycompany.com/uk, mycompany.com/us, and mycompany.com/au, for the various countries local content. We are using GEOIP, so if someone from the US loads mycompany.com, they get redirected to mycompany.com/us etc.
If someone isn't in one of those three countries (US, Australia, or UK) they get the UK site.
This is all well and good, but we dont want to lose the rather large amount of Google juice we have on mycompany.com! And worse, the Google bot appears to be 100% based in the US, so the US site (which is pretty much out LEAST important one of the three) will appear to be the main one.
We have thought about detecting the bot, and serving UK content, but it appears Google may smack us for that.
Has anyone else come across this situation, and have a solution?
As long as Google can find mycompany.com/uk and mycompany.com/au, it'll index all three versions of the site. Your domain's Google juice should apply to all three URLs just fine if they're on the same domain.
Have you thought about including links for different sites on the homepage? Google could follow those and index their content as well - in turn indexing the UK content.
If you instead using uk.mycompany.com, us. mycompany.com etc, then you can
register them with google webmaster tools and specifically tell google which country they are from.
This might still work with folders rather than subdomains, but I haven't tried it.
One way to get round that, thinking about it, would be to 301 redirect uk.mycompany.com to mycompany.com/uk, then you'd be telling Google, as well as keeping your existing structure.
#ross: yes, we have links between the sites. It' just the home page, and which one comes up when someone searches for "my company" in google.
Thanks!
google alerts just brought me to this thread.
The domain name that was previously used in your question is my blog and the domain name is not for sale.
Are you just using this as an example domain - for the purpose of this discussion only? The convention is to use example.com as it is reserved for this exact purpose.
Some clarification would be appreciated.