Amazing spam filter

These days, any site that has comments or lets users send email, must have some type of anti-spam system. The most common type is a captcha challenge. For me, it usually takes 2 or 3 tries (if not more) for me to get a challenge correct. I stumbled upon a WordPress plugin called WP Hashcash that uses a Javascript "challenge" to fight spam. The really cool part is that people that use standard browsers that have Javascript turned on (if you have Javascript turned off, you pretty much can't see many cool sites), don't see a challenge and can just comment normally. Automated systems haven't been trained to actually run the Javascript on the comment pages therefore the plugin marks the comments as spam. The plugin is catching a ton of spam.

This is just too cool to have a system in place that (for now) combats spam without inconveniencing my readers!

Review: i-Got-U GT-120

Several weeks ago, Mobile Action Techonology contacted me about reviewing their i-Got-U GPS logging product. I was given the choice of the Bluetooth one or just the USB one; I chose the USB one, the GT-120 because it was smaller and Bluetooth is kind of pointless as you have to plug it in to charge it and I didn't have a use for it as a GPS hooked to my computer. (The Bluetooth one has a much larger battery, however.)

In a nutshell, you use this GPS unit along side your digital camera (it doesn't connect to it) and then when you upload your pictures to your computer, you extract the GPS log from the device, and based on the timestamp of the picture, the photos are geotagged. Combined with iPhoto '09, this is cool for people that travel and take pictures. While I don't travel all that often, I think the concept is fantastic, so I was pleased that I was offered an evaluation unit.

Prior to receiving the unit (I do get to keep it, but it won't affect my review), I was informed that it was Windows only, so I'd have to use VMWare to test it. As a Mac user, using Windows is something I want to avoid at all costs. Of course, enterprising hackers have already reverse engineered most of the protocol and created a program that reads the data off the device and outputs a GPX file. The GPX file can then be imported into a variety of geotagging software.

I received the device yesterday and started playing around with it. The first thing I noticed is the size. I can easily wrap my hand around it and make a fist. It has one button on it that is used to turn the device on and off. It has 2 LEDs and that's it for user interface. The package came with a mini-CD with the Windows software. I'm not sure what computers these days read the mini-CDs, but no laptop or desktop computer that has a slot loading drive can, so I downloaded the Windows software from their web site and installed it in VMWare.

My first real test was on a trip to the zoo with my son. I turned it on and snapped some pictures around the zoo. I basically forgot about the device and was on my way.

The hardware

The hardware is pretty cool; the battery seems to last awhile. The battery charges over USB, so that's convenient. My only complaint is that it uses a proprietary USB connector instead of mini or micro USB (I now have to carry another cable).

The software

I installed the software on Windows XP under VMWare and it worked fine talking to the device over USB. I imported my tracks and photos. I found the software a bit cumbersome. Editing waypoints just seemed awkward; I had trouble removing points that I didn't want, but after a few tries figured out how to click on a point and see it on the map.

It's cool to see the Google map representing the track and seeing the photos on it, but the software just doesn't seem easy to use. Maybe I'm used to Mac software and haven't used much Windows software, but they must be able to do better.

The output on their @trip web site works well. I didn't see any option to export to my own site (I could have output it to Picassa or Flikr, but I like having a bit more control over my photos).

Other reviews of GPS loggers indicate that the software is pretty weak as well. The developers should work with developers that specialize in writing software and just concentrate on the hardware.

Since I'm a Mac user, using Windows software pretty much makes me want to poke out my eyes. There are a few Mac products out there that I'll review at a later time. Even with the non-streamlined workflow, the Mac software options are so much better than this.

Conclusion

I really like the concept of geotagging photos and the iGotU-120 seems to fit the bill. I'm disappointed that there isn't a native Mac solution, but hackers have filled in the gap (the workflow isn't all that clean, however). Would I buy the device if I had to? At $70, it's a bit steep for me as a casual photographer. If I took more pictures, I think it would be worth it. For Mac users, you might want to invest in other geotagging applications.

Is Apple evil?

Awhile back, I wrote that developers that wanted to write iPhone apps should just deal with Apple and the AppStore approval process as the upside of getting an app in the AppStore could be huge. Well, I've read lots of stories about the AppStore approval process and my views have changed a bit. Apple rejecting Google's Google Voice app and pulling other Google Voice apps really would have ticked me off as it could easily have happened to me. When I created GrandDialer last summer (GrandCentral turned into Google Voice and GrandDialer was basically the first Google Voice app), my only problem getting it in the AppStore was that I had to change the color of the dialpad so it didn't look like the iPhone's dialpad. Then the stories about dictionary apps having to get a 17+ rating because you can find bad words in it is just baffling.

I'm not sure I'd want to create an app for the iPhone now without some financial backing as the risk is too great for me to go at it alone. I could spend a lot of time on an app and only have it rejected by Apple with little to no explanation why. Maybe Apple could review the ideas first (yes, I realize that is a huge undertaking), but it could help out developers that want to invest time. Even if developers had to pay some amount for this, it would definitely be worth it.

Am I going to develop for another platform? For better or worse, I really don't write code anymore. The iPhone platform is great for developing, but the closed nature of the AppStore makes it a crapshoot to develop applications that will see the light of day. Is the Pre or Android any better? I have no idea. The huge success of the iPhone has caused a huge following and lots of applications; if the other platforms were this successful, would they see problems with their stores? Maybe. There must be a better way to not tick off developers as people acknowledge that the availability of apps makes or breaks a smartphone.

The honeymoon is over

Yesterday I wrote about using Passenger (mod_rails) for deploying Ruby on Rails applications. Well, this morning, I ran into my first problems with it. I had reports that WebDAV wasn't working. After trying a bunch of ideas that I read about, I finally decided to try changing the load order of the Apache modules. I set Passenger to load first and then WebDAV load later. That amazingly fixed the issue; if it hadn't, I would probably have had to scrap Passenger which would have been a huge disappointment.