How Accurate Is IP Based Geolocation?

I’ve just written a definition of Geoblocking for the Web Glossary and came across whatismyipaddress.com in the process. The part of the site that I found interesting is the home page. When you arrive there, they try to display your current location on a Google maps. They do this by determining your IP address and then looking up the location for that IP address.

I’ve always been impressed by the ability of Google Analytics to accurately pin-point my visitors right down to particular areas of a city. But how accurate is this information? Certainly in my own case it’s very accurate, usually attributing my visit to my district of town or the neighbouring one.

Filed under: Benelux, How It Works , brussels, geoblocking, geolocation, ip address

Snippley – A Demonstration AIR Application

The second AIR application we’ll be looking at this week is Snippley created by .

I’ve chosen this as it’s aimed at developers in two senses. First of all, Snippley is used for storing and organising code snippets and secondly the source code is available which makes it an excellent candidate for deconstructing and learning more about Adobe AIR.

If you’re not a developer but want to understand more about what an AIR application is you can check out yesterday’s review of Shifd.

What’s Snippley Got Going For It?

If you look at Snippley as an AIR learning tool, there are several features of interest in Snippley:

1. It’s pure HTML / Javascript / CSS and it’s an example of implementing a JavaScript library (MooTools) in an AIR application.
2. It replicates the look and feel of Apple applications such as iTunes and the new Finder.
3. It uses local data storage via SQLite

At first glance Snippley doesn’t appear very feature rich (I mean that in a nice way) and the developers have said it’s their first attempt to create something robust using AIR. But it’s apparent lack of features means that you can easily get to grips with analyzing the source code.

What Does Snippley Do?

I’m not writing this post to recommend that you store all your code using Snippley. The focus here is on giving you pointers to a good project that you can give you insights into how easy it is to create an AIR application of you’re already creating web sites using HTML/Javascript/CSS.

A quick overview though. Snippley let’s you add groups (essentially folders or categories) in a sidebar on the left hand side of the screen (a bit like folders and playlists in iTunes).

These groups are containers for any code snippets that you add.

It’s very AJAX-like in it’s feel, with in-place editing being the give away.

In-place editing isn’t just used for naming groups, it’s prevalent throughout the entire application.

You can also specify which (programming) language your snippet is written in and it’ll provide syntax highlighting.

In the screenshot above, we see that the application has a mix of Windows XP and Apple OS X about it. We see the standard Windows Minimize/Maximize buttons on the top right. This is because the developers have opted to set the chrome of the application to “standard”. This is the default option for all AIR applications and sets the applications chrome to the standard system chrome. So if I’d taken a screenshot of Snippley running on my Mac, the Minimize/Maximize buttons would be on the left and use the OS X colour scheme. On Linux, it would use the Linux system chrome and so on. You can set the application so that no chrome appears, in which case you’d have to create your own buttons for controlling the application. All of the application settings are to be found in application.xml and this is the case for any AIR app.

Dig Into Some AIR Code

If you unzip the source files, you’ll see only 2 files in the root directory, application.html and application.xml

All of the applications settings are contained in the application.xml file. Application.xml is provided with the AIR SDK and is the basis for any AIR application you build. Examine it, it’s well commented and it’ll give you an idea of what you can configure and just how easy it is to create an AIR app. The entire interface is contained in application.html This file can be given any name. When you open it you’ll see it’s just a regular html file. Just like a web site, all of the JavaScript that provides the functionality is provided by file includes in the header.

Apple Look and Feel

All of the glitz is provided by a small CSS stylesheet and 20 PNGs (most to recreate Mac style scrollbars), and all of the application logic is in the javascript files. The JavaScript folders have been organised to separate out the standard files that you have to include with any air application; aliases.js and introspector.js They’ve also included MooTools to provide some of the polish to the application.

Then using all of these assets, they’ve written the custom code that is the app. You’ll find all of this in the scripts/snippley folder. There are 6 files in there totalling about 23Kb. Each file is named according to the group of functions it carries out. For example there’s snippely.groups.js which handles creating and renaming of groups etc. Then there’s snippely.database.js which is a good primer in how to start working with AIR’s embedded SQLite database. This is the same database that is used in Google Gears and on most Nokia phones so it’s useful to understand how it works and it’s limitations (no stored procedures, no foreign keys).

Snippley comes out of the MooTools stable and therefore it looks great. The guys at MooTools produce very polished work and the Apple look used on Snippley is no exception.

It’s a great base application for you to play around with, change and then repackage to test your new AIR skills. The source is hosted on Google’s code repository for open source projects and you can join and add to the development of this project.

How to get Snippley and the Source Code

You can download Snippley and the source files from the Google Code and read more about it’s development at the MooTools blog

Filed under: Adobe Air, Apple, Free Software, How It Works , air, Apple, code, css, javascript, learn AIR, mootools, snippley, sqlite, webkit

Buttock Authentication Scrapes Through IEEE Approval Process By Seat Of Pants

In an exclusive interview at BlueClock headquarters in Brussels, ButtLock CTO, Ralf Piloo, today announced that they have received approval from the IEEE to put their latest security innovation into production. While the world’s eyes have been focussed on Microsoft’s struggle at the ISO to get approval for OOXML, Piloo has been patiently working the political back channels in preparation for the day when he can finally reveal his brain child to the world. Yes, today, we have the great honour to be announcing the ground breaking new technology of Buttock Authentication ®.

The following is a transcript of our interview.

Buttocks : Gateway To The Future

GW: “Let’s begin by you giving us an overview of Buttock Authentication ® and your modest plans for how it can revolutionise the world.”

RP: “Well, we’ve been looking for a universal solution for user authentication for quite some time now. The key problem is that everyone has to be able to use it without thinking. It should also provide a secure and unique set of attributes for every person on the planet. We’ve been is secret talks with Microsoft and Apple for years now but finding a solution that everyone could agree on was nigh on impossible until we struck upon buttocks.”

“Our ButtLock device will be the first chair/office seating solution that can log you on to your computer with out you having to lift a finger. All you have to do is what you would do anyway; sit down. It’s simple and secure. It’s one of these great paradigm shifts that begin with a slight change in the way we use technology. We’re sure this is going to be a huge hit. People love it when there’s one less thing to do.”

“After a year or so we’re going to open source all the code and then it’ll become a real bottom up technology.”

GW: “You’re making some pretty big claims that buttock authentication is the log on solution that everyone will adopt. But what about accessibility and internationalisation issues?”

RP: “Hey, everyone has buttocks… well maybe not those skinny boys in Franz Ferdinand.. but generally speaking everyone has buttocks. And we’ve done a lot of research in this area and we can definitely be considered the leaders. We concluded that buttocks cross all language and ability barriers.”

GW: “You’ve mentioned sitting a few times. Isn’t that the Achilles Heel of this project? Aren’t you constraining people by insisting that they sit down to log on? What about mobile workers?”

RP: “Mobile workers are a massive growth area along with people who, for some reason, like to work standing up. Naturally, we’ve go that covered. We’ll also be launching mButtLock later today which is a pair of wi-fi enabled boxers/panties that read your buttock signature and transmit the authentication information to any devices within range. With our new ButtLock range, we’ll be taking the company where no company has gone before”

GW: “What about other applications beyond authentication?”

RP: “That’s a great question. You’re right, this does go beyond security. For example, we have scientists in our labs right now working on all sorts of useful FaceBook plugins. Just think, in a few weeks, you might be able to automatically update your FaceBook status with insightful messages such as “I’m sitting down.” or “I’ve just stood up.” The possibilities are endless. You could even send message such as “I’m a bit warm”.”

“Employers are going to love it as well as you’ll be able to monitor a user’s temperature. Because of the bi-directional nature of ButtLock the authentication server can send information to you that goes way beyond, “Hello and thank you for sitting down”. If your temperature falls below a certain level employers will be able to send a mildly irritating charge of electricity to your ButtLock in order to determine if you are dead or merely asleep at your workstation.”

GW: “That sounds great and I can see why people will be rushing adopt this systems, but what about people on a diet? How do you cope with changing buttock shapes?

RP: “I can’t go into that too much at the moment, but what I can say is we don’t just track the buttock shape. There are a number of parameters that we use to identify the user including warmth, wriggle rate and velocity of sitting. Also each time you log on successfully, we resample your buttocks, so provided you don’t take a really long vacation and lose lot’s of weight then you should be OK. ButtLock grows with you.”

So there you have it. A new dawn in security technology. We’ve had the e the x and now the i as the cool prefix for all things tech. Could the day of “b” have arrived.

Filed under: How It Works, New Technology , april fool, authentication, buttlock, buttock authentication, ralf piloo, security

Adobe AIR Week

Next week is Adobe AIR week here on the BlueClock blog. Starting on Monday the 21st, I’ll be posting a series of articles covering:

• A look at some great Adobe AIR apps.
• An overview of what Adobe AIR is (and what it isn’t).
• Implications for the industry.
• A round up of tools and tutorials to help you get started.

So sign up to the RSS feed and get familiar with Adobe’s exciting new technology.

Filed under: Adobe Air, How It Works, Web Browsers , adobe, Adobe Air, air, ria, rich internet applications