A common sight on web forms nowadays is the Captcha check, a way to determine whether your are a human or bot user. Here is an example of a Captcha check, as taken from Digg.com:

Surely no user is having fun filling these out, right? Yet, it seems to be a neccessary evil in our fight against spammers. With the lack of a better alternative, we should use Captchas. However, who is to say that we should present a Captcha as the example above? As a hurdle for the user?

In this article we will get creative in building our own Captcha. But, why would we do such a thing?

• Because a custom Captcha can fit exactly into the design and theme of your site. It will not look like some alient element that does not belong there.
• We want to take away the perception of a Captcha as an annoyance, and make it fun for the user.
• Because a custom Captcha, unlike the major Captcha mechanisms, obscure you as a target for spammers. Spammers have little interest in cracking a niche Captcha.
• Because we want to learn how they work, so it is best to build one ourselves.

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Comments (0) Dec 17 2008

This article describes in detail what it takes to build a LAMP application that understands Unicode. That is, an application that allows for the input, processing, storage and display of Unicode characters. Many developers are aware of what Unicode is, and some apply it on a regular basis. For long, I’ve been in the category of developers who can get away with not knowing about Unicode at all. When you’re working in a controlled environment with a fixed audience and corporate standards for language and character sets, Unicode is less relevant. However, as I started development on Project JungleDragon, a global web application, Unicode instantly became relevant. In a global web application, you surely do not want to alienate a large portion of your audience by allowing them to input latin characters only.

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Comments (0) Nov 19 2008

“Employers around the world who rely on mission-critical product development and building out their IT infrastructure have spoken,” said oDesk CEO, Gary Swart. “Open Source technology, led by PHP and MySQL, is by far the skill set in highest demand today.”

oDesk reports that worldwide demand specifically for PHP programmers is nearly double the next closest skill set. At almost 2,000 PHP jobs posted per month, PHP accounts for over 20 percent of all jobs posted by businesses on the leading preferred marketplace for both buyers and providers.

“PHP is superior to any other coding platform. It’s free, flexible, and offers a massive support community,” explained Nicholas Pregeant, owner of Innovative Web Solutions of New Orleans, and an active oDesk customer. “Plus, the extensive Open Source library of proven PHP and MySQL scripts are customizable, portable, and scalable for almost any web application.”

“oDesk offers screen captures of work in progress that virtually guarantees vendor accountability, and oDesk handles the payments,” said Pregeant. “Because I don’t have to worry about the trust- or back-office issues, I can concentrate on the project. oDesk is the only service that meets my needs.”

Top jobs list by programming skills (jobs per month):

PHP — 2,000
Flash — 1,000
Ajax - 600
ASP — 500
Java — 300

PHP Developers by Country:

India — 2,183
U.S. — 857
Ukraine — 420
Russia — 348
Pakistan — 324
Philippines — 239

Comments (0) Nov 19 2008