Dragons in the Algorithm
Adventures in Programming
by Michael Chermside

Password in Pieces

I came across the following question on reddit:

My bank on the online banking login instead of having a password field it presents you with 3 password fields 1 character each where it asks you for 3 characters from your password, chosen randomly. E.g. the 2nd, 4th and 7th …

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Posted Sat 05 December 2009 by mcherm in Programming

Raising the limit on IDs processed

It is a fairly simple screen for entering "mass alerts". There are (omitting some irrelevant details) just two fields: one in which the user enters the text of an alert, and the other in which they enter a list of customer-ids specifying who we should show the alert to. This …

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Posted Fri 13 November 2009 by mcherm in Programming

Upgrading GWT/AppEngine to v1.6+

I had a project using Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and App Engine. It was developed in Eclipse (which I don't like much, mostly because I don't know how to use it very well) because Google recommends this and provides support in the form of Eclipse plugins for working with these …

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Posted Mon 09 November 2009 by mcherm in Programming

Estimate Units

When you estimate tasks, should the estimates be done in hours, or in days?

As I see it, the big advantage of estimating in hours is that if you THINK in hours, you tend to get a more accurate estimate. There are lots of development tasks which will seem like …

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Posted Fri 13 February 2009 by mcherm in Uncategorized