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Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Temporary Access
« on: October 13, 2008, 04:05 PM »
40Hz was wondering where I was headed with my "Self destruct" idea. Seeing that he put us onto the very useful "Dead Man's Switch" app I thought it only fair to share the next step in my project with everyone.
The idea for this project came from two other projects: Keepass portable and Keeform. Keepass portable has a very useful feature that enables you to drag and drop hidden passwords. You can drag and drop a password onto a web page input field for example. Keeform lets you do the whole thing automatically.
There are times when you would like people to access password protected resources but also limit the time they can access the resource.
Keepass and Keeform don't cater for this very well for a number of reasons:
1. You need the entire applications plus the master password to make use of these features
2. Keeform only works for IE.
3. Once you get into Keepass you can "unhide" the password.
My idea is that a program that includes a selection of the features in Keepass and Keeform, runs off a USB drive and "self destructs" after a preset time would overcome these problems. The user would simply click on an icon on the USB drive. The app would then take the browser to the specific web page and automatically log in.
Keepass uses CSecureEditEx code to secure edit controls and CodeProject shows how it could be used in a project.
I've been tempted to give it a go but I figure I will die of old age b4 I get it working.

 

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Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Self Distruct
« on: October 12, 2008, 03:30 PM »
I've been thinking about this idea for a program for quite a while but have been hesitant to share it since the program could be used for good as well as bad purposes (ie. virus). On the other hand isn't that the case with all technology. So here goes...
If you are as old as me you will remember that the starting scene from every episode of the TV series mission impossible starts the same way. Secret agent Jim retrieves a tiny tape cassete from some hidden location in a public place (e.g. under a shelf in a phone booth) places it in a player and listens to his instructions for his next "impossible" mission. At the end of the recording the voice says something like "this tape will self destruct in x seconds". Shortly after the cassete fizzles and dissolves. The fizzling is a great visual effect but the main point is that the information on the tape was destroyed.
I'm sure that there are scores of people around the world that wished they could destroy the data held on the hard disk of the laptop or USB flash drive drive that has been lost or stolen and that is where my idea comes in.
There are scores of remote access programs around that will allow you to operate a PC over the internet. Why not have a program running on the remote PC that will poll for a destruct command initiated by the authorized custodian of the data? If program receives the command it will automatically delete the specified data on media in question regardless of where it might be.
Given the astonishing fines (and jail terms) organisations place on unauthorised access to data nowadays and the many stories in the media about lost PCs with sensitive data etc., I'm sure my "self destruct" idea will be very popular. 

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Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Auto- Page Scroller
« on: October 11, 2007, 05:54 AM »
DHTML scrollers such as the one at http://www.dmxzone.com/ShowDetail.asp?NewsId=6697 produce nice smooth scrolling. However, they require you to put commercial DHTML code into the page to be displayed.

Would it be possible build a scroller with AHK which works for any external web page?

The jerkiness of continuous scrolling is unpleasant so scrolling a screenful at preset time intervals and PgDn key automation would be better.

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Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Porting VeloAce to the PC
« on: May 20, 2007, 09:21 AM »
VeloAce is an open source bicycle computer for the Palm PDA.
I had a go at porting Veloace (http://veloace.sourceforge.net/) to the XP environment so that I could use it on a PC when training indoors on my stationary bike.
I downloaded Visual C++ Express and tried compiling the code but immediately encountered difficulties.
I'll continue grappling with this project when I get the time but in the meantime I thought there might be others more competent than myself that may be interested in giving this a go.
I figure this project would be of particular interest to people that are interested in projects which interact with the physical world.

Chao,

Uncle John 

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Post New Requests Here / IDEA: WinCovers
« on: June 01, 2006, 05:10 PM »
The idea is to prevent users of a PC making changes to the settings of an application.
 
For example, the following picture shows the Windows Calculator in the default Scientific view:

calculator.JPG

This picture shows Windows Calculator with some WinCovers added:

calculator with WinCovers.JPG

The "covers" prevent users altering selected calculator settings.

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