Some idea just came on the training sessions:

1. user don’t need to input any captcha code, user just click on a button;

2. the “button” is a image which looks like a button, but hard to be find out by robots (image can contain invisible noises or backgrounds to make image recognition algorithm really hard to implement) 

3. server generate the position of the button, and verify the position of click to check if it’s in “range”.

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This method will not need user to enable javascript. I saw a good captcha idea by ask user to simply drag an object to a area with JS.

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some links in captcha (not related or similar to my ideas so far) :

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials/aspnet/79e023b6-124f-4f63-865c-6d357cddbe56/a-better-captcha-control.aspx

http://haacked.com/archive/2006/10/02/Better_CAPTCHA_Through_Encryption.aspx

http://haacked.com/archive/2006/09/26/Lightweight_Invisible_CAPTCHA_Validator_Control.aspx

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Future personal site ideas and some mock up.  This future personal site is many ideas in one:

* It’s a personal site, but it’s services/modules may provided by many providers

* it’s a personal identity server, user only need to login from there

* It’s all other service’s "starting point", use a new service means "install" (at least a link) in your home site

* it provide some basic services (e.g. openid, OPSN, etc.) those service remain standard. 

* privacy data (e.g. friend’s email, contact info) will not be exposed to applications, it only expose some function such as "invite friends", "notify friends" etc to applications.

A screen mock of install "some service" to my personal site:

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GAE don’t have a normal file system, it don’t have something similar to Amazon’s S3, so it’s not very developer friendly to develop something like a photo, video, file sharing service.

Just played GAE for a whole afternoon, tried all GAE current APIs and made a simplest photo album test apps.

I am thinking of build a "file system" on top of Data store API, since Data Store API does support Blob field, it should be not difficult to do so. I am thinking of use S3 alike API or moglifs alike API to do so.

Basic idea is create a table, say FileSystem,  it have columns: path, name, ext, create_date, blob_data_store. And create handler, e.g. /file/.*,  it will use the path to query the FileSystem table, and reply the blob data.

I will first look if someone already did this, if not I may play my own.

Current GAE only allow max 1M file size and total 500M data store, so it’s not that useful at this stage, but consider it’s price announced on their blog, it looks like pretty nice in compare of Amazon’s S3.

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Python, GAE, Web2py rocks! Just managed to put that hello world web2py in GAE, and it simply works!

I like the idea behind web2py, though it’s not a matured python framework in compare of Django, I may give it a try in new OPSN prototype 0.2.

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In my recent Chinese blog I wrote a post about some ideas on the data portability.

I gave an example on the traditional PC, the users data can be accessed from the different applications, and they can also be accessed from the file system.  Image what will happen if you can not have  the file system level access?! It will be terrible. We backup, copy, share most of our those document simply based on file, NOT the application which create and view them!

Look at today’s web world, it’s a different story:

User can only access their data which store on the service provider’s servers from the specific interface, they can’t access from file level! That’s why the data portability problem happens!

Unix system have a very good design in file system, and it intend to map any devices into a node in the file system, so access a printer or scanner is just like open a file for read/write.  I think a network file system alike data portability design is a one-fit-all solution, which can be very helpful for data portability.

If I use this idea into my hobby project OPSN (Open Portable Social Network), things become much simpler:  what if the import/export of contacts are just as simple as copy some vCard files? We can implement a simple filter to scan/parse microformats and simulate them as files.

And what if some third party build a universal file system adaptor service? It build a virtual file system, and mapping flickr, facebook, gmail, … all as paths of the virtual FS? It looks like a awesome idea! Maybe that’s a direction to the true next generation Internet OS! (Flickfs now can mount flickr account to the Linux’s file system, we need more!)

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I read some blogs, they have similar ideas:

http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/11/data_portabilit.html 

He thought of the data could be stored in 3rd party storage system, e.g. S3, or simply a personal NAS. e.g. buffalo link station.

http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/04/25/data-portability/

Data portability & file system. Exactly same idea as mine.

http://deanlandolt.com/archives/205

He have similar idea and he is starting a projected call "socialFS"!

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Considering re-implement OPSN prototype in Python… cause:

* Can’t find a place to host ASP.NET MVC (since it’s CTP)

* Can’t find a free/cheap place to host ASP.NET MVC and SQL Server.

* My own blog hosting server is a linux with Wordpress, I don’t want to change it…

* people will maore willing to play with OPSN if it not buddle with Microsoft products

* I plan to learn Python…after so many year’s ignore of it…

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A personal web platform or rather say framework, user can "install" whatever service on it to provide service to others or themselves.  e.g. blog apps, photo apps, etc. 

Install apps is just like add a facebook apps. or like install a software on your PC.  Once an app installed it runs on this platform and provide service.

The platform will control some fundamental stuff, e.g. overall look & feel — you don’t want to setup skin for every of your apps, you just need to setup once;  portable data storage — your data always belong to YOU! whatever software you install, it’s still your OWN data; 

There are some old blog posts have similar (but not exactly) ideas:

http://blog.lucene.com/2004/10/01/personal-web-platform/

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Use multiple GMails, SkyDrive, etc. as a huge massive storage space. Software manage the distribution of files, user don’t need to worry which location to store.

multiple providers: Ftp, http,  web mail, online disk drive, s3,  etc.

Some redundancy to avoid data loss (because some online service out stage)

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iPhone have a better input method, however it’s not enough, and more mobile device users deserve to have better one.

Some basic idea:

- user can define input sequence: e.g. .com, www., http://, etc.

- auto complete include predefined sentence, e.g. happy birthday, etc.

- auto complete can use address book as a dictionary.

- item in address book can be easily insert into sms/mms

other idea:

- an online simple sync service like a network clipboard, user can share information between mobile & PC, mobile & mobile, should be really easy to use. so use can input  from PC for mobile

- PC user should be easily “push” some item for the mobile

- mobile can “pick” up item by auto-sent SMS or scan barcode like QR code or Sema Code, etc.

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Some screen shots:

Login with OpenID:

Contact management:

Add/edit contact:

Import from 3rd party sites:

Import from Twitter:

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