Some interesting or just plain fun projects I have worked on at some point:
PageTailorMost pages on the Web are designed for the desktop environment and render poorly on the small screens available on handheld devices. In this project, we introduce Reusable End-User Cus- tomization (REUC), a technique that lets end users adapt the layout of Web pages by removing, resizing and mov- ing page elements. REUC records the user's customizations and automatically reapplies them on subsequent visits to the same page or to other, similar pages, on the same Web site. We developed PageTailor, a REUC prototype based on the Minimo Web browser that runs on Windows Mobile PDAs. We show that users can utilize PageTailor to adapt sophisticated Web sites, such as Amazon, BBC and MSN, for browsing on a PDA. Moreover, the customizations remain effective for up to a year, even as the content of pages is updated, and can be reused across similar pages, limiting the customization effort required to browse a site.
[ Project Page ] [ Paper ] [ Download ] [ Slides ]Voice over IP is emerging as the new standard in telephony. It inexpensively routes calls worldwide and consumers are embracing it. Inexpensive communications opens the door for unsolicited calls. In this paper we investigate spam in VoIP, discuss properties of the technology that make it vulnerable to spam and propose the use of techniques which impose cost to spammers as an effective approach to fighting spam.
[ Paper ] [ Slides ]Internet services often wish to target products to customers based on their geographical location. An online store may find it more appropriate to display winter products such as jackets and boots instead of Mexican sombreros to customers located in frigid climates. The weather website may wish to show on its home page the current weather for the visitor's city instead of that of the country's capital city. Download mirrors may wish to automatically suggest the nearest cache to the visitor in order to reduce the user's experienced latency. Firewalls could automatically block traffic from geographic areas with known security concerns. Accurately determining the geographical location of any IP address is a difficult task as the internet topology is not easily mapped into that of the globe. Unlike telephone numbers, the IP space does not provide a specific geo-location. Models also face challenges as the topology of the Internet is continuously changing. Our proposed technique determines the geographical location of an IP address with low overhead. It is a landmark based technique that exploits existing Internet landmarks without requiring their explicit cooperation.
[ Paper ] [ Slides ]ayePoll is a web based system that facilitates running of elections and surveys online. The goals of the system were to provide robustness, security, auditability and anonimity for its users while at the same time offering an easy to use interface. The system uses Apache and PHP in its front-end and PostgreSQL on its back-end. It was developed on top of Debian GNU/Linux but it should work on just about any system which is able to run the combo PHP/Apache/PostgreSQL.
[ Document ] [ Site ]This is a simple Java implementation of a board game common in many parts of Africa. It's common name is Warri, but in some regions it takes on the name of Ntchuva, among many others.
[ Download ]I have also worked on a number of Perl-based dynamic web applications from web-based learning aids to full blown content management systems some of which are now scattered on the Web.