AirTravel Analysis

Part 1 & Part 2

These two application were developed for a module called “Advanced Programming Environments” which aimed to give the students experience working with multiple programming languages in a single project and how to use API Calls, pipes and sockets to get the languages to communicate. The final assessment project for this module was to create two applications, the first would gather data from UK airport websites and the second would allow uses to run queries over the data to gain meaningful information from it. We were told the data gathered from the websites would have to be stored in a CSV file, in a well defined format to allow for the sharing of information so that each student would not need to gather data from every website. With the date processing application we were given more freedom to create the application how we wished as long as the user would be able to load in the data and find out information from the data including at least one graphical query.

The data collection program was written completely in Python while the data processing application was written using C++, Python, tcl/Tk and made use of the GLUT API. Although the application is no where near prefect I have uploaded it to the website as an example of my experience with the different programming languages.

USB Padlock

programs page

The USB Padlock application was developed as my final year project at Teesside University. The original concept came about in the summer of 2008 when there were a number of stories in the news regarding USB flash memory devices being lost with sensitive information on them, which made me wonder why the information was held in a secure way. After researching the issue I discovered that applications were available to allow information to be held securely on the move but for the most part they were not particularity user friendly. This set me a mind to create an application which could travel with the data and allow the user to open the files on any computer but also keep the encrypted while in transit. This aim way reduced to being Windows PC’s as developing using C# and the .Net framework provided a lot of build in functions which I could use to make the project simpler.

The project itself lasted 20 weeks which included the research, design, implementation, testing and full write-up of the project. In this time I produce the proof of concept application which I have uploaded onto the website. The application is full working although does contain some errors, one of which means if multiple files are opened under the same executable they will not necessarily be re-encrypted when they are closed. I have fixed smaller bugs in the program, but have no plans at the moment to make the application fully functional and give it a major release number as I wish to leave it as an example of my university work, although this thinking may chance in future.

So last Friday morning I finally finished the book I’ve been ready for the last 6 months which was Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (I must point out that this is a fantastic book and the fact it took 6 months to read was perfectly to do with the fact I never give myself enough time to read).  In this book they make use of an interesting little encryption algorithm called “Pontifex”, this turned out to be a real encryption algorithm know as “Solitaire” which had been created specifically for the book by Bruce Schneier. With this information in hand I decided to set about creating a C++ implementation of this algorithm as a mini project.

The Solitaire algorithm was designed to be used by troops on a battle field to encrypt and decrypt messages using a deck of cards (full 52 card deck as well as 2 jokers). The security of this algorithm comes from the randomness of a well shuffled deck of cards, although this also causes a problem that the sender and receiver of the message must have an identically shuffled deck of cards. A way around this is to use a pre-arranged pass key to create the initial deck (this is the method I have opted to use in the implementation I created).

If you would like to know more about the Solitaire algorithm a quick visit to Bruce Schneiers website will give you all the information you will ever need. Also if you are interested in my implementation of the algorithm, take a quick trip over to its programs page where you can download the source code.

My infected is starting to clear a bit so hopefully in the next day I will be able to continue working on the updates to the programs sections of the website. In the mean time I stumbled across some applications I created in my first year of university, so once I have worked out what they do and see if any improvements can be made I will upload a choice selection of them to the website as well.

- Mike

After these are uploaded I’ve got a few idea’s of things to work on, including updating the programs section itself so it will be easier to use with more programs on it. Hopefully I will be able to get these started and something uploaded very soon, so keep checked back regularly.

- Mike

- Mike

The most noticeable part of the updated site is redesign of the layout and color scheme used (its predecessor can be found here, although sun glasses are recommended!). Other upgrades included moving from a pure html site bring in more javascript and php to add better functionality. I’ve done away with the blog spot blog in favor of the wordpress blog your currently viewing, I would highly recommend anyone who is looking to set up a blog to get some cheap hosting with allows for php and mysql and set up a wordpress blog. It is extreemly simple to do and give’s you ultimate control over how your blog will look and function.

The other major difference between this version and its predecessor is the programs section of the site. This section was a milestone for me as it was my first php project from scratch. It comprises of two section, firstly is the public pages which will list all the programs which have been uploaded as well individually accessible pages for each. The second section is a full set of backend pages, allowing for the adding of new programs, as well as editing and removing one’s which are already there.

The next step for the site will be to add more applications into the programs section to give a greater idea of the projects I have worked on in the past and to work on improving and streamlining the background code of the website.

- Mike

This site is going under a reworking at the moment so some sections are criminally incomplete (check out the contact me and program pages, its nasty). But I’m working on getting it all together so hopefully it will all look a lot nicer soon.

For those interested this is the second style revision of my website (if you really want to you can view the old design on my old blog, but bring some sun glasses!).

I’ll try and post some more interesting or meaningful stuff soon but the next few days will involve me packing and moving so don’t hold your breath until after the weekend.

Hope people in the UK are enjoying the heat!

- Mike