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A look at the improved password features of PHP 5.5+

It’s of the utmost importance that PHP programmers safeguard account passwords by using the latest and most secure methods. To that end, PHP 5.5 added a new password-hashing library created by Anthony Ferrara (@ircmaxell). The library makes several functions available that you can use to handle one-way password encryption with current best-practice methods. Other features anticipate future security needs so that as computers and hackers get more advanced, you can stay a step ahead of the bad guys. This article gives you an in-depth introduction to the library’s functions and how to make the best use of them.

via PHP renewed: Password security in modern PHP.

This article takes a look at the improved password handling features of PHP 5.5+. Recommended read for anyone working with PHP apps.

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How to give a presentation with an iPad and Apple TV

If you work in an office setting, sooner or later you’re going to have to give a presentation. We’ve all been there, watching someone stare into a blinding projector light while fumbling with cables and trying to get the signal to come through.
The good news for Apple users is that with a couple Apple products and a little know-how, they can do away with the cables and clutter and quickly get on with the presentation. Using the AirPlay service, you can stream content to a second or third generation Apple TV.
Here’s how you can give a presentation with just an iPad and an Apple TV.

via How to give a presentation with an iPad and Apple TV – TechRepublic.

I believe a number of law schools have tried this sort of thing with varying degrees of success. See the Teknoids archives at http://elide.us/9n and http://elide.us/9o. There was even a CALIcon12 session that covered some of this, http://cca.li/vR. All of this seems a bit old, so it may be time to grab an Apple TV and do a refresh to see if it works any better now.

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Scrollback, an open source alternative to Slack

Nurture your community with meaningful conversations.
Create rooms based on your interest or follow existing ones.
Share ideas, discuss realtime and redefine your online community experience with Scrollback.

via Scrollback, where communities hang out.

While relatively new and still adding features, Scrollback is the closest thing I’ve seen to to open source Slack. Once running it’s eady for folks to join and start participating right away. This is a project worth keeping an eye on. The code is on GitHub at   https://github.com/scrollback/scrollback.

Written mostly in Javascript it requires Node.js, Postgres, and Redis to run.

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My Twitter Digest for 04/10/2015

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Genius Beta Lets Anyone Annotate Any Page On The Web

Rap Genius was just the first step to fulfilling Marc Andreessen’s Netscape dream of letting people annotate the whole Internet. Today, the lyric explanation startup tries to achieve its destiny with the launch of its new genius.it/ prefix that lets you add annotations to any web page.

Just put the prefix before a URL like http://genius.it/techcrunch.com/author/josh-constine , highlight a piece of text or image, and you can append a back story, explanation, context, or extra links. Other users who visit the genius.it/ version of the same site will see your annotation, and can upvote or downvote it, reply, or share the annotation. 

Genius Now Lets You Annotate Any Web Page, Not Just Rap | TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/08/annotate-this/?ncid=rss

Another entry into the “annotate the web” space. It seems like the tech is finally maturing and will be a welcome addition for educational use.

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