General

Daybreakers

There’s a recent spate of vampire movies brought on by the Twilight series (yeech!). Of course, this is nothing new, there’s the Lost Boys, the Blade Series, the Underworld series, etc. But Daybreakers is a vampire movie with a twist: Instead of humans being the majority, vampires are. It does make sense when you think of it. After all, vampires are vastly superior to humans in a fight. And humans are a dwindling food resource hunted and, eventually, farmed. And so in this, alternate world, an intrepid group of human rebels work to freeing humanity and creating a cure for vampirism. Aside from this unique twise, there’s some action and a bit of human (vampire?) drama injected in.  The result is novel,  entertaining, and fun (in a gory kind of way, if you’re into that kind of thing).

Rating: 3/5

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum is the the said to be the best superhero computer game so far. And I can see why.  In the game, Batman must fight Joker and his henchmen who have taken over the Arkham Asylum. This is not an easy task since Batman is one of the few  superheroes who don’t have superpowers. Instead, he relies on wits, stealth, his excellent martial art skills. And of course, it wouldn’t be complete without the utility belt and its plethora of gadgets. There’s the ever-present Batarang, grappling-hook gun, explosive gel gun, Bat-Claw, Ultra Bat-Claw (3 Bat-Claws), and Zip-line Thrower. Using all these in combination is required for your to succeed in the game.

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Rolling My Own Java Security Framework

I needed to quickly roll out a small security framework for an app at work. Since it’s a security framework, it must have at the minimum:

  • User Management – add/edit/delete users for administrators and change password for users.
  • Authentication – establish identity of a user by getting user credentials typically via a login page.
  • Authorization – establish if an authenticated user is allowed access to a resource.

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