A Weblog written, styled and hacked by Joel Moss
I have a confession to make. I hate Captcha’s!
Those stupid little images that are displayed to you during or after you register on a site, that display a set of almost completely unreadable letters and/or numbers. It simply infuriates me when I see them. I live and breathe the internet, but even I can’t tell what I am supposed to be entering into the Captcha sometimes. Just imagine what it’s like for non-technical types!
So today I stumbled across Xero, and it picqued my interest enough for me to signup for the free trial. I completed the short signup form, and immediately after I see this:
No obsure image with a bunch letters that you can’t see. I just get to finish a game of Tic-Tac-Toe! As long as I click on the correct square to finish the line with crosses, I’m in and registered.
Now that I might have to steal. Genius!
My name is Joel Moss, a web developer and all round nice guy, living in Manchester, England. I am currently working full time for ShermansTravel.com, but I fill whatever spare time I have with lots of good and wholesome "stuff"! Like developing my own ideas; such as Tooum, contributing to the excellent CakePHP framework, and doing more work for ShermansTravel.
So this is my blog - my soap box! Here I attempt to share my likes, my dislikes, and my opinions. As well as providing some occasional respite from the daily crap we all endure. Enjoy ;)
Hey, if you want to reach me, i'm available via email:joel[at]developwithstyle[dot]com, and AIM:joelkmoss.
Mark Hallett
August 17th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Hi Joel - Glad you like our little game of tick tack toe! Hope you like the accounting software too! We are always looking for ways to keep our accounting software cool, I know accounting software - cool, surely that’s an oxymoron! Enjoy the experience and if you have any questions just flick me a mail.
Mark Hallett
UK Business Development Director
Xero
Mark
August 19th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Seems like tic-tac-toe is way more beatable than a CAPTCHA.
Joel
August 20th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Maybe, but tic-tac-toe is soooo much more user friendly
Dustin Davis
August 21st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Wow, that is cool. Maybe once you steal it you can share the code
Ryan Waggoner
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:55 am
Cute, but as the poster above noted, this is easily beatable as there’s only four possible answers. The only reason this is any deterrent is that captcha bots aren’t aware of it. They might as well have a checkbox that says “click here if you’re human”
Arbuz
September 7th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Hey,
Anyone have a source code?