My Presentation from last night's Twin Cities Java User Group Meeting

Last night I gave my "Intro to Application Security" presentation to the Twin Cities Java User Group. Considering I am not a Java developer, I thought things went pretty well. The TCJUG was a very warm and welcoming group who asked great questions and seemed genuinely interested in hearing what I had to say. Application Security is a subject that spans all languages.

On the recommendation of Marc Escher I picked up Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds in preparation for my upcoming presentation at cf.Objective().

After reading the first few chapters, I started to realize that all of my existing presentations were bad presentation. In fact, I would say they were embarrassingly bad. It seems that almost every thing that Mr. Reynolds pointed out as something bad, is something I had been doing.

So a couple of days prior to my TCJUG presentation, I decided to "refactor" my "Intro to Application Security" to make it better. Following many of the principles described in (the first half of) Presentation Zen I drastically altered my presentation. I cut A LOT of slides, and EVEN more words out of the remaining slides. I found some good quotes to use to illustrate points, I used more images and many fewer bullet points. I enjoyed the experience, and I am happy with the result. I still do not think the presentation is where it should be, but it is MUCH better than it was.

That said, here are some links:

Old Version (PDF)
New Version (Open Office)
New Version (PowerPoint)

For those that attended the presentation, you will find the best code samples in the newer version, I made a few changes. And also, to those who attended, thank you for your time and for the warm welcome.