Category: Technology

All things geeky.

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Please allow your APIs to bypass 2 factor authentication – Mint and Paypal, I’m talking to you!

I use and love Mint.com. I use and love my Paypal security key. However, I cannot use the two together. Either I use mint.com without my paypal details (undesirable) or I lower the security on my Paypal account by deactivating my security key (undesirable).

Two-factor authentication (TFA, T-FA or 2FA) is an approach to authentication which requires the presentation of two different kinds of evidence that someone is who they say they are.

[Source, Wikipedia]

What is desirable is the ability for to authorize certain applications to bypass 2 factor authentication in the same way that Google Accounts allows me to bypass their 2 factor authentication for applications that I trust. So, I should be able to go into my Paypal settings and say “trust mint.com without 2 factor authentication” and it would assign a key (guid, long string of characters, whatever) specifically for mint.com that effectively would be mint’s password into my Paypal account.

To make this work, would require cooperation between Mint and Paypal of course. To see this in practice, go to Google Accounts, turn on 2 factor authentication, then set up Gmail on an iPhone, Blackberry or Android. There’s the model.

See also: Google’s Getting started with 2-step verification for a demonstration of application specific passwords.

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Today’s Bizarre Dreamweaver Error

Dreamweaver has never been one of my favorite editors. I believe the following error is due to an improper shutdown.

The following translators were not loaded due to errors:
ICERegions.htm: has configuration information that is invalid.
Server Model SSI.htm: has configuration information that is invalid.
Spry.htm: has configuration information that is invalid.

From a quick Google Search, it looks like renaming the configuration file and restarting DW and/or the computer will fix things. I’ll update shortly.

UPDATE 1: Reboot of system did not help. I’m using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 version 10.0 Build 4117

Update 2: Renaming the configuration file to "configuration old" and restarting DW did the trick. See this forum, that forum, and this other forum (a list of potential directories).

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One of these two things is not as urgent as she thought

If I am in the men’s room playing Angry Birds and I can hear a woman having a conversation on her phone in the stall behind mine, either she is talking too loudly or the wall between the men’s room and the women’s room is too thin. Oh, her call is done aaaand flush. Bonus, three stars!

n.b Really people. Leave your cellphone at your desk and enjoy the movementmoment.

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DomesticPsychology.com url shortener

I’m a strong believer in owning your content. URL shorteners like http://bit.ly/ and http://3.ly/ bother me in that if the business changes or goes under, your short links die. http://3.ly for instance has been acquired or changed to http://qr.net which I still feel was a bad business move. If the business becomes unethical, they could sell your short links to redirect your traffic elsewhere. So, just like I believe you should view Facebook and Twitter as temporary places for content (much like a bulletin board on a college campus) and instead host your own site like http://domesticpsychology.com/blog/ (much more like a library or museum…and yes I know Twitter gets archived at the Library of Congress), I believe you should own your own url shortener.

Anyhow, to live by my own words, I thought I’d buy Cathy a domain for her own url shortener for DomesticPsychology.com. My first thought was http://dp.me After two cups of coffee, I rethought that one. I’d say I am not sure Cathy would want to direct people to http://dp.me but then again I haven’t ever broached the subject 🙂

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SCIENCE! That planets are aligning in the sky

This is a great week to wake your children early and peer into the sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are visible to the naked eye. Binoculars or a small telescope will allow you to see Uranus and Neptune. Any camera with a telephoto lens should be able to capture all 6 at once.

For the last two months, almost all the planets have been hiding behind the sun, but this week they all emerge and are arrayed in a grand line above the rising sun.

[Source, LiveScience, Six Planets Now Aligned in the Dawn Sky by Geoff Gaherty]


Picture credit: Starry Night Software. Picture borrowed from LiveScience

Inspire your children. Awe them with the wonders of the universe. Arise early. Hear the birds. See the planets.

If you get confused looking at objects in the sky, consider the iPhone/iPad app "GoSkyWatch" It is undeniably one of my favorite applications. I spent most of my life with astronomy books unsure if I was correctly identifying objects in the sky. GoSkyWatch removes all doubt, adds factoids, and makes star gazing so much more fun. [Link to app]

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Tune in tomorrow 9-10am

Radio tower detailTomorrow, April 6, 2011 from 9am to 10am, I’ll be discussing blogging with Brian Hornback (Twitter: @brianhornback), Ed Brantley and Bob Thomas on WNOX‘s 100.3 The Ed & Bob Show (listen live online). You can interact with Ed and Bob on Facebook and Twitter. I suspect you can call in with questions or feel free to use twitter to send messages to @djuggler or post in comments here. This will be a blast!

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Dear Apple.. an obvious feature request

Dear Apple, when can I have the ability to prevent my children from moving or deleting items in my iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad)? I’d also like to give them the ability to use the device without accessing particular applications. I’m not asking for user profiles but at least give me the ability to demand a system password for moving and deleting apps and give me the ability to use the same system password to lock selected applications (or screens) so that my financial and business applications aren’t accessible while they use their games and educational applications. Thank you! Doug, father to 5 children in a household of 4 iOS devices (and growing) that often change hands.

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Ministry of Truth to be created in California

A California corporation has been awarded has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom) to build the Ministry of Truth. "The project has been likened by web experts to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet."

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

[Source, guardian.co.uk, Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media]

Now, before you grab your tinfoil hat (and mine is shinier than yours), note that "said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to ‘address US audiences’ with such technology"

…any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

In his evidence to the Senate committee, Gen Mattis said: "OEV seeks to disrupt recruitment and training of suicide bombers; deny safe havens for our adversaries; and counter extremist ideology and propaganda." He added that Centcom was working with “our coalition partners” to develop new techniques and tactics the US could use "to counter the adversary in the cyber domain".

[Source, guardian.co.uk, Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media]

See also: Inspector General – Information Operations Contracts in Iraq page 9, Operation Earnest Voice (OEV) – online engagement, The man behind Operation Earnest Voice, and Operation Earnest Voice Part III.

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This does not make me proud

The land of the free, the promised land, the place people once longed to visit or immigrate is quickly becoming the land to stay far away.

going to the US is more unpleasant than going to Soviet era Russia or even Iran 10 years ago. Sure, you sometimes have to bribe people, but at least I’ve not had gear stolen off me during security checks or had people break my gear without at least compensating me.

And taking pictures. Well, let me put it like this: you are 20 times more likely to get hassled for whipping out your camera anywhere in the US than in, say, downtown Teheran.

I offer this as an observation from the outside. The US is isolating itself and it is becoming a very, very unpleasant place to visit. I often talk to fellow travellers and even a lot of business types in nice suits often relate how they’d rather not travel to the US if they could help it and that they’d rather work with people in Europe or Asia. I can relate to that.

[Source, Reddit, Why I stopped travelling to the US and I largely stopped doing business in the US.]

My fellow Americas. Can we please return to the pre-9/11 sensibilities we once had?