Srcasm

I get very excited when I see new companies in the tech industry growing up (especially when I use them and they’re in the Philadelphia area). ReadBurner is no exception. In the past few days, they’ve rolled out some great new features — categorized popular this week, paging on certain pages, integrated comments and the latest is a partnership with NetVibes. This last one is exciting. From the ReadBurner blog, Adam writes:

This announcement gives you a bit of a taste of what we’re up to – analyzing what people are sharing across the Web on all sorts of different services. As such, our tagline has now changed to “what’s shared on the Web.”

While some may not understand why this is a big accomplishment, I feel that it is. They have a goal to let every user (that one’s for Drew) know what’s hot on the internet without regard to who says it’s hot. This differs from Digg.com and the other content rating sites like Technorati by a large margin. Digg uses a system where people can vote something up but they don’t even have to have viewed the site to do it and Technorati uses an authority system. This means that certain users and blogs have a higher likelihood of hitting the front page simply because of who or what they are. ReadBurner takes the guesswork out of this. No weights, no preference, simply sharing.

In addition of providing the top articles in different categories, they also allow you to quickly hop to both Google Reader and NetVibes to share more items right at the top of the screen.

While they have a long way to go before they are fully accepted, I think they’re heading in the right direction. They have made an active choice to keep from moderating the information or removing articles that they don’t like (see, lolcatz can make it up there each and every day). Keep an eye on these guys because they have some great stuff on the way.

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When all of your users have decided to keep their passwords written down on sticky notes, on their hands and under their keyboards how do you protect them from themselves?  You could go ahead and rip off each of their finger nails (ouch) until they promise to never write it down again or you could take a much nicer, more humane route — teach them a way to write it down without writing it down.

I learned a trick somewhere along the way of a simple means of keeping your information handy without giving it out to the rest of the world.  It starts like this…  Choose a keyword, write it down anywhere you’d like, choose a modification system and stick with it.

So, say my keyword I wanted to use was target.  It’s simple, I could write it on my hand, on my car window or even shout it from the roof tops and besides people thinking I was crazy for the red-bullseye store no one would be the wiser.  Next, I choose a pattern or modification system to use.  I’m going to add the number of characters in the domain to the middle of my word and then write the first three letters of the site’s domain (with the first letter capitalized) to the end of my keyword.  It may sound a bit tricky at first but after using it a couple of times, it becomes easy.  When I setup my new Twitter login, I choose my username and then I create my new password.  Starting with my keyword, target, I put the number 7 in between the r and the g.  So now I have tar7get and then I add the first three letters of Twitter.com to the end of the password forming the new password, tar7getTwi.

Now I have a password with a number, a capital letter and I almost never use the same one again.  It means that my accounts can be secure, I don’t lose sleep over the 20 million passwords I have AND it’s easy to “remember” or figure out the next time I go to that site.

A friend of mine and I have rolled out the latest venture — a new blog at I Hate My IT Guy.  Now I know what you’re saying, “Another blog, oh boy!” (Please note: the sarcasm!), but this one takes a bit of a different approach.  We’re hoping to make it an interactive experience for both users and IT guys (people to be P.C.) to share their experiences, woes and loves of deal with or in an IT world.  Take a look at the excerpt from the about us page and share your insight from both sides of the fence:

 ”This is the beginning of the end of IT as you know it! Whether you’re fed up with your IT guys (people to be PC) bossing you around, telling you what you can and can’t do online, offline, in line and out of line, or you’re the IT guy who loves to do the bossing we want your input. Tell us what you do and don’t like about IT today and lets talk about it. We hope to shed some light on the myths and truths about what it is to work in IT and what it’s like to deal with the IT guy.”

Please, share your thoughts with us at the new site.

So as most people know I am a big fan of Google in most ways. I use their email (for multiple domains and a Gmail account), I’ve been known to use Google Docs, maps are one of their best features — and who could forget good ‘ol Google.com? I have to say that their sites tool is a little on the junky side but all-in-all, their services are great. I recently came across one that I had not seen or used before and now I’m in love. The kind of love that can not be split up by browser upgrades, computer changes or long-distance travel and it’s called Google Browser Sync (for Firefox only).

I’ve used different browser sync tools in the past but this one just blows the others away with its simplistic design, cross-platform capabilities and an online storage system that I have come to love very much. After a quick install (just like any other Firefox plugin) the browser plugin prompts you for your Google account info (no Google for your domain accounts that I know of) and then has you choose a unique PIN number. The PIN is to make sure that someone doesn’t just add the tool bar on a computer where you’ve saved your password. I’m also not sure if the PIN allows you to have multiple Google Browser Sync subsections (i.e. Sync computers A and B and then sync computers C and D). Once this process is done, you’re off to the races. Not only does it sync your bookmarks but it also does browsing history, saved passwords and even keeps track of your open tabs. This means that if you close Firefox on your work computer, go home and open it up, it’ll prompt you to see if you want to reopen those tabs! How great is that?   In addition, there is no user intervention required.  When you close down Firefox, the small window pops up for a second that shows you that it’s syncing your browser to Google.  That’s it.

I know that many of the security gurus out there will yell at me and say, “hey, what about what they do with that information?!?!?!?”  Well I’ll tell you what — If you can show me a simpler, clean and fast way of syncing browsers online without using a service like Google (who already knows who I talk to (email), what I’m interested in (search) and where I like to eat brunch (maps)) then I’d be happy to hear it and take a look.  For now, I trust Google with my info.  They haven’t steered me wrong yet and I’m hoping that they never do.

Please, let me know what you think of the browser wars, syncing your info, sending email or anything else under the sun.

We all live in the same world (well, most of us anyway) and we all have 20 different passwords at any given time. Sometimes sites/services don’t allow more than 8 characters, others require at least 9 characters, some do allow special chars and others don’t. It’s a nightmare trying to figure out a password scheme that works and allows you to use the same one across the board… And then there is the all problematic issue of using the same password everywhere means if one is compromised then they all are. What to do? A password manager might be the answer.

There have historically been three main options for managing passwords with regards to the computer. First there was memory (not the RAM kind). That worked well for 1-3 passwords. Then there was the pencil and paper. This was a fail-safe method was had no security, could get lost or thrown out and eventually got dirty if you erased it too many times. Finally there was the computer. Using programs like KeePass and RoboForm users could record their passwords in a secure, recoverable environment that never got dirty due to too many eraser marks on a piece of paper. It seemed like all the issues were solved but then the internet came and blew it all up.

How many times are you at one of your 15 computers and that one doesn’t have your KeePass container. You either have to guess/reset your password for that specific service (and then remember to update it later in your password management software) or you would have to get to the computer that the password was on. In addition to that, you might not even have your computer available. Maybe it was stolen, lost or MIA (in transit with that pesky airline luggage). What can you do then? Recently a couple new services have popped up that allow secure password management online — that’s accessible from almost any computer. PassPack and Clipperz are both startups that are trying to fix the need for remembering too many passwords and other pertinent information. While you can check out PassPack’s “unbiased” comparison chart and blog entry to compare the two services, I’m just writing about PassPack today.

PassPack uses client-side (JavaScript) encryption to protect your information.  You get to setup an account on their servers that stores your encrypted file that has used a pass key called your “packing key” to uniquely and securely (AES) encrypt your information.  While there are trust issues that have to be overcome when storing your information almost anywhere, the guys (and girls) at PassPack have been open and honest about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.

In addition to offering its users an online storage area (while currently limited to 32k) for their information, PassPack has also unveiled some pretty neat features.  Their “1 Click” logon allows a user to add a bookmarklet to their browser and simply go to a page that they have saved information for and with a single click (get it?) log into the site.  It uses JavaScript layed over the actual site and doesn’t use the clipboard to log the user in.  Pretty neat, huh?

Some of the new features that they’re coming out with are even more impressive.  The ability to share certain passwords securely with other users will be a big help if they want to break into the commercial/small business area.  Having the ability to share a password with a colleague on a temporary basis without emailing it to them or sending it to them via mail or the dreaded fax machine would greatly increase productivity as well as security (if they build it right, the end user would never even have to see the password with 1 Click logon).

While PassPack has a long way to go before they accepted by most users or better yet the corporate environment, they’re on the right track.  The possibilities are endless with the configuration that they have so far.  Maybe encrypted document storage, better offline support or secure transmitting of information (like encrypted email) that can not be broken by anyone (I know, a far-off wish).  What do you think?  Would you store your passwords online?  If they were encrypted?  What would a company have to do to prove to you that they were honest and could do what they said they could do?