Tech

The next hacks are coming from the browser

2010s, Security, Social Networking, Tech, Web

I was reading this article on Tom’s Guide about how some Twitter accounts were exposed.
What was startling to me was that Chrome and Firefox store passwords in plain text. Eye opening for me. I used them a lot until I got a Lastpass subscription.

The upshot is that you should never let your web browsers save login credentials for important accounts, such as social networking, bank or other online financial accounts, webmail or online retail accounts such as Amazon.

Chrome and Firefox store login credentials in plain text, making them ripe targets for hackers. Internet Explorer, to Microsoft’s credit, stores then in encrypted form in a separate application.

If remembering passwords is a pain, use a dedicated password manager, such as LastPass or Dashlane, that encrypts and protects your passwords much more securely than a web browser can. And don’t forget to enable two-factor authentication on every account that allows it.

Silicon Valley

2010s, Tech, Thought Provoking, TV

I love the TV show “Silicon Valley”, especially the way it takes the piss out of some of the most ridiculous practises it finds. This is a really enjoyable article in the New Yorker about the parallels between real-life Silicon Valley and the tv show.

“I’ve been told that, at some of the big companies, the P.R. departments have ordered their employees to stop saying ‘We’re making the world a better place,’ specifically because we have made fun of that phrase so mercilessly. So I guess, at the very least, we’re making the world a better place by making these people stop saying they’re making the world a better place.

Most ERP cloud projects to fail

2010s, CRM, Tech

I’m not a blind believer in what Garner publishes but many industry-leaders do give attention to their publications. I wonder what the effect on the market will be about this article?

Anybody who thinks cloud ERP is the answer to their monolithic, on-premises vendor pain is wrong – according to Gartner, anyway.

Gartner has projected a near 100 per cent fail rate for cloud ERP projects by 2018.

Ninety per cent of those rolling out what the mega-analyst has defined as “post-modern ERP” will succumb to the traditional ERP headaches of higher costs, greater complexity and failed integration by 2018.

Their Achilles Heel will be lack of an application integration strategy and related skills.

Designing for Average doesn’t fit anyone

Books, Design, Thought Provoking

From  thestar.com a story of how the US Air Force discovered a design flaw

It is an excerpt from a new book The End of Average by Todd Rose.

Out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within the average range on all 10 dimensions. One pilot might have a longer-than-average arm length, but a shorter-than-average leg length. Another pilot might have a big chest but small hips. Even more astonishing, Daniels discovered that if you picked out just three of the ten dimensions of size — say, neck circumference, thigh circumference and wrist circumference — less than 3.5 per cent of pilots would be average sized on all three dimensions. Daniels’s findings were clear and incontrovertible. There was no such thing as an average pilot. If you’ve designed a cockpit to fit the average pilot, you’ve actually designed it to fit no one.

This is similar to material that I have read in some copy-writing books recently. Target a specific person and not to a general audience for a product.

Here is the book mentioned.

Reducing product and enhancing result in design

Design, Development, Tech, Thought Provoking, Web

Fanstastic post by Goran Peuc in Smashing Magazine about design in information products.

Some highlights are mentioned below but read the whole article.

One of the main problems in product design:

I still find a lot of products today, be they digital or physical, to be too complex and feature-driven. Shouldn’t we as designers instead be looking to remove complexity for users as much as possible or as much as allowed for by current technology, by making our products fit more seamlessly into their daily lives and routines? I feel that we simply don’t and, more worryingly, that we still haven’t learned lessons from the past.

The desired process:

Figure out a way to remove such complexities. Figure out how to remove entire pieces of your product or interface, while keeping the user on the path to the desired result.

Finally:

Theoretically, the ultimate goal for any product is to be completely removed from the user’s perspective. Work towards that goal because nobody wants to use your product.
People just want the benefit of using it.

10 year anniversary of the blog

Tech, Web

It’s ten years since I started this blog. Guess what? Yes, I’m moving to another new hosting company.

Most of the work has been done today and I waited for this blog to transfer over before writing this post. Most websites are wordpress based. Moving them is straightforward, ftp down, ftp up, sql export, sql import, change server settings.

Have a great 2016!