zsh and bash examples

Google tries to enhance security, but fails to learn a lesson from 1870

Today I tried out 2-factor authentication ala Google. The process mostly worked. The notification failed miserably. I received the following email:

Hi Frank,

You have successfully created an app password

"iPad" Created on "Feb 6, 2014 10:10:40 AM"

This application password will allow you to
access your Google account from a device or
application that can only be configured
with a username and password, rather than
a username, password, and a verification code. 

Hmm, notice anything conspicuously missing? Oh yes - a timezone. Seems this new service couldn't possibly be used by anyone not on the west coast of the US.

#GoogleFail

Perhaps they should read this article

Security is sometimes hard, but some things are very very easy

This is a rather lame attempt to build a new linkage to Amazon

This doesn't fall into the needlessly complex it is just downright ridiculous. I suspect it is driven by what I call KOSO - as in the programmers Kind Of Sort Of know what they are doing, but not really. This is precisely the kind of thing that happens when non-programmers try to program. The kind of people that copy and past bits and pieces of things from the Internet.

Apple maps

Seems apple pooched this one

Looking at the
front page of the app

Would seem like this app would be great for a falcon. Either the kind seeking a nice pigeon for a meal or a military fighting falcon coming in for a buzz through the city streets. For people perhaps not so much.

Agile coding commentary

Todd Kueny, my first boss out of college, has a great commentary here that fits perfectly into the title of this blog.

Hello Best Buy - Ever hear of testing software?

Do you have any idea how to code?

Take a look at this screen shot. Can you identify the coding problem?



The lower box claims that I can compare up to 4 items. However when I try to add a fourth item, the popup box appears stating I can only add 3.

By the way while railing on Best Buy, the Reward Zone program and the Best Buy web sites do not share usernames, passwords, or anything it seems. However when you tell it to reset your reward zone password the email looks like it comes from Best Buy not Reward Zone. What a gigantic lose.

Best Buy please let me know if you'd like some help in getting this right!

Google Finance Still Broken

If you click the S&P 500 link - what would you expect to see. I expected to see a chart of the S&P 500.




Here's what you see instead:



What a pile of junk!

How experience can save you money.

Today I was moving some stuff around my home office and turned off the external drive.

When I finally got things re-organized and re-connected the drive had that old familiar "heads stuck in park position" click happening. It is a 150GB drive, I recalled a moment almost 20 years ago when I unstuck some 104MB drives by spinning them around the axis of rotation.

1,000 times bigger drive - same solution - my drive is working.

http://www.sunmanagers.org/archives/1992/0084.html

Google Buzz is Broken

If you are reading this in Buzz there is a high likelihood that the title of this blog has a & # 39 in it. Why, because lame-o programmer's have no idea how to process text and make it look right. This Ajax stuff - or whatever is used to do Buzz is yet another example of inadequate testing and just get it out there, however horrible and crappy it happens to be, mentality that is pervasive today.

Why is Vista so slow? I have a clue.....

While looking to see what could be slowing down my computer today I decided to look at the operation event viewer. (Click picture below to see full view)




Hey cool - 15 events in the past 4 seconds - heck that can't be slowing me down at all. Hmmm, let's see - something is slowing me down, perhaps I should try to open up a file and write about it, no wait that will make me even slower, in which case I shall have to open up a file and write about it, and so it goes ad infinitum until the machine screws itself into the ground and requires a power off reboot.

Alas - I shall never again have a machine capable of doing simple tasks simply.....