Outside Look

A Social Media Win

I recently had breakfast at Sally's restaurant in San Francisco, and was not impressed. My meal was sub-par, so like any young (ish) geeky net type guy, I put it on Yelp. I was going against the stream - most of the reviews were great, and I did assume I had a one off, lousy experience, or my expectations were too high. But then, something amazing happened. The owners sent me messages on Yelp, and they were entirely apologetic, ready to make things right - they won a repeat customer. They sna...

Online Multi-Factor Authentication

I was just reading this article on myOpenID CallVerifiD regarding using phone authentication for online log ins. This made me wonder why the mobile has not become a more common authentication factor. I've talked to too many people who have said that online banking has two factor authentication because you "have" the user name, and "know" the password. This is complete bunk. You "know" both of them, which leaves most online banking logins as single factor, multi-layer solutions. Compare to th...

BarCamping

It's not what you think - not a bunch of people hanging around a bar, not is it going camping with lots of booze. BarCamps are informal conferences, without an agenda, loosely organized, and incredibly cool. For me, BarCamp Bank SF was my first BarCamp experience, and this is a little bit about that experience for those who haven't attended one. Since this was my first time, I didn't know what to expect beyond what I'd read on the BarCamp wiki and some blogs. At first blush, it seems that it ...