lifehack

by

25th Anniversary

It will quiet around here for a few days as my wife and I have the pleasure of celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, with a trip to Italy, and more specifically the Bay of Naples to see the sites around Vesuvius.

I feel very privileged to have to reached this mark in our lives together when so many fail to achieve this milestone. But crucial to this success has been the fact that not only is Karen my wife, but first and foremost she is also my best friend, and chief encouragement in all I do. I am proud of all we have been through and achieved together, and am glad she has shared this journey with me.

Here’s to the next 25.

Advertisement
by

Phone Hacking and Security Awareness or Not

31125732_a9c0396956It’s enough to send a techie mad, all this talk about phone hacking. We all know that it is not really about hacking a person’s phone but simply getting access to their voicemail by assuming that the majority of people don’t change the default pass code on their voicemail, so armed with someone’s mobile phone number and network you can easily gain access to their voicemail.

I mean we struggle to get people to secure their bank PIN codes, computers, and the other paraphernalia of modern life so how do we hope to get them to set up a pass code for their voicemail. For instance a quick search tells me that Vodafone’s default voicemail PIN is 3333 and the short guide (which no-one reads anyway) has no reference to the need to change your voicemail PIN. Also most networks I have been on do not start prompting you about setting a PIN unless you phone in from a landline, and even if it does who cares most of the time.

So let’s firstly try to use this to make people understand the need to be aware of security in general, and secondly the need to change their voicemail pass codes to avoid them becoming targets for so called ‘phone hacking’. Surely the press should be raising awareness of this, but then again they would have no-one to ‘phone hack’ if they did.

Update

Just read ‘Smartphone users choose convenience over security‘ where we get the following information;

When asked about password protecting their mobile devices:

  • More than half of respondents said they do not use a password or PIN to lock their smartphone or tablet
  • 44 percent who do not lock their mobile devices said that using a password is “too cumbersome”
  • 30 percent who do not lock their mobile devices said they “are not worried about the risk”.

Says it all really.

Picture by Garrettc

by

Negative Positives or is that Positive Negatives

Sorry it has to stop!  Recently I have noted a trend in myself and others towards using the phrase ‘not too bad‘ in response to the question ‘How are you?‘. What on earth does ‘not too bad’ mean, what is ‘too bad’, are you feeling good, close to death, who knows. Huh! It is time to make a stand and start using positive reponses not positive negatives (or is that negative positives?) to these simple daily questions.

I have taken now to stopping and deliberately replying with a positive response to the question, it only has to be a one word response either ‘good’, ‘excellent’, or ‘bad’, whatever is appropriate. Not only do you feel more positive and decisive overall, but it is more economical!

It strikes me that it is imperative that with every question we should seek to provide a postive answer which actually provides some value to the questioner, since when did we all become politicians afraid to answer even the simplest question. Time to take back the initiative and strike a blow for positiveness.