March 18th, 2009

Apple just announced their new iPhone OS 3.0 software will be available this summer as a free update to all iPhone users.

One small but awseome feature has gotten barely a whisper.

MacRumors.com reports: “Find my iPhone/iPod Touch” option available under MobileMe, which presumably allows you to locate your iPhone from Me.com

Let’s speculate on three uses:

I lose my phone all the time. Sometimes I left it at home. Sometimes I left it at the office. Sometimes I left it at the neighborhood bar. So the moment this feature is available I would enable it. The next time I lose my phone I could just log on to me.com and ask it to access my phone’s GPS and tell me on a map exactly where it is.

Parents could force the feature on and track where their kids are without the need for any 3rd party software. All Apple would have to do is lock that option to the rest of the Parental Controls. Sorry kids!

A “Play Music Until Located” which turns the volume on the phone to max and plays a version of “O Where O Where Could My Baby Be” until someone pics it up. They will see a dialogue that says “This iPhone has been lost. Are you the owner?” If the user taps yes then the user will be prompted for the 4 digit pincode for security. If the user taps no then the dialogue will switch to display the programmed contact information of the user with the option to call the “call when lost” phone number but no other options. Apple already does something vaguely similar with enterprise users, but I for one do not need my unit remotely “wiped” so much as returned to me! Going one step further it would be neat if I as the owner could set up a “reward if found” option. When the phone is found the finder is informed of the “reward if found of X dollars in iTunes credit” and is asked to enter their iTunes account email address and then is allowed to call the “call when lost” phone number to arrange return of the phone. If the phone is returned the owner can enter their pin to unlock the phone at which point the “lost if found” credit is automatically transfered to the finder. The process is transparent and everyone wins.

April 2nd, 2008

Between work-life and home-life I have about fifty online accounts/usernames/passwords. I’ve finally created a system to manage my username and passwords which is fast and secure. What I’ve done is create an encrypted disk image with a single text file listing all of my passwords. If you’re on a mac, you can use the instructions below.

First though, two important notes:

First, for this disk image you’ll want to create an “uber password” which supersedes all of your current passwords. Even if you’re not normally careful with the types of passwords you use (my father often uses “password” as a password) you’ll want to be sure you use a secure password. If you use at least three letters, three symbols, and three numbers you can be pretty sure that any company/person capable of cracking your password probably has better things to do.

Second, this disk image will be completely secure when unmounted and completely unsecured when mounted. So make sure you use it accordingly; mount the DMG, add/remove/check a password and then unmount the volume. NEVER LEAVE THE VOLUME OPEN.

Now the step-by-step:

1) Go to Disk Utility

2) Click New Image

3) Enter your setting

A few notes on the settings:

Volume Name: do NOT use a name that includes “password”. That way if someone searches your computer for “password” this file will not come up.

Volume Size: I only use this to store a single text document, so I’ve selected 10 MB. But if you want to place other secure information make this volume as large as you ever think you’ll need to avoid having to recreate it.
4) Open KeyChain.
5) Select and Delete the password stored for your newly named disk image. Now you’ll be challenged for a password every time you open this disk image.
6) Open the disk image (i.e. double click the DMG file).
7) Open TextEdit and start a password list.
8) Save that password list to the Volume

9) Eject the volume.
If you’ve chosen a secure password then the Disk Image (DMG file) is completely secure. You can even email it to yourself (quick and easy backup) because the text file with passwords cannot be accessed without the master password.