The solution I found for my photo workflow is that I’ve installed AeroFS on my computers and I store my latest photos from the last several months in that folder. It syncs across all of my computers, that way my wife and I can use Picasa or Lightroom and the photos load fast since they are on our local drives.

Since we store folders in a /year/month/ file structure we can easily move those to an external hard drive.

The whole thing backs up to CrashPlan. My entire collection is over 1.5 TB of photos.

Apple and Amazon Hacked

Hackers are not only attacking large corporations. They are targeting regular men and women who are using the services of Apple, Amazon and other large companies. The hackers find out information and steal personal data through the so-called secured systems used online.

According to Chenda Ngak on CBS News, Apple and Amazon had a system that allowed a hacker to steal the information of a customer, technology journalist Mat Honan. Honan’s iCloud account was hacked and he lost the control of his emails because of a system that allowed clients to change personal settings over the phone. This security breach allowed identity theft more easily and the hacker was able to change Honan’s password over the phone.

Since the hacker accessed Honan’s information and hacked into his accounts, Amazon and Apple have taken steps to prevent similar problems in the future. The system change will ensure that more information is needed to change the account information and prevents identity theft from hackers who obtain enough data to access the account in the previous system.

Measures to Prevent Hacking

A simple measure to prevent data loss, if your computer is hacked, is backing up all data. According to John D. Sutter on CNN.com, backing up account information on the computer, an external hard drive and a digital backup system is important to protecting information. Hackers take data from a computer and wipe the system, which can result in trouble if it is not backed up.

Beyond backing up the system, consumers should consider investing in the protection services available at lifelock.com. This service prevents hackers from stealing enough personal data to access accounts online. This limits the risk of a stolen identity.

Sonari Glinton on NPR.org suggests closing accounts that are no longer used. For example, those who opened several social networking accounts over the last ten years and only use one or two can start closing the old accounts that are no longer used. By closing the account, less data is out on the Internet and the information is less accessible to hackers.

Another aspect of protection is the password. By using the same password for every account, it is easy to end up the victim of a hacker. Sonari Glinton suggests creating tough passwords and making several different passwords for various accounts. The more passwords an individual creates, the less likely all of the accounts are accessed by a hacker. However, managing more than one password can be difficult as well; having password management tools, that are online and not only available on your desktop, can be helpful when you are dealing with five or more passwords. One great password management tool that is affordable and has received stellar reviews is LastPass 1.72 Premium, which you can access on your smartphone as well as on any other device that is connect online. Having a password manager with you anytime, anywhere can minimize your confusion and help you remember password changes as you make them.

Also, password choices should be difficult to crack. Using your mother’s maiden name, or your birthday, or even your dog’s name, is not necessarily as safe as some would like to think. A good hacker is actually thinking about what you consider to be secret and personal and will try those password choices first. Try to select a password that is encrypted and a combination of letters and numbers and is not similar to your other account passwords. Likewise if your account asks questions to retrieve your account information, don’t select a question that is easy to research and answer. Instead, choose a question that will be difficult for a hacker to research and answer.

Importance of Protection

Taking measures to protect personal accounts from being hacked is a vital part of owning any modern device. The hacked accounts that happened in the story could happen to anyone, even you. And while Apple and Amazon are somewhat responsible for securing their customer information, It is a users personal responsibility to take measures of protection on their own to protect their own devices and website. To learn more about what you can do to safeguard yourself and the people who are most important to you, whether they are your friends, employees, or family, visit the Veteran of Foreign Wars‘ site, there is a very informative article that outlines more of the valuable services Lifelock offers their customers.

Hackers are a serious problem, but taking measures to protect information can help reduce the risk of becoming a victim. Despite the changes Apple and Amazon are taking to protect consumer information, it is still important to take measures to prevent hackers and other individuals online from finding enough information to steal an identity.

Full story, on design.org.

Not to be confused with the Pareto principle. Which I have written about before, incidentally.

To view my presentation at Speaker Deck, click here.

Now, instead of the web address being in all black like you might have grown accustomed to over the past 10 years, the powers that be have decided it would be better to color all of the URL gray (except for the primary domain name, which still appears in black).

I can see how this could be helpful to the ignorant masses who get scammed by phishing emails, but I’m a relatively intelligent internet user, and I have been browsing the net long enough to know what the primary domain name is in the URL without needing to have it colored different.

If you are like me and wish to set the address bar colors back to the way they used to be in prior versions of Firefox, simply follow these easy steps:

1. In your Firefox address bar, type “about:config” (sans quotes), and press enter.
2. In the filter search box, enter “browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled“
3. Right-click on the “browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled” line item in the listing and select “Toggle” to switch it to false

Over the years, there have been a number of companies/organizations that have tackled this problem, and recently a couple of solutions have bubbled to the top in popularity. OpenID, Google Friend Connect, MySpaceID, and even the Twitter Login API have all been used as “universal login” methods which can be integrated with a web site.

None of these solutions, however, have even come close to the adoption rate boasted by the Facebook Authentication system. Practically everyone has a Facebook account these days, regardless of age, gender, education level, location, favorite web browser, email address, or internet provider! Facebook embraced this fact and built a nicely packaged authentication system which enables developers to integrate Facebook Authentication into pretty much any app or web site they can imagine. You can now find the Facebook universal login method in everything from iphone apps and desktop applications, to normal run-of-the-mill web sites.

This brings me to my point: Potential Security Risks

While logging into my Facebook account via all the different web sites and various applications which I use on a daily basis, I became acutely aware of a glaring security risk with the Facebook Authentication system. Basically, the way how Facebook instills a sense of security is via a recognizable blue bar which has a gray bar and diagonal stripes underneath it. This familiar imagery is displayed whenever you are asked to provide your Facebook login information. The idea that is consequently trained and reinforced in end-users’ minds is that the familiar imagery represents a genuine Facebook login screen. As such, if you are being asked for your Facebook information in a login popup, but the unique blue and gray bar is missing, you would immediately suspect that something was wrong.

Notice, however, that the Facebook URL is nowhere to be seen in the login popup. There is literally no easy way to verify where the contents of the login form are actually going. This is especially true in the countless iphone applications and computer programs which are making use of the Facebook Authentication system. A rogue developer could easily create a form which displayed the blue and gray bar, but that actually transmitted the login information somewhere else entirely (such as a database on their own server) before it sent the information to Facebook.

The exact same thing could be easily accomplished by any semi-competent web developer with 15 minutes worth of spare time. All they would have to do is make a mock-up copy of the legitimate Facebook login popup, but have it submit somewhere else entirely. The end user wouldn’t know the difference.

In summary: Facebook’s way of instilling a *false* sense of security via their blue/gray bar is totally flawed and easily exploited. They need to come up with some sort of method which enables end-users to verify the form’s authenticity before they enter their login information.

After reading that, jump over and read a response to that post, which contains 3 more examples.

I love this kind of post — it’s chalk full of great ideas in user interface design. Speaking of UI patterns, here are some useful sites and examples:

• UI Patterns – Table Filter
• Patternry – Data Table Patterns

Lastly, you should become a fan of BrainFuel on Facebook! Where we frequently post links to cool resources we find.

I just love their site layout – the typography and bright colors from the photography contrast very well with the white content, and black boxes. Nice job! Related: Screenshot from 2008.

Over at Brand New, 46% in a poll agree that the new logo is a “dumb move.” Which is interesting to me, considering how much I liked it when I saw it in-person the other night. I suppose it’s the old-world charm of their old logo that people miss the most. The new branding however probably frees up their design team to explore a lot of new directions they could not have gone before.

I must say though, that their new web site is rather cool looking. The colors they chose are new and modern, and have a pastel quality. I like the interactive components, and their “coffee level” concept. That’s new, and I haven’t seen that before.

The funny thing is they’re owned by Starbucks, which also recently redid their logo.

I’d say the one thing I don’t really care for, is the rounded font they chose for their logo. And why did they rotate their logo on their web site? It’s a good logo that didn’t need to be rotated.

Other problems I see, are the curious lack of a clean URL structure for sub pages (no URLs at all, actually on most), and a frankly mysterious structure to the sub pages, apparently all designed but with little text.

According to Seattle’s Best, this is their first rebranding in 40 years.

This whole site started 10 years ago today, with the first post being made to a simple little HTML file that I uploaded to my server. Initially, it was a simple little page that linked to interesting web sites, and then grew into a massive collection of thoughts, design inspiration, and articles.

Click here to see screenshots of what BrainFuel looked like over the years.

Some stats! There have been 3,121 posts in 17 categories over 10 years. More than 15,081 comments!

Yes, BrainFuel has been less of a priority for me personally in the last few years, as I’ve focused on business with Tornado, with working on a startup (it’s going to launch!), and getting married, and now expecting a baby in July.

I’d like to personally thank the people that have made this site what it is. Without you, BrainFuel would have been less-interesting, and probably gone offline. Special thanks to Kent Downer for contributing interesting posts, and for heading up the recent BrainFuel redesign. Thanks to Tom Chapin for interesting posts. Thanks to Ben Wood for his interesting posts and for managing multiple iterations of the site and for coming up with the name BrainFuel. There are also several others who have contributed posts over the years. Thank you!

I’ve had the opportunity to meet many very interesting people as a result of this site, and made friendships I treasure.

So, here’s to another decade of BrainFuel! Thanks for being a reader!

Whoever designed the web site for the Desert Botanical Gardens did a very nice job. It’s nearby the Tornado office, as well, and I’m thinking it would make a sweet excursion some time soon for the team.

Mundane task, done in less time, equals a happy designer.

The web team for Southwest.com deserves praise. Look how beautiful and usable their web site is! It’s amazing. Especially when you begin to compare it to the American Airlines web site (or most of the other airlines, for that matter).

“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.” — Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines

Maybe that’s their secret. They do things.

But in all honesty, their web site keeps getting better. Three years ago they started down this path towards having a nice site, and they’ve been refining ever since.

Even crazier, the article mentions a Paternoster. A sort of elevator that never stops. Watch this video for a demonstration. It does not look safe!

Inspired by a post on Hacker News.

Useful for identifying the particular parts of a letter.

I stumbled across this beautiful motorcycle this morning. The 1928 Sunbeam Model 90.

Actor Jeff Bridges fills his site with interesting illustrations and writing.

Inspired by a post on Hacker News.

Whenever visitors are viewing an article they can rate it based on a number of factors — like “Laughing” or “Furious.” It’s a great way to gauge reader opinion without requiring that they leave a comment.

And — after you’ve shared your opinion, you can easily share it on Twitter or Facebook.