Teare Software Solutions

Having Fun With Squidoo Lens'

Seth Godin's Squidoo is an interesting idea. The idea is to create lenses that will bring particular topics into focus. It is not a blog since the information is more permanent, but it's not a wiki either because there is only one lens master. If anything, it's probably most like Martin Fowler's [bliki](http://martinfowler.com/bliki/). My [good friend](http://softwaretrenches.com) and I have created some lenses to focus ideas from our blogs and technical experiences. [Mac Secrity](http://www.squidoo.com/macsecurity) is a lens that is helping me to focus my various security related posts and by doing so is making writing the [Mac Security Guide](http://macsecuritybook.com) much easier. I can now dump interesting ideas into this lens instead of my todo list. Roustem created a lens dedicated to [being more productive on Mac](http://www.squidoo.com/productivemac). He lists the various tools and techniques that he has used to improve his productivity. Roustem also has started a lens on using the [powerlines in your home as your home network](http://www.squidoo.com/powerline). I need this for my house as the wireless signal from my single wireless access point doesn't cover the entire house.

TODO Lists Are Evil

I finally had a "day off" today after our recent [release](http://1passwd.com) and [ZOT!ing](http://maczot.com/discuss/?p=198). It's been a busy month and my TODO list has grown out of control. I have been dumping all sorts of things into the TODO list: bugs, feature requests, marketing ideas, web site changes, and planned newsletter content. My list is currently 162 lines long! And this is **after** I cleaned up the obviously outdated crud. I've been trying to use [DEVONthink](http://www.devon-technologies.com/) but it just doesn't seem effective for this type of transient data. I'm currently trying [TadaList](http://www.tadalist.com/) to store my lists. Right off-the-bat TadaList is better than my current todo list because it allows me to easily have multiple lists and it keeps a history of the completed items. Better still, since it's hosted [my partner](http://softwaretrenches.com/) and I can share the todo lists. Hopefully I'm still happy with this setup in a week, but it seems I'm constantly looking for a better way. What do you use to manage your todo's?

1Passwd's been macZOT!'d!

We listed our [1Passwd Password Manager](http://1passwd.com) application on [MacZOT!](http://maczot.com) today. The deal is pretty sweet: the price has been slashed by 33%! So far it has been very popular and I expect that we'll sell out before the day is over. I really enjoyed listing on MacZOT! and Brian Ball was fun to work with. My favorite part of the entire zotting was that Brian enjoyed using our product and therefore he was able to write a very provocative [description](http://maczot.com/discuss/?p=198) of 1Passwd. Here are some of my favorite lines: 1. It’s not a SpellChecker! It’s a Massive Time Saver 1. Do you use the same 4 passwords because they're too hard to remember? You can stop risking your security today! 1. You’ve never seen anything like "1Passwd"! It’s like Keychain on steroids and it makes all other password managers obsolete. 1. Use it for 365 days and if you don’t save at least $20 worth of your time, you can ask for a full refund. 1. You can also try the free trial risk-free before you buy. We will be incorporating many of these ideas into the website. The more provocative 1Passwd is the more we will be noticed and remarked upon.

Sir Ken Robinson on the Sad State of Education

Ken Robinson gives a very entertaining talk on how important creativity is to intelligence and how the current education system squanders it. The current educational system came into existence to support the needs of industrialism. Worst of all, the educational system treats children minds like industries treat the world: they strip mine it. Anything that doesn't contribute to the "bottom line" is discarded as junk. The current craze of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and increased suicide rates show how ruthless our society is at this "strip mining". How do we change this? I have no idea how to change the educational system. However, I do know that entering this system is **voluntary**.

Back to Inbox Zero

I'm a big fan of Merlin Mann and his [43Folders](http://www.43folders.com/) blog. He really has helped me Get Things Done. One of the greatest productivity tips I've ever learned was Merlin was his (http://www.43folders.com/izero/)[Inbox Zero] series. Today I finally cleared all the 'mental debt' that had accumulated since my recent product release.

Provocative Products Get Noticed

I don't like thinking of my users as horses, but my favorite [Creating Passionate Users](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/) author Kathy loves horses and had a great article on [Being Provocative](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/09/be_provocative.html). Other than comparing users to horses, her explanation of how to capture and hold your users attention was perfect: > The secret is to be more provocative and interesting than anything else in their environment. How true! One of the biggest problem with my [current product](http://1passwd.com) is that everyone on Mac **thinks** they have no need for it. The great thing about 1Passwd, is that I know every Mac user **would** benefit from it. I used to think that the problem was one of our user's technical savvy (after all, it's so easy to blame someone other than yourself). However, many industry experts didn't initially grok why he needed anything other than AutoFill and the built-in Keychain. Clearly [Roustem](http://softwaretrenches.com) and I are doing a poor job of being provocative. So how can we get noticed? Luckily, Kathy sheds some light on this for us.

Yahoo's Attempt at Phishing Protection

I haven't needed to log into Yahoo for a while since I allow them to "remember me". Today, however, I had switched to using Camino for the day and noticed that Yahoo has added "Phishing Protection" to their signin page. Here's what the new signin page looks like now: Being a curious soul, I just had to see what Yahoo had done to protect me.

Bloggers, Tipping Points, and Crappy Phones

Joel makes it clear in his [latest post](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/19b.html) that if you're going to give your product away for free in return for some blog entries, you better make sure your product doesn't suck. Very funny stuff.

How to protect yourself from Mac Keyloggers

[Minezamac](http://www.minezamac.com/2006/09/15/if-you-had-a-mac-keylogger-how-would-you-know/) wants to know what he can do to protect himself from Mac keyloggers. Sadly the [threat is real](http://softwaretrenches.com/2006/09/mac_keyloggers_are_alive_and_w.html), despite the 'talking heads' that say Macs are immune from malware. Minezamac asks (emphasis mine): > Right now I am **flying blind**, I just have to use safe computing practices like not running anything sent to me I didn’t ask for. But the scary thing about the Mac shareware community is how prolific and awesome it is, there are apps to try for virtually anything, who’s to say what the app is really doing though on my machine. Currently my only thought is to use Little Snitch an app that monitors outbound traffic, so if I do catch something at least I’ll know it. As for the Anti-virus apps for the mac, the situation is bleak, none of them have anything to watch for and most are only available in a corporate edition. I had the same feeling of "Flying Blind" when I switched to the Mac just over a year ago. I understood the keylogger problem in the Windows very well, and was convinced that it was only a matter of time before the problem manifested itself on the Mac platform.

Digg Swarm: Real-time Visualization

[Digg](http://digg.com) has some cool new "real-time flash visualization tools". Both [Swarm](http://labs.digg.com/swarm/) and [Stack](http://labs.digg.com/stack/) show you what fellow Diggers are doing *in real-time*. Swarm is my favorite as it is easy to see the headline and diggers will "attach" themselves to the stories. If you watch for a while, the stories will start to be linked to one-another. AFAIK, a link is based on and digger who diggs both stories. My good friend made it to the Digg home page for his excellent blog post on [Disk Image Designs](http://softwaretrenches.com/2006/09/dmg_disk_image_is_the.html). It has been a lot of fun to watch people digg it in Swarm.