• Et Tu, Swine Flu?
  Normal Mormon Husband: "... every couple of years we are told – pretty convincingly – that the world as we know it is going to end. Here are a few of the bed-wetting predictions that most of us have already lived through ..."
  (tags: flu epidemic influenza swineflu)
• SimplyFile - File Outlook email messages to the right folder with one click of a mouse.
  SimplyFile is an intelligent filing assistant for Microsoft Outlook. It helps you file email messages in your Outlook folders quickly and efficiently. Due to SimplyFile's advanced folder prediction technology, one click of a button is all it takes to send a message to the right folder
  (tags: outlook productivity)
• Palm Pre Review : Boy Genius Report
  Quite thorough review
  (tags: palm pre mobile mobility sprint)
• 10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter
  there are plenty of ways to share tunes on Twitter ...
  (tags: twitter music)

• FonWallet.com: calculated rebellion against the open Internet
  "We realize this is not the norm for a company to close its public web site, but our strategy was to identify 50 of the leading transaction-based companies and establish relationships with each of them. To date we have accomplished that task and actually have a number of active pilots and projects in the mix as we move towards full production in Q4. "Thus since we have already identified, contacted and established relationships with these 50 select companies we do not believe it serves in our best interest to release any "know-how" or other corporate information to the general public."
  (tags: security openInternet mobile mobility)
• Sun UK CTO to form cloud security forum - ZDNet.co.uk
  "Cloud-computing systems could become as important as the UK critical national infrastructure, and they need to be secured in an appropriate manner, Wayne Horkan told ZDNet UK on Thursday. The Sun executive said he is working on setting up the forum alongside organisations such as the CBI, Microsoft and Accenture; government departments such as Berr, Dius and the Treasury; and the government's chief scientific advisor, Professor John Beddington."
  (tags: cloudcomputing)

• Walt Bristow: Keeping Track of Yourself on the Internet – The Starting Point of Personal Branding
  "Knowing who you are is fundamental to a happy life. Knowing who you appear to be when people look for you on the web can be revealing. Not knowing when inaccurate information about you shows up on the web where anyone (including employers, prospective employers, prospective mates, …) can be a disaster in the making."
  (tags: Identity branding google GoogleAlerts)

• Lost Luggage
  (tags: travel luggage)
• Buzzword Compliant Consulting Services
  (tags: Consulting Buzzwords GeekandPoke)

All of you frequent fliers who have ever dealt with lost luggage, please join me in thanking Anders Berg, the self-proclaimed "Joke Cleaner" at CleanComedyClub.com, for posting a link to this hilarious video:



Technorati Tags: travel, luggage

Gotta love the Geek and Poke commentary on buzzwords and consulting!



Technorati Tags: Consulting, Buzzwords, GeekandPoke

• Gizmodo: The Pitching Machine With a Taste For Blood
  "11-year-old Mitchell Anderson had just finished practicing in the batting cage and was gathering balls in his helmet. Unfortunately for him, there was one ball left still rattling around in the machine."
  (tags: baseball robot machine)
• HOW TO: Create and Share a Twttrlist of Your Favorite Tweets
  "Squidoo, the website where you can create interactive information pages, or lenses, is launching its own solution, Twttrlist, which lets you create a Squidoo lens that compiles tweets based on subject."
  (tags: twitter List)

• Health IT program needs ID management -- Federal Computer Week
  The Obama administration’s drive to implement electronic health records (EHRs) should have strong identity management tools to ensure privacy and security of the records, members of a panel of providers, vendors and policy experts said today.
  (tags: Identity IdentityManagement healthcare)
• Glympse: Share Where You Are When You Want - WSJ.com
  Nick Wingfield: "Lately I've been testing a cellphone location-sharing service that I found simple, useful and non-creepy enough that I can imagine people thirtysomething and older using it. The free service is called Glympse, from a company of the same name that has designed it to share your location with friends and colleagues in small increments of time -- glimpses, as the name implies, of your whereabouts. Glympse just released a test version of the service as an application for the G1, a phone offered by T-mobile that runs Google's Android operating system."
  (tags: GPS iphone android location LocationBasedServices mobile mobility)
• Symplified - Identity Management Blog
  blog: Symplified - Coby Royer
  (tags: blog whodentity)
• Agility Loop: "Musings of the agile on the world of tech and government"
  blog: Kevin Heald
  (tags: whodentity blog)

• Financial Woes: Root Cause
  (tags: FinancialCrisis Credit Debt)
• Project Kenai: Calling Developers of Like Mind and Passion
  (tags: Kenai ProjectKenai OpenSource Identity)

This week, a compelling offer came in the mail from one of the banks whose credit card I pay off each month.  It strikes me that their simple proposition is the root cause of our current national financial crisis.  Our society's seemingly insatiable appetite for immediate gratification built a house of cards that could never endure.


The cruel irony is that our government is trying to solve the problem by applying precisely the same methods that got us into trouble in the first place.

I suppose we old fashioned sort who have practiced a "save now, buy later" philosophy will weather the storm quite nicely.  But our children and grandchildren will unwittingly be left holding the bag - collectively shouldering the immense obligation to "pay it off later."

Technorati Tags: FinancialCrisis, Credit, Debt

It has been interesting recently to monitor the progress of Project Kenai, Sun's "new foundation for its connected developer experience of tomorrow."  The concept is quite simple:

"Freely host your open source projects and code as well as find and collaborate with developers of like mind and passion."

Having gone live back in September of 2008, Kenai now exceeds over 7,000 members and surpassed 500 publicly hosted open source projects.   This juxtaposition of members and projects seems to be growing towards critical mass.

Currently, seven of those 7,000+ members (yours truly included) tagged themselves with "Identity" as an area of interest.  I wonder what innovation in this area awaits us?

Technorati Tags: Kenai, ProjectKenai, OpenSource, Identity

A week ago, I blogged about the Mozilla Labs Weave project enabling automatic website login.  A couple of days ago, thanks to Pat Patterson, I read Dan Mills' blog about the effort and watched his video again.  I thought Dan's pragmatic vision about the role the browser could play in simplifying the authentication process was quite perceptive:

"Part of the guiding force here is that we think that regardless of the inner mechanism (a federated identity, a simple username and password, or something else), in the end the action of logging in is essentially the same. Therefore, as the browser we should try to provide a similar experience, regardless of the method being used. As the user’s agent we should also strive to act on the user’s behalf when possible, and we believe this is one of those cases."

The comments to Dan's post were also thought-provoking.  They ranged from

"This is just super-cool and something that *everyone* has been waiting for unknowingly. I don’t know why it hasn’t already been done!"

to

"I’m sorry guys, but I have to strongly disagree with your entire approach here."

What excites me about what happened here is more than just another cool experiment and demo.  Rather than just talk about it, some enterprising folks tackled a real-life problem, formulated an interesting idea, made a quick prototype, put it out for everyone to see, and invited discussion around this visible strawman.   The next prototypes will get better and better.  Real progress has been made and will continue. This is a bright example of what I like to call "synergistic creativity."

Way to go, guys!

P.S. I used to think I coined the term "synergistic creativity," but found that Dean Patrick R. Dugan of Ohio State University beat me to the punch.  I still like the concept!


Technorati Tags: Identity, Identity Management, Digital Identity, IDIB, Weave, Mozilla, Creativity, Synergy

• Ed Rollins Commentary: Stop throwing dirt on GOP 'grave' - CNN.com
  "My message to the national media and political pundits on their premature obits on the Republican Party: Quit throwing dirt on our graves!"
  (tags: politics republican)

• Seat Belts and Passwords ... and Buggy Whips
  (tags: Identity Management Digital Seatbelt Password)
• POssO on iTunes
  (tags: POssO OpenSSO iTunes)
• Mozilla Labs: Identity in the Browser
  "Something that often goes unsaid in the discussion about online identity is that while most websites right now require usernames and passwords, many people actually use the password manager feature in the browser–effectively turning their browser into a limited identity manager. So one of the things we can and should be looking at is how to improve the existing identity manager to better serve our users’ needs."
  (tags: Identity digitalidentity IdentityManagement IDIB Mozilla)

I am honored that Dave Kearns mentioned my post about buggy whips in his second newsletter addressing why we need to replace the venerable password.  It's nice to be recognized for knowing some arcane information about buggy whips.  And it is true that buggy whips are still around, even if relegated to a small market niche. 

However, the point we should emphasize is that buggy whips didn't fall from grace because people didn't like buggy whips.  They faded away because they became irrelevant.  It was far easier to use the accelerator in a car than to use a buggy whip to coax your horse to go faster.

Interestingly enough, one of the articles Dave referenced made essentially the same point.  Speaking of the three-point seat belt developed by Nils Bholin of Volvo,  William Escenbarger remarked,

"It was so simple that a driver or passenger could buckle up with one hand."

It was ease of use, not a technology-driven obsession with safety,  that led to wide adoption of the seat belt.

I think we face the same thing with passwords.   Intellectually, it is simple to understand why we should get rid of passwords.   However, in practice, widespread adoption will be triggered more by ease of use than perception of safety.  When an easier method for authentication emerges, people will adopt it - not because it is safer, but because it is easier.  If that easier method is also more secure, voila!  We will have achieved our desired result.

But until ease of use makes passwords irrelevant, people will continue to use buggy whips or drive without seat belts.  How's that for mixing metaphors?

By the way, I'm the kind of guy who always buckles up but resents the government telling me I have to.  Will it be the same with passwords?


Technorati Tags: Identity, Identity Management, Digital Identity, Seatbelt, Password