Adding two-factor authentication to your website

Last week, WordPress.com introduced two-step authentication as an optional feature for WordPress.com blogs. It utilizes the Google Authenticator app for iPhone, Android, or Blackberry smartphones. If you don’t have a smartphone the secondary password can be sent to you in a text message, your phone being the “something you have”. For self-hosted WordPress sites, it was mentioned in the comments that the feature might come to WordPress.org blogs through the Jetpack bundled plugin. However, there are a few solutions already available to self-hosted WordPress sites and Drupal.

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PSA: Windows XP and Office 2003 updates and support ends a year from today

Here’s your public service announcement: Microsoft will be dropping extended support to Windows XP and Office 2003 April 8th, 2014.

April 8th, 2014 will be the last Patch Tuesday for both of those products. After that date, there will be “no new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates.”

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Free Kindle novel The Phoenix Project about IT, DevOps, and business

The Phoenix Project takes a novel approach (pun intended) to help convey lessons on changing IT to enable a business to succeed. From the authors of the often recommended The Visible Ops Handbook: Implementing ITIL in 4 Practical and Auditable Steps, this book tells a story of an organization that is under pressure to quickly adapt and become more effective or else the IT department will be outsourced.

On Amazon.com, The Phoenix Project has been very well reviewed. Even better than finding a good book on the business of IT is finding a good book on the business of IT that is free.

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April Fools 2013 around the web

April Fools is upon us once again. Google has had a pretty good presence at making jokes in previous years but this year it seems visitors are receiving the jokes with a little disdain. I have seen a handful of comment threads today filled with grumbling where people mention that Google has put more work into its April Fools jokes than maintaining or innovating with services like Google Reader. (Fortunately, I’ve moved on to Newsblur.)

Here are some of the April Fools pranks I’ve come across on the web today. Feel free to share any I missed in the comments.

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Symform accepts a different form of currency to purchase cloud backup storage

Yesterday was World Backup Day. Every March 31st has been declared to be World Backup Day and serve as a reminder to everybody to backup their data. The website behind the holiday offers winnable prizes, discount offers, tips on how to backup and more.

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Intel mimics Game of Thrones to tease 4th Gen Intel Core

Using Twitter, Intel teased the 4th generation of the Intel Core processors were coming this Summer. In a way that imitated the NY Times ad for Game of Thrones, the Intel ad tells us to hold on until this Summer. Ivy Bridge is the code name for the current 3rd generation CPU microarchitecture and it will be succeeded by code name Haswell.

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An inside look at an Intel Solid State Drive

Solid State Drives are one of the best upgrades to happen to PCs for a while. If you disagree, upgrade somebody’s computer to use an SSD and then after two weeks try to take it back. There is no going back for the lower electricity usage, durability, and snappier response. Particularly when it comes to laptops which might get bumped around, could previously have a 5400 RPM drive, and would benefit from less draw on the battery, solid state drives are the new must have components.

Intel published a video yesterday that gives a CGI teardown of an Intel 520 series SSD. Check it out after the jump.

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McAfee Phinds Phishers are Pheasting [infographic]

According to McAfee Labs, Spam is losing its appeal to cybercriminals. Cybercriminals made over $680 million in the first half of 2012 through phishing schemes. As a result, phishing sites increased by 70% between January and September 2012.

McAfee created an infographic detailing some of this information and providing some suggestions on how to avoid being a victim to phishing and possibly identity theft.

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