Google offers two-factor authentication

I just found out that Google offers two-factor authentication. Very interesting. I found out about this from an email from the student information security group at Iowa State University.
Two-Factor Security at Google

Here is another interesting Google blog. They have added a security check involving the IP address of where the Google user is logging in. If it is different from the IP address provided in the original Google privacy policy information, may provide a warning message. Especially if the country of login changes quickly within a short time frame.
Detecting suspious activity on Google accounts

SQL Appreciation Week

I have always liked working with SQL. I had originally planned on taking an advanced SQL course in June at Des Moines Area Community College. But after I collected the information from the community college, I decided that I would be better off to self-study (which is the way that I learn best anyway).

I have decided to call this week “SQL Appreciation Week” and see how far I get with my self-study efforts. I downloaded and set up the new version of MySQL (the Community Edition, Version 5.5.12). So far, so good. I don’t really see anything noticeably different from the previous versions that I have worked on. I banged around and created, edited, and then deleted several test databases. I have started going thru the samples that go with my “Head First SQL” book. I used to have several other SQL books, but apparently I uncluttered them? How is it possible to misplace technical books? I don’t know!? But I think the examples in the “Head First” book are quite good. No problems so far.

When I code I am at peace.

As a personality type, I am INTJ without a doubt. I find that things that are logical are calming. Comforting. Peaceful. What could be more logical than sitting down to code and to make things work?

The INTJ components are:

I – Introversion preferred to extraversion: INTJs tend to be quiet and reserved. They generally prefer interacting with a few close friends rather than a wide circle of acquaintances, and they expend energy in social situations (whereas extraverts gain energy).

Oh boy, is that ever true!

N – Intuition preferred to sensing: INTJs tend to be more abstract than concrete. They focus their attention on the big picture rather than the details and on future possibilities rather than immediate realities.

I am definitely the big picture type of person. However, I do have a few logical flaws here, and it involves some personal issues that i might be able to blog about at a later date.

T – Thinking preferred to feeling: INTJs tend to value objective criteria above personal preference. When making decisions they generally give more weight to logic than to social considerations.

And of course, this is true also. I want things to be fair. But our world is not fair, and there are plenty of people in this world who think things should be “nice” (as opposed to “fair”).

J – Judgment preferred to perception: INTJs tend to plan their activities and make decisions early. They derive a sense of control through predictability, which to perceptive types may seem limiting.

And this describes me again. I judge things as useful or not useful all the time. Not useful things are immediately discarded.

Renewed ISACA membership, new ISSA membership

I paid the $165.00 for the renewal of my membership in the Iowa Chapter of
ISACA, and paid the $95.00 for my membership in the Iowa Chapter of ISSA. As a benefit of membership, they offer reduced rate training on one or more times per year. However, attending their monthly meetings I have found difficult, because lunch time meetings are hard to attend. I wish they had evening meetings, as is the custom for most of technology user groups.

Mistakes Were Made (but not by me).

My blog here is supposed to be about technical and business issues, and occasionally about personal development. I am a student of this particular topic, and I think it is at the very core of any true understanding of personal development. I am a big fan of the book

Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. The book discusses the endless number of logical flaws (i.e. cognitive dissonance) that permeate our daily thoughts. And I certainly have recognized many of the forms of cognitive dissonance within myself. The book opens with a quote

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. – George Orwell, 1946.

When there is a disconnect between what we inherently know to be true, and reality, we have to find a rationalization to cope with the situation. These rationalizations can pretty much go on forever. Here is a brief list of the types of cognitive dissonance:

Expectation Bias: We belive information that agrees with out expectations. Information contrary to our expectations is discarded.

Semmelweiss Reflex: We reject new information that contradicts our beliefs.

Illusion of Asymmetric Insight: We perceive our knowledge of others to be greater than their knowledge of us.

Self-Serving Bias: We attribute our successes to our personal traits and personal characteristics. We attribute our failures to situational factors.

And so on. I find the process of exposing my own logical errors to be quite painful. The BRUTAL TRUTH about things is uncomfortable and emotionally awkward. But of course, it is better to be honest and truthful about things, than to succumb to a false set of assumptions and logical errors, that limit our lives and keep us safe within our comfortable rationalizations. Left unchecked, they can go on for a lifetime.

You can check out the long list of biases and forms of

cognitive dissonance on wiki

more Scala

I spent some more time today looking at Scala and the Scala Documentation. It will be a while before I get a handle on this new language. The version I am experimenting with is Scala 2.8.1.final. Apparently, a few years ago Twitter changed their message que from Ruby to Scala to allow for scalability. Certainly, that means that I need to pay more attention to Scala.

The Scala wiki also had some interesting info. There are dozens of code snippets available to run. Here is an example I was able to use from the provided Scala snippets.

object Main {
  def main(args: Array[String]) {
    try {
      val elems = args map Integer.parseInt
      println("The sum of my arguments is: " + elems.foldRight(0) (_ + _))
    } catch {
      case e: NumberFormatException => 
        println("Usage: scala Main   ... ")
    }
  }
}

I don’t feel ready to play around with the Scala Eclipse plug-in yet. Maybe another day.

Scala!

There is a brand new Scala user group forming here in Central Iowa, so I thought I should get up to speed on Scala.  In addition, I have another reason to get up to speed, and that is my recent work on the new Scala in Action book and also the new Scala in Depth book at Manning Publications.

I was quite pleasantly surprised, as I got Scala up and running without any problems and was able to run some simple examples. 

val it: Iterator[Int] = Iterator.range(1, 100)
while (it.hasNext) {
val x = it.next
println(x * x)
}

According to the various Java industry experts, the future of programming in object oriented languages is in Scala. I am curious to see what the new Scala User Group is about, but the 2:00pm on a Tuesday afternoon won’t work for most developers.  However, I’ll plan to be there regardless of the scheduling issues.