Scott Explains

Two Factor Authentication

I imagine Mat Honan's tale of hacking woe has a lot of geeks struggling to explain two factor authentication to their non-geek inclined friends and family members. The good news is that people routinely use two factor authentication without even realizing it.

Here's a quick way to explain two factor authentication to normal folks (if you're looking for a tutorial on how to setup two factor auth for your Google account read Lex Friedman's article):

Something you know, and something you have. That's what two factor authentication is all about. You're used to logging into a website with a username and password, which both fall into the "something you know" category. To add an additional "factor," or way to prove you are who you say you are, two factor auth requires you have something in particular: a dongle, a smart card, fingerprint, or your phone.

If this sounds familiar to you, it should. You use two factor auth whenever you withdraw money from an ATM. You can't just walk up to an ATM and get money by swiping your card (something you have) or using your PIN (something you know); you have to use both to gain access to your account. The same theory applies to websites that offer two factor authentication for logging in.

Photo of a lonely ATM by ianbart.

How to tell if a Kindle eBook is DRM free

Tor is garnering well earned kudos for being the first major fiction publisher to cast off DRM from their eBooks (well, they'll be doing it in a couple of months). This means that any Tor eBook you buy after July 2012, from any eBook seller, won't be locked down in anyway. The upside: you'll be able to read your eBook on as many different devices as you like. And you'll even be able to covert these DRM free files to different formats so you can read them on a Nook or a Kindle (if you like).

This is great, but did you know that there are already eBooks in the Kindle store that aren't wrapped up with delicious DRM? It is true, and here's how you can tell if a particular eBook on the Kindle store is DRM-free.

When you're on an eBook's item page on Amazon.com scroll down until you get to the Product Detail section:

If the Kindle book you're looking at is unencumbered by DRM the "Simultaneous Device Usage" section will display "Unlimited."

There you go! O'Reilly Media, a tech publisher sells their Kindle books sans-DRM (the book used in this example is HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference, if you want to purchase it.

Chuck - OS X App Launcher

The one thing OS X doesn't lack are app launchers. Spotlight is built in, of course, but there are a wealth of third party options: Alfred, LaunchBar, QuickSilver, and more.

I've been using Alfred for awhile now, and much like the other apps I listed it does far more than merely launch apps. Despite the power under the surface, the only thing I use it for is... launching apps.

Chuck is a new (to me at least) app launcher that only launches apps. No fancy workflows here, no way to open 18 apps at once and edit a file while calculating Brazil's GDP with a single keystroke. Nope, you bring up Chuck's interface with an assignable key combination, type, and launch your app. Plus, Chuck's icon is a mustache. Awesome.

Chuck's interface is pretty simple:

Start typing and you see this:

Hit Enter and your app (in this case Skitch) is launched and Chuck's interface fades away.

If you can't remember what app you'd like just hit ESC and Chuck will list the apps on your Mac (though I can't figure out what order they are presented in):

You can run Chuck as a normal app which shows up in your Dock, or just run it Dockless with just an icon in your Mac's menu bar (a tiny mustache! So cute!):

You can toggle the search panel,  refresh Chuck's App list, or quit Chuck from here. Chuck's Preferences have a few tricks waiting for you:

Assign a Keyboard shortcut (by default nothing is assigned) or decide to run Chuck headless (no icon in the Dock or menu bar which means you would be missing out on all the sweet mustache action) from the basic preferences.

Clicking on Advanced gives lets you assign shortcuts to apps (so when I type in vpn Chuck finds my Cisco VPN app which someone thought would be a great idea to rename "Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client"):

Chuck requires OS X 10.6 or above, is free, and available in the Mac App Store.

Typing accented characters in OS X Lion

Typing accents on the Mac has always been a pain. Sure, you could enable the Character Palette to make it easier, or remember the key combinations of some common accented characters, but aren't computers supposed to make our lives easier?

Yes, they are. And OS X Lion makes typing accented characters much easier. Here's how to do it:

1. Type as you normally would. When you get to the character that requires an accent hold the key down.
2. A menu pops up (seen to the right) with a few options. Hit the number under the accented character you want.

You'll never misspell résumé again (except when you're taking screenshots for a blog post, that is)!

Make Lion more like Snow Leopard with two changes

Hurrah! Lion is now available with all sorts of new, shiny features. There are also a couple of changes that long time OS X users might find irksome: no indication of what apps are running in the Dock, and "natural" scrolling.

Quick! What apps are running in my Dock? You can't tell, can you? Neither can I, but there is a way to bring back those helpful little lights under each running app OS X users have become accustomed to.

App indicator lights

Launch System Preferences by clicking on the System Preferences icon (pictured above).

Click on "Dock" in the Personal row.

And the Dock options reveal themselves.

At the bottom you'll see a checkbox labelled "Show indicator lights for open applications." Make sure it is checked.

Ahh, now we can tell that I have Safari, iTunes, System Preferences, Outlook, Twitterrific, NewsRack, Acorn, MarsEdit, and ScreenSteps.

Scrolling

Scrolling in Lion works in exactly the opposite way you're used to on the Mac, but just like it does on iOS (iPhone, iPad) devices. When you drag two fingers  down on your trackpad (or Magic Mouse) the content on your screen scrolls up, and when you drag up on the trackpad the content scrolls down. The idea is that you're using your finger to actually push the content on your screen like it is a piece of paper.

Can't stand it? Here's how to change it: back in System Preferences select either Mouse or Trackpad (depending on which you have attached to your Mac). I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro, so I'm going to click on Trackpad.

Click on the Scroll & Zoom and uncheck "Scroll direction: natural."

Scrolling is back to the way it should be, gosh darn it!

The Mac OS X Lion Project Book

I wrote a book about the Mac! Exciting, I know.

More details over at my personal blog.

What does this mean? Well, obviously, I hope lots of people buy many, many copies. But it also means that I have lots of free time on my hands. The book is done... and now I can return to blogging here (I know, I know).

Look for new content here starting tomorrow (funny how that works!).

Disable the WordPress Admin Bar

WordPress 3.1 adds a few new features, though the one you'll notice sooner than the others is the Admin Bar (seen above). The bar appears on your blog when you're logged in, and gives you access to adding new pages/posts, reviewing comments, and changing the appearance of your blog with a couple easy clicks.

Brilliant!

But, also annoying, right? Who wants that bar cluttering up their blog (though to be clear it only shows up for logged in users, so anyone coming across your blog won't see the blog).

Good news! You can easily remove the Admin bar, read on to find out how.

You'll notice that your username (that's the name you use to log into your blog) is the first option on the Admin Bar. Click on it, and you'll see a couple of options. The one you're interested in is "Edit My Profile." Click on that.

Your profile options include a section called "Show Admin Bar."

Uncheck both options if you don't want to see the Admin Bar at all. And that's it! Click "Update Profile to save your changes, and the Admin Bar is banished!

Identify Kindle books with real page numbers

Amazon recently announced an update to their Kindle software that adds "real page numbers" to select Kindle eBooks. Before this development, Kindle eBooks relied on locations instead of pages since eBooks don't actually have pages.

Makes sense, if you discount hundreds of years of book usage, so Amazon has mapped thousands of eBooks to physical editions resulting in page numbers for eBooks.

But how do you know if a Kindle book has this real page number information? Simple, check out the product details. If you see "Page Numbers Source ISBN:" lists like so:

That Kindle book has real page numbers (above is the product details of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Simple!

Sadly, this update is only available for the newest generation of Kindle. And since it is "preview software," you'll have to manually install it... IF YOU DARE (which I did, and it works as advertised).

What do you want explained?

I started this blog with the best intentions: helping people with technology. Sadly, I've been wrapped up in revising my WordPress book, and galavanting around with my lovely wife. I've got the passion back, though, and now I want to hear from you.

You'll notice a new addition to this blog's sidebar, the "Scott, explain this" box. Just type in your question and I'll get it! Heck, I might even try and answer it.

For those of you who read Scott Explains via RSS, I'm embedding the form in this post, because I'm cool like that (who knows if it'll show up in your reader though):

Ask away, Internet!

Great tool for finding your next camera: Flickr Camera Finder

I recently ponied up for a new digital camera (I bought a Canon Rebel T2i) and the experience reminded me of an invaluable trick that I use to figure out if I really want to buy a particular model of camera.

The photo sharing site Flickr has a tool called the Camera Finder. Just select the brand of camera you're looking for, and chances are someone has uploaded some pictures to Flickr that were taken using that camera. Here are pictures taken with the T2i and here you can see people's iPhone pictures).

This is a great way to see what the camera you're looking at is capable of. Keep in mind that Flickr shows you the most 'interesting' pictures taken with the camera you've selected first. Be sure to click the menu labelled 'Now Showing' and check out the other types of pictures you can look at. Why bother with this? 'Interesting' is Flickr speak for 'best,' so be sure to check out some of the regular pictures (even a mediocre camera is capable of taking great pictures given the right circumstances).