Ok folks, it’s ready. The Passpack blog has now officially moved to http://blog.passpack.com – you may have to update your RSS feed as well.
There are still a few of the most recent comments which need to be migrated over, but from now on, comments on passpack.wordpress.com are closed (I hope) and you may see some momentary wonkiness while I change the theme and CSS to “we’re closed”.
Thanks to…
Thank you for all the tips on migrating the wordpress installation. Adam, I’m still trying to get the redirect from wordpress.com set up… but I’m hopeful. Design-wise, Ali via Friendfeed gave a heads up that the sidebar was too chunky, so we got that slimmed down too now.
And thank to the folks behind the scenes, especially to Donato who kept this project rolling despite the fact that we kept pushing it back, and back, and back… sorry for the ulcer Donato [sheepish smile].
And last but not least: my co-designer, CSS slicer and theme guru Marco Giusti. Good job!
Categories: Announcements
We use this blog for announcements, help articles, some news-ish posts, posts on password basics and even a few things which probably would have been best left unsaid.
In other words… it’s a mess [smile].
So we’ve built a new blog! (sneak peek here).
And I’m cleaning things up during the move. Here’s the idea:
- No more support articles. Those go in the knowledge base.
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- The basics, and intro to password articles go in the library (also new) so that (1) we can modify them at will without stomping on basic blog etiquette and (2) your RSS doesn’t get smothered as we publish more.
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- News-ish post. Basically This Week in Privacy and the occasional comment. Strong personal opinions in the personal blogs only. Mine’s here (I rarely post).
What To Do with the Old Blog?
I LOVE throwing things out. So I’m trying very hard to avoid mass historical revisionism.
The posts on wordpress.com will remain as-is, with commenting closed. But I’m concerned about folks who stumble across old help articles, and get outdated information.
There is, I admit, one temptation I couldn’t resist. I changed every PassPack to Passpack on the new blog (the fact that it remains unchanged on the old blog irks me… but I’m resisting further temptation).
Can You Help Me Out?
First, what do you think of that shiny new blog ? (I’m still working on it, so comments, pinging etc. are closed for the moment)
And can I (pretty please) replace the help articles here wordpress.com with a simple link to the Help Center?
Anything other ideas for building a better blog?
Categories: Behind the Scenes at Passpack
Happy New Year! Back from our holiday vacation and on a roll with triple release for you (gosh I love saying triple release).
1. Sparkly New Help Center
No more fumbling with support articles on the the blog. You’ve now got tons of help options to choose from, depending on what you need.
- Knowledge Base
Help articles galore — search it, or browse by topic. Articles are automatically fed into the Help link inside your Passpack account.
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- Passpack It! Button Issues
Problems using auto-login or training a website? Use this form to give us the link and what’s wrong. We’ll fix the sites as quickly as we can.
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- Bugs & Known Issues
You can use this form to report any errors you might encounter. If it’s a known issue, you’ll see a short description with a status update and possible workaround.
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- Suggestions & Ideas
Sending us feedback just got easier. You can use this form to tell us all your brilliant ideas. Or you can put in your vote for frequent feature requests – this helps us prioritize releases.
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- Contact Support — when all else fails, just ask for help (though with all these other options, Dani may get a little lonely waiting for the support requests to come in).
Tell us what else you’d like to see in the Help Center – we’re all ears.
2. Passpack Desktop Update, Adobe Air 1.5
Some folks ran into a bug using Passpack desktop after the Adobe Air 1.5 update. We’ve got that fixed now, use the Check for update link in your Passpack Desktop, or click below to download now.
While we were at it, we also juiced up Tools > Clean Your Pack. It now also removes duplicate entries and orphaned tags (usually due to using backup/restore for manual synchronization) .
3. Simplified Getting Started
We’re trying to make it easier to get started with Passpack, so we ran a little test. That one test resulted in a lot of changes, some minor, some not. Here’s the list of what we’ve implemented so far:
- Changed User ID & Pass to User ID & Password. (yes, we know it’s a pass phrase, but “password” is a standard that folks recognize).
- The quality rating is optional when choosing the Password, replaced by a minimum number of characters. Same goes for the Packing Key… though we desperately beg folks to use a sentence.
- We’ve built in a set of server-generated RSA keys for each new account. Explorer and slower computers/browsers were simply freezing up with client-side generation. Of course, privacy fanatics like myself can over-ride this with a client-side generation.
- The email confirmation is sent out with a link. Big change in policy here, but the lack of link was apparently a major stumbling block for many.
Bonus Bug Fix
While we were at it, we also squashed a bug which was causing the application to not automatically lock up when inactive. Fixed.
Categories: Announcements · Company & Product News
Lifehacker
Lessons Learned From A Hacked Gmail Account
Just as the title says – a few first hand lessons on what to do if you find out your email has been broken into, how to keep your email safe and tips on net security in general.
The Register
Browsers Fail Password Protection Test
Chapin Information Services ran a series of browser security tests and the results are pretty interesting when it comes to browsers such as Google Chrome and Safari.
Identity Theft Resource Center
ITRC’s Identity Theft Predictions For 2009
Every year the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) shares its thoughts for the upcoming year. The following items are ITRC’s predictions for 2009.
Categories: Passpack Lounge · Trendspotting
Tagged: email security, identity theft
As the end of the year draws near, Passpack is taking stock of it’s 2008 hits and it’s 2008 misses. We’ve gotten past our growing pains and at 2 years old, I’d like to think we’ve had more hits than misses [ego-bump].
A Walk Down Memory Lane
We started 2008 with the announcement of Sharing and we’ll start 2009 with the release of Sharing (hooray!). We started 2008 introducing the help ticketing system and 2009 will start off with some self-service help and automation. That should make things faster!
What Else?
Here are some highlights of everything in between. In 2008 Passpack:
Right now, while the recession raves on, Passpack like every other business world-wide is forced to cut back drastically on costs. So while we may be (alas, I know) running later than expected, we ask for a bit of patience on your part. So sit tight.
What’s in store for 2009?
You guessed it – milestones, challenges and of course more releases. We have a 2009 full of new stuff to roll out, especially during the first few months. We take all our user’s requests into consideration and the majority of them are great ideas but keep in mind that start ups need time to grow.
Passpack Holiday Tip
Start thinking of your New Year’s resolutions ahead of time and while you’re getting your last minute holiday gifts, don’t forget an important one this year…
Give the gift of privacy. Tell your friends about
Passpack : )
Categories: Behind the Scenes at Passpack
The 73% of Americans who use the web may be interested in reading just what tech-savvy President-elect Obama has planned for the future of the cloud and how it pertains to an all time Passpack favorite – privacy on the web.
Safeguarding Internet user’s right to privacy in Web 2.0 is not
always top of the agenda – after all the “social web” is somewhat
public ground, isn’t it?
You know how public information on the web can be if you:
- post pictures to Facebook
- tweet your mood on twitter
- post opinion comments on blogs
But did you know this information could be just as public:
- social security numbers
- access codes
- PIN numbers
- emails/personal messages
- confidential client info
- passwords
All of this personally identifying information lives and circulates on the same web as do your holiday photos and favorite Amazon books.
That’s right, the new Chief Technology Officer that Obama will appoint has got his work cut out for him.
Sharing Privately
It may almost seem like a contradiction of terms but you already have an idea of how it works.
Let’s say you put your photos up on Flickr but don’t want everyone seeing them. You go to your Privacy Settings and decide who can read and see your stuff. Most social networking apps have privacy restrictions.
But there are some things that you want to share with everybody and some things that you want to share with fewer people or maybe just one person and no one else. Not even a server : )
*Remember you can limit your personal info down to networks, friends, individuals and even for your eyes only BUT any info you put on the Net, lives somewhere on a server. So how private can sharing really be?
Well, what if you made it so that anything you don’t want everyone seeing leaves your computer encrypted? So your driver’s license number, your PIN number or your passwords actually leave your browser encrypted, travel encrypted and get to your recipient encrypted so that the only person who will ever be able to read it is the person you are sending it to and no one else. Not even a server : )
Oh, shared host-proof hosting – you may have found your voice in the 44th US Presidency.
Categories: Passpack Lounge · Trendspotting
Tagged: privacy, shared host proof hosting, sharedhostproofhosting
Ars Technica
CDT to Obama: Advent of “the Cloud” Makes Privacy Laws Dated
The Center for Democracy and Technology issued a transition outlining measures president-elect Barack Obama should take to restore privacy safeguards… and to promote open discourse and innovation online.
Computer Finance
The value of Your Stolen Identity: About $120
The going rate for a “complete” identity (including name, address, passport, credit card info, driver’s license number, and even banking passwords): 120 bucks. That’s right – even passwords!
IT Pro
Councils Divided Over Data Detection
As many as 90 per cent of the UK’s largest city councils cannot guarantee that all sensitive data held on their laptops is encrypted, according to research released today.
And one more thing…
Categories: Passpack Lounge · Trendspotting
Tagged: identity theft, privacy
