Have a Macbook or Macbook Pro and an iPhone? Great. You’re officially the ultimate Apple fanboy. Now that that’s settled, let’s review Balmuda Software’s Numberkey Connect software. Install it on your Mac then shell out $1.99 for the iPhone app and you’re done. You have a nice-looking numeric keypad you can use in conjunction with your laptop. A savior for accounting students, I’m sure.
Maggie Macnab is a woman who cares about presentation. Her new book Decoding Design: Understanding and Using Symbols in Visual Communication is a look into common corporate logos and designs that contain hidden meanings. Even the relevance of basic shapes, numbers and symbols in communication is a strong subject matter throughout the book. For designers looking for symbolism around every corner, this is the book for you.
Readers will find an array of deconstructions of famous logos including Aerosmith’s logo, the yin-yang and even the logo for the retail store Target. Revealing common symbols within everyday design, Macnab portrays deep meaning through an otherwise overlooked logo. It’s available at Amazon.com for only $23.10 - so check it out.
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PayPal can’t seem to get a break. Because it is the main payment method of eBay, there are always tons of people trying to hack into the system and exploit flaws. Now, we understand that there shouldn’t be any flaws in the first place, but people shouldn’t be trying to steal other’s identities either. So here is a step that PayPal is trying to take to increase security: Security Keys. These keys generate unique passwords every 30 seconds or so, and everytime a user signs in to the service, they will have to enter this random key combination in addition to their username and pervious password. Of course, there are some serious problems with this. One being that, like nearly everything that is “random”, there are algorithms involved that can be cracked. Also, as is done today, users can be tricked into entering their information into a phishing site. All these new measures would do is give the scammers only 30 seconds to loging (which is still plenty of time). Will this new security measure work? It’s unlikely. — Nik Gomez
