Two Factor Authentication

The recent public discussions about the FBI and Apple and iPhone security has caused many people to ask themselves more serious questions about privacy.  Who has access to our correspondence and what can they do with that knowledge? Along those lines we also need to consider security.  This post will not be about whether or not I side with Apple or the FBI, or my thoughts on encryption.  Instead I want to talk about something more important: securing your online accounts. And the best way to do that is two factor authentication.

What is two factor authentication? It is a system that requires you to have two pieces of information in order to log into an account. In general, it’s “something you have, and something you know.” For example, when I log into a Google Account I put in my user name and password as usual. However if it is the first time I’m logging into my account from a computer (say at a hotel, or a friend’s house) I then get a text message sent to my phone with a six digit number I need to enter. If someone has my user name and password, they still can’t log into my account unless they also have my cell phone and are able to unlock it as well. 

Something I have: my cell phone

Something I know: my password

This is a strong means of securing a system. I've been using it for several years and it is neither time consuming, nor confusing.  It does however give me much stronger piece of mind about my accounts,.

Many businesses use two factor authentication, especially in the world of national defense. Employees are issues access cards and a PIN. Its not good enough to just know the PIN without also having the card. Some other business use a rotating access number and give you a hardware FOB (often like a key chain), others may send an email to confirm you are who you say you are.

Many common email providers now offer two factor authentication, including GMail, Outlook, and Yahoo! mail. When you consider that your email address is the means you reset passwords for banks and credit card accounts, your email needs to be as secure as possible.

For a more complete and updated list of providers of two factor authentication, please see this website: https://twofactorauth.org/

Robinhood

I wanted to wait a few months before I posted anything about this, just to make sure things went smoothly.  I decided back in August to try and use Robinhood for some stock investing.  Bottom line up front: This is a fun platform for micro investing!

For those who haven't heard anything about it, Robinhood is an investment company that allows you to trade for free, as in no commissions for either buying or selling.  And unlike loyal3, you can trade any stock you want and have access to limit purchases and sales.  This makes it hugely valuable if you are a swing trading, holding shares for a few days and then dumping them because you don't have commissions eating into your profits.

Things I like about Robinhood.  First there are no costs, so if I want to buy one share of a $4 stock, I can do that.  What that means is I can spread my investments, building my own mutual fund, without having to spend serious coin on commisions or pay a management fee.  Secondly, They offer limit trading, meaning you can set a price you are willing to buy or sell at.  This is very handy if you have a price in mind to buy in at but can't monitor the market all the time.

There are a few things though that annoy me.  First is that deposits can take several days and there is no margin trading.  With Tradeking I can generally buy within an hour of submitting a transfer because I have enough money with them, they know I'm good for it (or else they can sell my shares if I'm not). So you can't jump right away unless you have money loaded.  Same thing with using money from sales, you have to wait the three business days for the money to settle.

The other annoying thing is the time delay in prices.  Not a huge deal, but definitely a reason to use limits for trading to make sure the stock hasn't shot up 5% in the last 10 minutes.

Dividends are simply dropped into your account with no notification or fanfare.  You can only see where the money came from on the monthly statements. Also no fractional shares or DRIPs. Which bring me to my last complaint...

Robinhood only operates on an android or iphone interface.  For trading this is no big deal, Its fast and intuitive.  But you can't download your statements on a computer, so you have to download them to your phone and then email or upload them to a google drive or drop box. I have minor security concerns about this, but the annoyance factor is the real issue here.

All that said, I will keep using it.  I've been buying small lots of interesting companies.  When you can buy one $7 share of something you find yourself watching it more, and if it goes to $10 I can sell it, pocket three bucks and price myself on that huge upside trade I made.  sounds dumb, but its the penny slots of investing.

Update 4/2/17: still using Robinhood, still free, no problems at all.

Garden Plan 2015

It's that time of year again to start planning the garden. I'll be writing some more in depth articles on specific plants and my experiences, but now is the time to start your seeds, so here's what I'm using.

This year I'll be growing similar plants to last year. I've had great luck with most of these plants, and a few of them are this years experiments.  Here's my current grow list.

Tomatoes:

• Amish Paste - These provide all of the tomatoes I need for making tomato sauces.  They are medium sized, very meaty, and generally come in near the end of my growing season.
• Mortgage Raisers - These are my slicing tomatoes.  I generally use these for sandwiches, salsa, or just sliced and served with cheese and balsamic vinegar.
• Million to One - Probably my favorite. They are sweet and tiny and you just eat them whole.  unlike some cherry tomatoes that are too big for one bit, these are small, like peanut M&Ms.

Squash:

• Tromboncino Summer Squash (aka Trombone Squash) - These are gigantic!  My first year growing them I got 5 fruits (lost three to blossom rot, something I'm smarter about now) and all of them exceeded three feet.  I let two ripen until they were hard on the outside and roasted them like butter nut squash.  When picked green they are just like a regular zucchini.  Well a zucchini that can feed a family of 8 with leftovers.
• Midnight Lightning Zucchini - My favorite tasting zucchini.  I usually pick these and grill them that day in some Italian dressing marinade.  No one has ever turned down seconds.  Very big and rather hardy.  I get much bigger yields from these than I ever got some crook necks. [note: these are harder seeds to come by.  I've only found two suppliers and the best one was at High Mowing, which is pricy, but you'll get your money';s worth with these.;
• Spaghetti Squash - These are cool, although I struggled last year and didn't take advantage of what I grew as much.  If you roast these round yellow squash, you can use a fork and pull out the insides and its just like pasta. You can use it in place of spaghetti in every standard recipe you use, but with more nutrients and less empty calories.  In the stores these are priced as in they're gold, but they aren't that hard to grow.

 Peppers:

• California Wonder Sweet Pepper - a good sized sweet pepper.Small plant still gave me about 6 to 8 peppers a plant.
• King Crimson Bell Pepper - Smaller but tasty red bell peppers.  (Only available at High Mowing)
• Jalapeno Pepper - You know what these are. If you don't, then you don't make tasty spicy food
  

Misc:

•  Long Pie Pumpkins  - I hate a love / hate relationship with this plant.  The pumpkins are out of this world for making pies. Meaty, sweet, just perfect.  The plant however is never happy with me.  In the garden it choked out other plants, on its own in a whiskey barrel it suffered and gave up the ghost.  I'm sure its a matter of water and drainage management, but so far I'm eating $50 pumpkin pies when I do the math on my labor and materials.  Proceed with caution. (High Mowing Only)
• Ground Cherry - New this year.  a friend has had excellent success and I look forward to trying these.  Prolific, they make these tiny tomato like fruits that are sweet and tart, and wrapped in a dry husk.  Pick them up off the ground, peel off the husk and eat plain or I've been told, much better in jams and pies.
• National Pickling Cucumber - I've had HUGE success with making pickles.  I built a strong tall trellis (I'll give instructions soon in another post) and out of four plants got about 200 cucumbers.  That's return on money if I ever saw it.

I'll be growing the usual herbs and a few other small expermients like Diamond Eggplant and some leeks and onions.  I hope this year to keep more detailed notes and take more pictures to share. Feel free to ask any questions below.