Switching from Google Authenticator or Authy to 1Password

By TJ Luoma

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If you have been using Google Authenticator or Authy for two-step verification (“2FA” for short), you may have wondered whether you should switch to 1Password, now that it offers the same functionality. You may have wondered how much of a hassle it would be to change from one app to another, and if it would be worth it.

If that describes you, well, then you’re in luck, because I just completed the switch and I’m here to report my results. (Spoiler Alert: it was easier than I expected, and I already like it more than Authy, despite having really liked Authy.) There are a few “tips and tricks” which can makes the transition a little easier.

Apple Announces HBO Now and Lowers Price on AppleTV

By TJ Luoma

The good news is that the rumors about HBO Now [1] were true:

Apple and HBO today announced HBO NOW is premiering next month [April 2015], making an HBO subscription available directly to Apple customers for the first time ever. iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV users can purchase HBO NOW directly in-app as a standalone service to watch every episode of every season of the best of HBO’s original programming, as well as the biggest and latest Hollywood hit movies, groundbreaking documentaries, sports and exclusive comedy specials—for just $14.99 a month.

This is good news, especially for those of you anticipating the upcoming premier of Game of Thrones season five. Hopefully some of this money will go towards solving HBO’s previous problems keeping up with video demand for Game of Thrones. However, there was some very small print at the bottom of the screen (and which isn’t mentioned in the press release): “HBO NOW is only accessible in the US and certain US territories. Some restrictions may apply.”

Assuming that Apple handles this the same way it handles other subscriptions, one big convenience of HBO Now will be the ability to cancel your HBO subscription without having to call your cable/satellite TV provider and sit through a “Retention Specialist” trying to convince you to keep it. So if you only want to keep it while Game of Thrones is on, that will be easier.

In related news, Apple had news about the AppleTV! But if that made you excited because you hoped they were going to update the AppleTV, or at least the user-interface, well, sorry. It’s not getting better, but it is going to be cheaper. It will now sell for $70 instead of $100. Which is a good price, but the AppleTV really looks outdated and clunky compared to the Roku and Amazon Fire TV.

Apple press release about HBO Now

Apple and HBO want you to capitalize it “NOW” but there’s no need to be that shouty. ↩︎

BitTorrent Sync 2.0 →

Linked By TJ Luoma

I used version 1 of BitTorrent Sync for many months, and started using version 2 as soon as it reached beta. Having used BitTorrent Sync regularly, I now find Dropbox to be incredibly slow, especially when syncing large files or even a large number of files. In some ways, BitTorrent Sync version 2 feels like the version they really wanted to make (akin to the iPhone 3GS or the second-generation MacBook Air).

From the official announcement:

We’re now ready to take the beta tag off and deliver a final product. All of the core functionality we introduced in version 1.4 last August still exist in 2.0, letting you securely share folders across all platforms, with visibility into who has access. A bunch of new functionality has been added, from enhanced user interfaces across desktop and mobile platforms to a new certificates-based security model with even greater control and ease-of-use.

Version 1 was good, but version 2 is great. How great? I plan to drop my paid Dropbox account when it expires, not just because BitTorrent Sync is cheaper, but because it’s so much better.

BitTorrent Sync has often attracted critics who complain that it isn’t open source. That’s true, it isn’t. For those who demand such things, other options exist. If you like building things from source, Java, or pre-alpha software, good luck and Godspeed. However, if you prefer to avoid those things, and are more interested in design, features, stability, usability, and an app you can use today (instead of something that seems like it might be good someday), I highly recommend BitTorrent Sync.

All of its new pro features are available for free for 30 days. After that, they will cost $40/year (that’s “per person” not per device). Don’t want to pay? BitTorrent Sync’s free version is still faster option than Dropbox, with no storage limits, and no limits on file sizes or transfer speeds.

Get BitTorrent Sync for Mac, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD. (Mobile apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Amazon Kindle Fire should be available later today.)

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Spring Cleaning, or How I Fell in Love with 1Password Vaults

By TJ Luoma

I’ve been using 1Password since January of 2008, which means that I have a lot of passwords and other bits of secure information stored in there.[1] Recently it started to feel like I had too much in there. Search results were cluttered with accounts that I no longer use, don’t use very often, or other information that I might need some day.

At first I went through and attempted to deactivate/delete accounts that I no longer use (i.e. the user forum for some piece of software that I used 3 years ago). Most often I found that the account could not be deleted unless I contacted someone, or the login information was no longer valid. The process was boring, time-consuming and frustrating. I found myself trying to guess if I might need something later. (Do I need to save the password for a friend’s WiFi login if I only see them once or twice a year? Couldn’t I just ask them for it again if I did need it? Do I need to keep a copy of my mother-in-law’s Gmail password in case she forgets it? Yes. Do I need to see it every time I search for “Google” in 1Password? No.) It is hard to know if I might ever need something again, and so I tended to err on the side of caution, meaning that I would keep things, even if I didn’t use them all that often. The end result was that I didn’t get rid of very much, and it still felt like I had more in my 1Password database than I really needed.

Make Keyboard Shortcuts for Two Menu Items with the Same Name

By TJ Luoma

OS X has an easy way to add keyboard shortcuts: in System Preferences.app go to the “Keyboard” preference pane, click on “Shortcuts” and then “App Shortcuts”. You can create a “global” keyboard shortcut (which will work in any application which has a matching menu item), or you can create an app specific shortcut which will only work in one particular application.

That’s great, but what happens if an application has two menu items with the same name? How can you tell which menu item will be used for the keyboard shortcut? Turns out there’s an easy way to do this, but one that I had never heard of, and I’m guessing others might not have known it either. I’m going to use 1Password as an example, but this will work in any OS X app.

How I Control My Mac with Automatic + IFTTT + Dropbox

By TJ Luoma

The other day, Federico asked about why people use web services such as IFTTT. I have a few of these that I use frequently, but the geekiest one is this: controlling my Mac with my car.

More specifically, when I turn my car’s ignition on or off in the parking lot at my office, Automatic triggers an IFTTT recipe, creating a text file in a special Dropbox folder which is monitored by launchd [1] and runs a shell script depending on which file is created.

It sounds more complicated than it is. No, really.

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