I have recently had to sign up to another service on the internet and was prompted as part of the registration to the site to answer a set of security questions.

Having done this for a number of sites, there are always some questions that come up that are the same.

• Where did you first nnnnn?
• What is the name of nnnnn?
• What is your favorite nnnnn?

(Where nnnnn is the phrase added)

People accept these questions and complete them as they complete their registrations. However in todays’ Social Society and growing IoT (Internet of Things), how much of this information is actually online already and available through some searches making the answers easy to guess?

When you stop and think about what you have Tweeted, Facebooked or Linkedin – Probably quite a lot.

A number of these questions are repeated through a number of sites that just use a standard list make the answers given on these questions weak. Ask yourself how many times you’ve answered the pet question and have you put pictures of your pet on facebook. Maybe you haven’t chosen this particular question, but think about other questions you have answered in a similar way.

The one thing I liked about my recent registration to a site was the option to “Create Your Own”. This way I can create questions and answers that only I really know the answer to and may not have inadvertently been placed on some social site in the past.

Any good site that requires security questions should really do away with the easy to research options and go for the more harder “Create Your Own” option.

Stop and think next time you have these questions presented on a registration page. Can you “Create Your Own”?

We are constantly in a state of learning, reading computer screens and documents, however when was the last time you read a book or a chapter of a book? I usually find that I have read so many pages of text these days that sometimes a book is the last thing to pick up and enjoy. This is something I am ensuring that I am doing on a regular basis.

Books tend to come to be online and again you are reading some sort of device or screen as we move from paper to paperless, however the feel of holding a book and reading it is still my preference. Either way taking some time away from those emails and documents is a good thing.

99U.com has recently published a couple of articles that explore reading and taking reading breaks;

• The Power of Taking Reading Breaks
• Marginalia, the Anti-Library, and Other Ways to Master the Lost Art of Reading

One thing that resinated with me was the quote

Keep a stack of interesting books on or near your desk and you’ll always have material on hand to nurture your mind when you need it most.

– Allison Stadd

I don’t have a stack of books at work, but in my study at home I have a few that I reference on an occasional basis. Some of these are work based and some not.

• The Art of System Architecture – Rechtin, Maler
• Software Architecture in Practice – Bass, Clements, Kazman
• The Trusted Advisor – David H Maister
• Oxford book of Proverbs
• Leonardo Da Vinci – Charles Nicholl
• Information is Beautiful – David McCandless

A colleague at work recently posted a comment that shows the power of taking a break and reading from a book;

“I read the chapter of a book over lunch and it felt good and I learnt something”

– Graham Chastney

Lunch time is a great time to have a read, however if you are finding it hard to free your lunch time check out my blog post on “Lunch? No I’ve got a meeting!”

Do you have a stack of books that you refer to? Whats in your list?