Protecting Notes in iOS 9.3 with Touch ID

For years, I've been storing sensitive information in the Notes app on my iPhone. At today's Apple Keynote, it was announced that individual notes can now be protected (locked) with either a password or Touch ID. It's fairly simple to use, but not intuitively obvious to set up since it requires a few steps which I've outlined, below.

0. Update your iPhone to iOS 9.3.

1. Settings → Notes → Password → Enable Touch ID and enter a password to protect your notes.

2. To password (or Touch ID) protect a note, you'll need to click on the Share icon when the note is open 

You must manually lock or unlock a note. It seems, though, that unlocking a single note will unlock all of the notes (or at least it appears that unlocking a single note unlocks all the notes that were locked with the same password). I'll post updates, here, if I discover anything new.

43 Years Ago, Today

Me

On Saturday, March 17, 1973 my family moved from 179 8th Street, in Brooklyn, to Huntington, Long Island. My dad had friends from work help us load the moving truck. One of my dad's friends, who was on the street, loading the truck, was very special. He used to fly up to the North Pole, every December, to help Santa Claus make his toys. He told me I could go with him if my dad said it was OK.

I ran upstairs, to the fourth floor, where my dad was packing and asked, "Dad, can I go with him to the North Pole?"

"Joe, he's kidding. He doesn't really go to the North Pole," said my dad with a laugh.

I ran back downstairs to the moving truck. "My dad says you're joking."

"No, I really help Santa. Sometimes I help him feed his reindeer, too," said the guy.

This was too much. Help Santa make toys and feed the reindeer!?!

Dad

As I ran back and forth between the guy and my dad the story kept growing. Help Santa figure out who's naughty or nice. Review the "Dear Santa" letters, go for rides on Santa's sleigh, and so on. Eventually, I finally gave up. But I was so excited on that day, 43 years ago. I have yet to make the trip to the North Pole to help Santa. One day. In the mean time, I try to not take myself too seriously.

Kopi luwak: World's Most Exotic Coffee

The world's most exotic coffee, Kopi Luwak aka civet.

Two years ago, today, I took a trip to Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena to try the world's most exotic coffee, called kopi luwak, after seeing it on TV. It turned out that Jones' doesn't actually sell it. Since then, I've been keeping my eye out for an opportunity to try it. A few days ago, I bought some kopi luwak coffee beans, also known as civet coffee. I called on a friend, Isaac, who is a coffee aficionado, to prepare it for me. He had never tried it and he didn't have high expectations for it; he felt is was overpriced, much like Kona coffee. Kona coffee is expensive because it's the only coffee grown in the US. Kona workers are paid much higher wages than workers in developing countries, where most coffee comes from. Civet coffee isn't expensive because it's so tastily, rather it's expensive because of the bean preparation process.

I brought the beans over to Isaac's home. He was pleasantly surprised when he opened the bag and saw that the beans were a slightly roasted to a light brown color instead of black. A lighter roasted coffee bean tends to retain more flavor and more caffeine (by volume). Isaac weighed out 35 grams of beans, ground them up, placed them in a paper filter in a ceramic V60 coffee dripper, and poured hot water through the ground beans, while agitating them, as the coffee drained into his Chemex coffee maker.

Tools of the trade, including a "Breaking Bad" vacuum siphon.

We sampled the civet coffee without adding any cream or sweater. The only thing we did, to enhance the flavor, was lick a little butter before sipping the coffee. Isaac said that the fat in butter helps brings out a coffee's flavor in the same way that strawberries bring out the flavor in champagne. That's the reason why coffee goes so well with donuts.

I thought the coffee was tasty. Isaac's final verdict was, "The quality of coffee we tasted is good, professional grade. But you can get the same quality for 1/10th of the price."

If you've reached this point without understanding what makes kopi luwak so exotic, then you probably shouldn't ask. But, if you really must know.

Ingenious Money Laundering

      Skyler: Are you telling me you make $7,125,000 a year?

      Walter: Seven and a half even, before expenses.

Last night, I rewatched the Problem Dog episode of Breaking Bad where Skyler and Walter White discover the challenges of laundering $274,000, every two weeks, through their newly purchased carwash.

About ten years ago, I put together an anti-money laundering (AML) compliance guide for a text message payments startup that I was raising funding for. As I read through AML case studies, published by the Treasury Department's Office of Comptroller of the Currency, one stuck out in my mind. A cartel would smuggle cocaine from Columbia into the United States. The trick was getting the money back to Columbia. The cartel's solution was brilliant. They bought gold, with the proceeds from the cocaine, and cast the gold into simple hardware tools like hammers and wrenches. Then, the money launderers finished the gold with silver colored paint to look like normal tools and shipped the wares back to Columbia. After all, who's going to question the export of everyday hardware tools?

Update: After reviewing my previous blog post, from earlier today, it dawned on me that Amazon Fulfillment Services might be a great way to launder money. Seriously... who's paying almost $20,000 for bar soap?

Amazon Prime Lessons

$20K for soap?

Last month, I signed up for Amazon Prime. Yes, I am very late to the show. I had the expectation that I could order most anything and it should ship, for free, and I'd receive it within two days. It turns out it's not that simple.

For starters, I did a quick search for Dial soap and added it to my cart. That's when I discovered, if I'm not careful, that I could end up paying almost $20,000 for simple bar soap. I also had to look, carefully, to distinguish between Amazon Prime, Amazon Prime Pantry, and Add-on Items.

Fulfillment by Amazon

Two weeks ago, a friend attended a seminar explaining how savvy entrepreneurs buy close out deals from places other than Amazon and then have their items shipped to Amazon for storage and fulfillment. At a glance, these items may look like they're being sold by Amazon, but they're actually only stored and shipped by Amazon. A third party is the actual seller. This can be a great service for an entrepreneur who has products manufactured in China and shipped to the US. Rather than the entrepreneur storing their inventory in their own garage, or leasing a warehouse, they can have the products shipped from China to Amazon for storage and fulfillment. The gotcha, for the customer, is when an entrepreneur sells an item on Amazon that Amazon already sells at a cheaper price. As the Syms Corporation used to advertise, which applies doubly so to Amazon, "An educated consumer is our best customer."

Prime Pantry and Add-on

Add-on items are another customer gotcha. Today, I placed an order for a few staple items that will be fulfilled tomorrow. A couple hours later I remembered that I needed to order one more thing (paper towels). I found some paper towels to order, but it was an Amazon Prime Pantry item which required an additional $5.99 in shipping, even if it's an Amazon Prime exclusive. So I passed on that. Next, I found some more paper towels, that were part of Amazon Prime, and not Prime Pantry. But, when I went to order it, I discovered it was an Add-on item meaning that it couldn't be shipped as a single item. I was hoping to find a way to add it to my pending order that was shipping tomorrow. But alas, I didn't find a way. In the past, I've cancelled a pending order, re-added the items I had just ordered and then included the Add-on item. Today, I decided to pass. Perhaps I'll remember to order it next time. I love that Amazon has enlisted the USPS to make delivers on Sundays but I wish there was a simpler way to modify my orders. Perhaps there is, but I don't know about it, yet???

The Nascent World of 3D Printing

San Diego Central Library Maker Space

Over the past few months I have spent a fair amount of time prototyping with a 3D printers. At the consumer level, this is still an emerging technology. One maker I consulted with aptly described it as nascent.

One of my earliest maker memories is working with clay, in elementary school, to make an ashtray. No one in my house smoked, but it was a simple enough project with utility. Fittingly, my first 3D print was related to smoking in the 21st century: vaping (think: e-cigarette vaporizer pens). These pens hold a liquid or oil which works best when stored upright, otherwise the liquid moves away from wick at the bottom of the cartridge.

Using Tinkercad, I designed a simple stand to store a vaporizer pen upright. I brought my design to the newly expanded maker space at the San Diego Central Library for printing, for free. I had no idea how lucky I got when my project successfully printed on the second attempt. Since then, I've tried about ten times to reprint it, without any luck. I then tried Fablab who referred me 3D Hubs which allows makers to upload projects to be locally printed, for a fee. The maker who printed my project said it failed and told me that I'd need a more advanced printer, so he refunded my money. I then met a guy at a Kickstarter Meetup who owned several 3D printers who offered to print my projects. His attempt to print my project also failed.

So, what does it mean when one print works, out of more than a dozen attempts? Simply that this is new technology and we're pushing its limits.