Look out, updated headshots are coming

The headshots I’ve been using (including the one that stays on my blog at talk.bmc.com) were taken by my husband one morning before work. In fact, my son is on my lap in one of the ones that didn’t make it to the “released” state.
Since those were a few years old, I decided it was time to update my headshots. So I asked my photographer friend Beverly Demafiles to come over to the house one late afternoon this fall for some professional shots. And wow, did she deliver the goods! I highly recommend her services if you’re looking for professional portraits or for wedding photography. She’s here in Austin and does spectacular work.

As a blogger, I’ve found it important to ensure that people know there’s a real person behind the writing. By offering updated photos I think I can continue to ensure that you know it’s really me. Plus, with some of these perspective portraits, you can know that I’m pretty short, really. My friends mostly think I’m taller than I am, though. I guess I must “stand tall.”
A few years ago, I accidentally painted our house pink. Pepto pink in fact. I have since vowed to buy quarts or pints of paint and try out colors on the side of the house so the neighbors can vote before any paint is applied in earnest.

So, in the spirit of trying out portraits before plastering them everywhere, which portrait do you like best? Your vote matters so let me know which ones you like best by leaving a comment with the number.

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When you don’t even know the answer to the secret questions

I signed up for a site called Aggreg8 that looks like it wants to be LinkedInfor IT professionals. Apparently it’s a Microsoft site with the tagline “The social network for IT Pros.”

To join the network, I signed up for my Windows Live ID. There is a nifty widget that indicates the strength of your password while you type it. It calls your password Weak if you only have a mixture of letters and numbers. Add in some mixed case and you move to Strong. I enjoyed this little widget immensely because of the immediate feedback.

Also on the same form, I was presented with a drop-down list of potential secret questions that I could answer when I need my password reset. Mother’s birthplace? Not sure if I know that. And do I typically answer City, State? Or City only? Grandfather’s occupation? Well in my case, both my paternal and maternal grandfathers had the same occupation, farmer, which is a likely answer for many people in my generation and the one generation above, perhaps. But with two potential answers I would have to guess at how I answered. At first glance I wasn’t sure which question I knew an answer that I would give every time I was asked. And on further inspection, I realized that I didn’t even know the answers to many of the questions. I also believe that some of these are the types of questions that a social engineer could extract from you pretty easily with casual light conversation.

So, kudos for the password strength checker, but I’m not convinced the questions with secret answers in order to reset your password are going to prove useful over time. I might be more protective of disclosing my grandfather’s career path in the future, too.

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