Author: Steve Morton

Adding Two-Factor Authentication to a 1Password login

I’ve been using using 1Password since version 2, way back in 2009. As of this writing, the beta of 1Password version 7, and it is a nice update.

Today, while registering for a new web service, 1Password alerted me the web service had Two-Factor Authentication (I will call it 2FA hereafter) and I had not yet enabled the feature. Enabling 2FA is important from a security standpoint. To access your account, a hacker would need your credentials (username and password), plus a temporary code from the 2FA provider.

Back in 2015, AgileBits gave 1Password the ability to act as a 2FA token. However, it had been a while since adding 2FA to a login in 1Password, and I could not recall the process.

Here is an AgileBits blog post that details the process. There’s even a video to make things easier to understand!

Using Two-Factor Authentication with Office 365

Back in the 90’s and 00’s, using encrypted e-mail and 2FA to secure systems were stigmatized as something only hackers and paranoid people used.

Increasingly, encrypted e-mail and Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), also called Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) by Microsoft, has become more common, and more necessary.

I would document the process to enable and use 2FA for Office 365, but there’s a problem: Microsoft is continuously updating O365, so the steps and setting names this month may not be the same when you read these words. Instead, I will link to Microsoft’s documentation (and hope they keep the URL’s the same).

The pages I feel are most useful are Documentation for Administrators to set up the system, and Documentation for End Users on what to expect and how to set their authentication method(s).

In practice, enabling 2FA is pretty straightforward, but the initial user experience can be bumpy. While documentation says Office 2016 does not require an app password, that’s not correct. The morning after I enabled this on my account, upon login I was prompted for credentials when opening both the Office 365 versions of Skype for Business and Outlook.

New Lipsum generator

When working on various issues (especially fax problems), I need a blob of text that isn’t sensitive in any way. Until today, I used Lipsum.com to generate “Lorem Ipsum” text. While I would love to use Brett Terpstra’s lipsum generators, I’m never at a Mac when I need some random text.

This morning, I missed typing the “.com” TLD and ended up with a Google search for “lipsum”. A result that caught my eye was for  Lipsum.pro. This page is graphically spartan, but it was much quicker for me to generate some random text.

Better living through the Internet!  I know it’s a small thing, but it makes me happy.