I love the views from the top of Cunswick Fell.

I love getting out for early morning walks. Apart from the exercise, I find being out in the fresh air enjoying the countryside rather mindful.

Last week I headed out for a night under the stars, wild camping, the first time since last summer.

Staying on the Isle of Skye for this weeks photo.

I decided to try something new and post a photo each week.

Having set out with good intentions back in 2020 I am sad that I didn’t really get into frequent blogging as I intended.

So, as I start 2024, I thought it may be a nice challenge to try and post a photo each week. This might achieve at least two objectives: posting to my blog on a regular basis, and remembering to take more photos.

So as they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…

Starling Bank have now improved their 3D Secure approval process.

When we introduced 3D Secure in March 2019, it involved the use of ‘one-time passwords’ sent via SMS as the type of authentication for online purchases. Now, we’re improving this service to make it even more secure. Instead of sending the message by SMS, we’re enabling you to approve payments in your Starling app.

3D Secure requires that some transactions be approved, and is designed to increase the security of your account.

When I set this blog up over a year ago, I had all good intentions of posting more frequently. Alas, for over 12 months I haven’t posted anything more. I really must try harder!

My other websites are all still running on Wordpress, and I would really like to migrate them over to static sites. Why? Primarily due to the huge bloat that exists in Wordpress these days.

Originally I was intending to do this with Jekyll, but before I started I went for a look at StaticGen to compare the static site generator (SSG) options available. Hugo is much faster at building sites (sub 1 second), and gets frequent updates. Hugo is also written in Go, a language that I started to use more towards the end of last year and was keen to spend more time with.

Starling Bank is one of a new breed of mobile ‘challenger’ banks in the UK, with a focus on a new way to manage your money, real-time banking & security.

Yesterday Starling announced that it is Introducing 3D Secure:

Today, we’ll start a phased rollout of 3D Secure, an authentication tool for online purchases, to our customers. We explain how this will help keep customers’ money safe.

3D Secure is a tool for online transactions that requires the account holder to complete an authentication process for some purchases. It forms part of the security of your account.