Advanced Programming Concepts for Self-taught Beginners

Oscar Wilde famously said, “Nothing worth knowing can be taught.” And while he didn’t mean it in this way, it’s certainly true of programming. Learning to program is something that another person can’t teach you; you have to learn it yourself.

Even in a ‘traditional’ college computer science education, hearing lectures about programming doesn’t really teach you to program. You have to do it yourself; you have to build things to learn. This is why self-taught programmers can absolutely be as great at programming as CS majors.

But one of the advantages that CS…

Airbnb has pushed back releasing its SEC filings to the public again. According to Barron’s, Airbnb’s long-awaited initial public offering isn’t delayed, but they’re not making their S-1 regulatory filings public until next week. This is in large part due to the fallout from the presidential election.

So in anticipation of that release, here are the 3 things I’m most curious about and haven’t seen or heard anyone else answer:

1. Host Protection and Host Guarantee Claims and Payouts

Airbnb provides hosts with 2 different quasi insurance coverages as part of hosting on their platform. Host Protection offers primary liability insurance coverage. That means it pays before any other…

At Achilleion, we’re almost finished with our technical beta and are about to move onto our ‘marketing’ beta (or soft-launch). So I thought I’d share some of the insights I’ve learned over the past 3 months launching and testing software on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and on the web.

1. Plan Your Beta

Start with defining your goals clearly and making sure the whole team is on the same page. It sounds straightforward, but even a small team like ours (6 people) can get their signals crossed. Basic things like when a certain group of users will be added, which platforms to start with…

or How to Protect Your App-Based Financial Accounts

You’ve probably read, heard, or seen all the media coverage over the last few weeks about over 2000 Robinhood accounts being breached. There’s no doubt that Robinhood’s widespread popularity mixed with it’s less than stellar focus on security is not a great combination for users. That being said, I love Robinhood and wouldn’t close my account over a one-time incident like that.

But since that story broke, I’ve seen a ton of articles online talking about how to help secure your Robinhood account. Some are written by non-infosec or technology people and…

Time To Take Ownership of Your Security & Privacy

In 2013 President Obama proclaimed October as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. That’s nice. You probably didn’t even know that. October is almost over, and you likely didn’t even see all the emails, tweets, and posts from organizations trying to make you aware of it. I get it. You’re busy. But I’m here to tell you the one thing you need to hear this month:

Your digital security and privacy are your own responsibility.

That’s right. It’s not Google’s job, it’s not your credit card company’s or bank’s job, it’s not your smartphone manufacturer’s job, and it’s not the Government’s job…