After falling in love with Google Autheticator I've added some content on multi-factor authentication and the extra security it provides to my personal site.
It sounds intimidating but when you break it down into the the three main types...

• something you have
  
• something you know
  
• something you are
  

... it becomes very approachable.
And the benefits – in the form of increased security and peace of mind - make it worth understanding.
It also helps make the advantages of the new Chip & PIN credit card technology obvious. Chip & PIN was introduced in Canada a few years ago and it's coming to the US soon. It's hard to get excited about something we rely on as much as credit card payments but in this case the benefits are so great that the change (and the headache that comes the first time you have to enter your PIN on a credit card sale and you really can't remember if you even got around to setting it up...) is absolutely worthwhile.

Charles at Delfs Engineering has come up with a way to call a script on FileMaker Server when the Perform Script on Server command is not available.The Perform Script on Server command that was introduced in FMS 13 is very powerful but there is a serious limitation – it can only be called from a client running FileMaker Pro/Advanced 13. Many deployments have upgraded their servers but not their clients so this new command remains out of their reach. And of course there also deployments running FMS 12, in which case Perform Script on Server simply isn't an option.

At least not using native scripting. But you can call a script on the server using CWP and the Insert From URL script step. Charles provides more details and an example on his FileMaker blog.

There are other advantages as well:

• allows for the remote server to be called without an active FMP connection to that server
• connecting in this way does not count as an FMP connection for licensing purposes
• you can, with caution, create multiple threads running on a server

Some things to keep in mind:

• calling the remote script using the InsertFromURL script step will pause until the remote script completes
• calling the remote script from a web viewer allows the foreground application to carry on without waiting for the remote script to complete
• web publishing must be turned on and XML enabled at the server
• any local context (layout, active fields etc.) are not carried through to the remote script – it will run like a brand new client session

Charles Delfs is an outstanding software engineer and FileMaker developer and he has come up with a great technique here.

The American Institute of Floral Designers, more commonly just referred to as AIFD, has worked to advance the art of professional floral design through education, service and leadership since 1965 – almost 50 years.

I'm happy very happy to be able to say that FloristWare is an industry partner of AIFD and has participated in two of their annual symposiums. In fact FloristWare is the only independent technology or POS provider that supports AIFD. It is a pleasure and an honor to support this great organization, their volunteers and their members..

The "almost fifty years" part is very relevant right now because next year, 2015, is the 50th anniversary of AIFD – a significant milestone in their history.

The Annual Symposium – always a great event – will be even bigger and better than usual as they celebrate this special anniversary. In 2015 the symposium takes place in Denver Colorado in early July.

More information on this and most other events in the floral industry can be found in the FloristWare Floral Industry Resource Guide.

Differential Pricing and Price Discrimination have a a great deal in common and are sometimes used interchangeably. There are however some important differences worth noting.

Price discrimination refers to charging different prices for identical (or very similar) products. Differential pricing can include price discrimination, but it can also employ product – different versions of the same product. This product differentiation allows for a greater variety of products and prices.

The Beyond Cost Plus site has some new content that hopes to better explain and illustrate the two terms and the differences between them. In addition to definitions there are also some examples and real world case studies that everyone should be able to relate to.

Pricing hurdles are used to selectively discount as part of a price discrimination strategy. By forcing customers to jump over a figurative hurdle the seller sees that they are indeed focussed on saving money and discounts, while not discounting to those that were not prepared to jump over the hurdle.

Sometimes a hurdle is self-propagating in that it makes itself even more effective. For example a midnight madness sale is a hurdle because most people don't want to shop at that time. The madness creates a secondary hurdle in the form of a diminished experience – in addition to the weird hours you also have to deal with crowds of frenzied shoppers, long lines, etc.

The Beyond Cost Plus site takes a look at the tradition of "Cheap Tuesdays" (discounted admission to the movies on Tuesday nights) as an example.

Hurdles, in the context of pricing, can be an effective part of a price discrimination strategy. New content on the Beyond Cost Plus site looks at how the promotion below uses a product attribute, color, as a hurdle to selectively discount effectively.

This same product is offered in a wide variety of very attractive colors, but the discount is specific to this one particular color. The color (which the ad itself explains is not desirable).is the figurative "hurdle" the customer has to jump over in order to get the discounted price.
The seller would probably sell more units if they discounted all colors, but they would also be "leaving money on the table" by discounting when they hadn't really needed to. They don't want to discount to the person that really wants his favorite color, or the color that matches their favorite apron. They only want to discount to the customer that is willing to take the least desirable color in order to get the deal.
This is why hurdles, when used properly, are so effective. They efficiently  and automatically stream customers according to what they really value. In this case the people that like the prettier colors pay full price, the people that care more about cost pay a discounted price.
The ad also makes very effective use of some of the principles documented by Dr. Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. They use the scarcity principle by referencing limited quantities and product shortages, triggering the fear of loss (a very powerful motivator). They use social proof by referencing the behavior of other customers.... the ad suggests that most customers don't want brown, but love this bargain. And by making the admission that brown is not very popular (at least at full price) they add credibility to their use of the authority principle.

The FCC has fined the Marriott Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center after finding that they deliberately used Wi-Fi jamming tactics that left their own (very expensive) paid Wi-Fi as the only option. The hotel has agreed to pay the $600,000 penalty and stop any signal-blocking activities.

Marriott did not admit to any wrongdoing. Instead they claim they were using a known feature in their FCC approved hardware that allows the user to send de-authentication packets to Wi-Fi Internet access points that have been deemed “rogue”.

Why would they do that? Some feel it was just about making money – the described practice rendered personal hotspots useless, forcing guests to purchase expensive internet access from the hotel. There is no doubt it was – until the fine – generating additional revenue for the hotel.

But hotel rep insists that it wasn't about the money, and that  their intentions were good, that they were trying to protect guests from "rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and identity theft.”

He's right. That argument does hold up. And the same "jamming" practice described in the FCC filing would have protected guests from things like "evil twin" attacks, and that kind of attack can lead to things like identity theft. But the practice was also very efficient at generating additional revenue for the hotel.

The real problem is not the practice but the lack of discretion on the part of Marriott. The filing makes it seem like the same feature could have been used to selectively target specific access points (like those that appeared to be evil twins) without affecting legitimate personal hotspots that belonged to guests.

Targeting everything made a lot of money, enough to call their credibility into question, but the practice did provide a measure of protection.

Marriot WiFi 'Jamming'.... Why It's Not All Bad

Several times this week I was asked about diminishing marginal utility. It comes up a lot when dealing with pricing, usually in the form of "what is that again?"

There is a good definition of diminishing marginal utility, and some great real world examples, on the Beyond Cost Plus website, but it's straightforward once you get past the "utility" part.

What is meant by utility really depends on the product being discussed. The utility of ice cream is pleasure - it tastes good. And that pleasure tends to diminish with each spoonful – each one provides just a little less pleasure than the one before. That is diminishing marginal utility.

Of course it does not apply to everything. Fuel for example – the utility of fuel is the ability to move your car a certain distance. Each gallon of fuel provides the exact same amount of utility, meaning it gets you just as far, as the one that came before it. That is one of the reasons why gas stations don't really offer volume discounts on fuel.

They like the concept though, and they definitely use it inside the station where the largest soda from there fountain might cost just a little bit more than the one half its size. They recognize that the extra soda offers less pleasure than the first few sips, so they are offering it to you at a reduced price. And of course there are higher margins on the soda that allow them to do that.

The Beyond Cost Plus website includes many other definitions and examples of pricing concepts.