albert

Hi there!

I am still alive, in case you wondered.
Haven’t been writing on this blog in ages. No readers is equal to no reason.
But then I got an e-mail from an old friend, who told me he likes this blog. So here I go again.

I haven’t much to write about. Or do I? Well, I’ve been writing version 2.0 in the past three months. Pretty much based on the old version, but some significant changes:

• One profile per user. It’s disturbing to have multiple profiles, and well – who needs it?
• One mission statement, no “active mission” or drafts. Keep It Simple, S***** (no need to call names)
• Visualized what you have planned so far
• Additional text to an event
• Possibility to enable or disable the Recharge Yourself role
• Colorize your roles, and the events you plan will be shown in these colors.

And … last but not least at all:
A complete new design! Thanks to Mr. Christian Rouault and his team – the old design, which was based on the original Excel sheet I once found, has been ditched. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Rouault.

The website is still in beta, so the official launch isn’t around the corner yet. But take a look at https://kairosplanner.com

Have a nice and effective week,

Albert van Harten
Founder and developer at KairosPlanner.com

I know, my last post, about one month ago, was about the fact, I was having a break. Something I obviously wanted to tell. Perhaps I wanted to justify why I haven’t been writing some time. And right after that post, I keep quiet in more than a month. But just to make you stop worrying: the KairosPlanner.com-project is still alive  ‘n kickin’.

I haven’t done much coding lately. But starting a new company isn’t something easy. At least, in my case. There might be other people who can start with ease, and be succesfully at it at the same time. I cannot. So I’ve been working on other things to make KairosPlanner.com a success.

In a few weeks, I’ve been working with an investor document. A kind of a business plan. A plan that start with why – just like Mr. Simon Sinek tells in his book. I start with why, because I have a Whole hearted “why”. Using “why” as a tool will not work. But I really don’t like the fact that many people are stressed and do not achieve their hearts goals, because they simply don’t know how – and I do know! I know that planning isn’t difficult, but good planning is. That is my why. And that is what I started my investor document with.

Investor? Yes, I need money to start KairosPlanner.com. Not very much. Just about $25,000.00-30,000.00. I don’t have the exact numbers in US Dollars, sorry. I am counting in Danish Kroner, since I live in Denmark 🙂 So that is what I have been working on the last few weeks.

I sent copies of my idea to experienced business people I know, to hear their reaction. And to learn ofcourse.

One of my “couinsellors” urged me to make KairosPlanner.com working on mobile devices. And you know: that was a piece of cake. It seems to be working now. So Beta Testers – go check it out!

KairosPlanner.com should now be working on iPad and Android tabs, and Microsoft Surface. And also on iPhone and Android and Windows Phones, But then I’d suggest you to use some glasses,

You might not hear from me in some time. I will continue working on my investor project.

Have a wonderful week!

Albert

Here I am again. I took a break from programming in a week. And from writing in two weeks 😊

But I am back again, and I just fixed a little thing, with a huge impact:

Now you can plan the CURRENT week and the NEXT week. I know, KairosPlanner.com is about planning ONE week at a time. You’re still doing so. But it’s up to you WHEN you plan next week. So that’s why there is “this week” and “next week”. If your week starts on Monday, and you want to plan your week the day before it starts, you can plan “next week”. But you are still able to see your current schedule, or even edit it. Capiche?

Take care and have a fantastic week!

Albert

For the length of a few days, it was not possible to logon to KairosPlanner.com, create an account or reset your password. Why? Well, I told you about my encryption problem. In order to read out all data in the database, decrypted, and encrypt it again, I had to be sure, the database wasn’t being changed while working on it. Everything is working again. I hope. But that is something, the Beta Test Group can decide best, I guess.

Funny thing, actually, that encryption thing. Not only the new encryption method is more secure than the old one, but in the old situation, there was one “password” to encrypt and decrypt. In the new method, there is a unique “password” for each encryption. Sort of. I can’t give details about it, that would be the same as a note on my console of my home alarm, with the location of the passcode.

But why is this funny, and not just “a good thing” or something? Well, I told earlier about reading a book called “Who moved my cheese?”, remember? Well, this is a perfect example of somebody who moved my cheese. I was using mcrypt as encryption method, and I was fine with that. Then I discovered, that mcrypt would not be supported by a newer version of the script language I am programming in (PHP). Although the webserver, KairosPlanner.com is running on, does not have PHP 7.2 yet, I know the day will come it will. And that day, KairosPlanner.com would not work at all. So I could be Mr. Hem, and shouting: “Who moved my cheese? Where is my cheese? I want my cheese back”. I could be Mr. Hah, waiting a long time, and then begin thinking about finding another way while staying on the same spot, and eventually move on to find a better place. But I became a Sniff. I sniffed a bit around, read articles about encryption, and found out that I needed to get out into that labyrinth, and find New Cheese. And when I’ve found it, I would discover that New Cheese is way better than Old Cheese.

Perhaps, the new encryption makes KairosPlanner a few milliseconds slower. That is a very low price to pay for a better security.

Have a nice and effective week!

Albert

Saving your data into the database can be done in plain text. Ofcourse, I take security very high, and do not assume my database will be hacked. But I am also realistic: everything can be hacked, also my database.

My granddad had several shoe shops. Every night before closing, he emptied the cash registers, to put the money on his company’s bank account. He always left the cash registers open. “If a burglar comes into a shop, and does not know I always empty the cash register, he might try to force the cash register to open. That’ll give me more damage to deal with”, he said.

I cannot empty the database before a hacker tries to attack. KairosPlanner.com is online 24 hours a day, and hackers do not call it a day at 17h00. So my approach is just the other way around: if, or when, a hacker gains access to the database behind KairosPlanner.com, I want the data to be as much as unusable for the hacker as even possible. So I don’t save the data in plain text, but I encrypt it.

Passwords are not encrypted, they are hashed. This means, that there is no way to recover the passwords.  How does the system checks if you are using the right passwords? Well, if your password is 12345, and the encryption method is just to add all the numbers, then encrypted your password will be 15 (1+2+3+4+5). So if you try to login with password 12346, the system will return: “wrong password”. OK, this example is very simple, the real method is much more complex 🙂

But there are other things in the database, that needs to be encrypted in a decryptable way. E.g. your e-mail address. Because the system needs to be able to send you an e-mail, while your address has to be gibberish for those, who do not know how I encrypted the address.

And that is where I got aware of a problem (this might be a bit technical): in many years, I used a method called RIJNDAEL to encrypt. RIJNDAEL uses a function called mcrypt. But in the newest version of the program language, PHP, the mcrypt function has been deprecated. So I needed to find another method of decryptable encryption.

Fortunately, I found one. Now I need to decrypt all the data in the database with the old method, and encrypt it with the new method. Well, it keeps me off the street 🙂

Have a wonderful and effective week,

Albert

In Singapore, there is an Insurance company, called Kairos. Kairos is having a website. You can visit it via https://www.kairosplanners.com. Since that domain name is very similar mine (or actually the other way around), I took contact to the company.

Kairos will accept, at least for the time being, the coexistence of KairosPlanner.com. I am very grateful toward Stanley from Kairos. He showed his courage, he demonstrated having an open mind.

Thank you, Stanley!

Have a wonderful and effective week

Albert

I will not pretend, I am having a commercial voice. Or a nice accent. Actually, I have never been in a country where English is the main language. Some years ago, I pretended I spoke British, and not American. But actually, my English is a mish mash of Dunglish (I am from The Netherlands), Danglish (I live in Denmark), British, American and a severe speaking disorder.

But hey, I finally found the courage to make a video and use my own voice. And perhaps my voice isn’t that bad, I just don’t like to hear it myself. I am not one of those people, who like to hear themselves.

So, here is a video about KairosPlanner.com

If it doesn’t play, then visit it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUacla2vCM

This is the a very early infomercial. And actually the first video I created ever (aside of some screen capture videos). When I have enough money, I will have someone to make a better video.

Have a nice and effective week,

Albert

In the last two days, I’ve been adding a statement about KairosPlanner.com not being affiliated with FranklinCovey Inc. I showed the result to the director of Legal Services at FranklinCovey, and she told me, that there would be no need to that statement, based on what she has seen.

I think she meant: just proceed, no rights are violated.
I never assume, and I want to understand her completely, so I asked for her to elaborate her mail to me.

But for now, I think this means that this hurdle has been passed.
Now I will exercise a bit (running about 16 kilometres, or 10 miles, together with my almost two years old daughter in a jogging stroller), and be very delighed!

Have a wonderful and effective week!

Take care, Albert

Yesterday, I received an answer to my e-mail, I sent to Mr. Sean Covey. Mr. Covey forwarded the mail to the director of Legal Services at FranklinCovey.

I asked FranklinCovey if I can use KairosPlanner.com without violating their intellectual property. At the time, I wrote the e-mail, I named three out of the seven habits somewhere in the system. I actually already removed the two of them, but the seventh habit was still visible in the column with roles at the calendar. So that one is now renamed as “Recharge yourself”, which covers the most of it.

I only don’t know whether the calendar layout is protected by any copyrights or trademarks. So I am still awaiting a reply on that. If FranklinCovey feels like it is, I will ask if it is ok, when I make a complete new design of the calendar. If that isn’t acceptible for FranklinCovey, then I guess I might have spilled three years of my life 🙂

FranklinCovey also stated, that consumers could think that KairosPlanner.com is affiliated by FranklinCovey. So within a few days, I will implement a text box at the top of the calendar, and at the PDF Schedule, and even so on the front page and all other pages, and in the e-mails, that KairosPlanner.com is NOT affiliated with FranklinCovey in any way.

At a later point, I will ask FranklinCovey whether thay want a salut to Stephen R. Covey on the frontpage, or not.

But at least I am in dialogue with FranklinCovey,

Have a great and effective week!

Albert

Update: The Non-affiliate line has now been added on almost all pages

I was working on the function to add an e-mail address to a user account. When you add another address, you have to prove that it’s you, by clicking on the link in an e-mail, that will be sent when adding the address. Sounds simple. But … the e-mail didn’t show up in the mailbox. I really did not know what I was doing wrong.

Then I found out something: none of the e-mails, KairosPlanner.com is trying to send, are being received … And e-mails, sent from a total different project, weren’t being sent either.

I contacted my Content Provider, and they told me how to trace e-mail attempts. It turned out, that some update on the server changed the way mails should be sent. I changed some parameters, and now e-mail is working again. It took me a whole week, but it is working.

This reminded me of the book “Who moved my cheese?” I didn’t want to stay in the labyrinth waiting for someone to bring me my cheese back. I went sniffing for other possibilities. And I would New Cheese. But hey, I am proactive. I am in charge of myself 🙂

Have a wonderful and effective week!

Albert