Digital matters

Category: Google Gossip

  • Problems with Two-factor authentication on a Mac during a recent upgrade

    John raised the problem he’d had with implementing Two-factor authentication on his Mac during a recent upgrade (to High Sierra, I think). Now Two-factor authentication is generally a good thing when you’re talking about access to cloud based services, eg OneDrive, eMail, Google Drive, iCloud – but it seems a bit OTT when you’re talking about an operating system as protection to prevent access to services running on the hardware. But Apple doesn’t make this clear.

    When I was doing my High Sierra and iOS upgrades the other day I was prompted to ask whether I wanted to implement Two-factor authentication, but was also advised that some of my devices wouldn’t support it and I would lose access to services if I chose to implement it. That was enough to warn me off, so I didn’t. John was not scared off – possibly because he didn’t get the warning that I got – and has had to make a trip to the Apple Store to try and get it sorted.

    Two-factor authentication is a “good idea”, don’t get me wrong, but Apple’s implementation is a bit clunky it would appear.

    https://www.macworld.com/article/3130566/security/the-apple-two-step-my-disastrous-attempt-to-use-apple-s-two-factor-authentication.html

  • Protecting a USB stick

    The subject of protecting a USB stick came up – I’d forgotten to provide the solution! As I suggested, in an earlier post, the answer is to create a Folder on the USB stick and protect the folder, not the stick.

    Two articles here I think provide the solution. The first one proposes encrypting the contents and is probably the easiest, you must remember the encryption key though!!

    A number of other alternatives are also provided in the second article …

    http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/password-protect-folder-windows/

    … for me. I’d prefer to put stuff I’m worried about on a USB Disk (not a stick) and use the security software provided by the drive manufacturer, eg Western Digital.

    http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-3114794/password-protect-folder-windows.html

  • Spams and scams

    In the meeting yesterday the quite common topic of spams and scams came up, as did the enquiry “Can I find out whether one of online accounts could have been compromised” – these are the ones that you should consider changing your password, if you haven’t already.

    Martin Lewis’ website – Money Saving Expert provides a comprehensive guide to all things scam, and includes a link to the “Have I been Pwned” website which tells from your email (account) address whether there are any websites you subscribe to which have been hacked. Try it … hopefully you’ll get a null result!! If you don’t, don’t panic. Look at the date of the compromise. It could be that you’ve already changed the Password.

    https://haveibeenpwned.com/

    The second article is from Which? Always a good resource to check, even its “free” pages …

    http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/l/internet-scams?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvabPBRD5ARIsAIwFXBkjRe6ivtypKkT59hf_S5LAGat1qxrZgu8YVaxOVVExq_WFZtDErwQaAnnEEALw_wcB

    Finally, Martin Lewis mentions the use of a Password Manager to remember your passwords and even to generate secure passwords – I don’t use that facility with LastPass – the password manager I use, rather preferring to use the “template” approach I describes a couple of weeks back.

    https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/stop-scams

  • Difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service

    I shared with the Tuesday group some of my difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service which runs at Start-Up. It appears that this is not a problem, but a design feature – no doubt created by Microsoft. You can do this on the Mac, but apparently not on a Windows 10 machine.

    The article below explains how you can get round this difficulty. For myself, I’m just going to have to remember to right-click the Backup and Sync Icon and run the application as Administrator every time I login. Sometimes, the simple solutions are the easiest!!!!

    https://www.coretechnologies.com/products/AlwaysUp/Apps/RunBackupAndSyncWindowsService.html

  • Windows 10 Backup and Restore

    Having fumbled around for a couple of sessions, learning a lot more about Windows 10 Backup and Restore, and Recovery and Reset, facilities in the process, I’ve found this article that I think explains it all quite well.

    In attempting to get Google’s Backup and Sync working on the U3A laptop this morning, I also, eventually decided to do a System Restore to before the Tuesday Group session … it’s just finished, having taken probably an hour for a relatively unchanged system. Be warned and prepared (I checked the web for info on why it was taking so long) … this could take a very long time and would probably be best done overnight!!!

    https://www.howtogeek.com/220986/how-to-use-all-of-windows-10%E2%80%99s-backup-and-recovery-tools/

  • Another Christmas lunchtime chat … re. shared Google accounts

    Another Christmas lunchtime chat … this time with John and Philip.

    We got to talking about missing address books, contacts and calendars … as you do at Christmas with perhaps labels to be printed and menu choices to be remembered.

    I started off by saying that I’d decided to store my menu list in the Notes field in my calendar event – something so obvious, but something I’d never thought of doing before. This led to a mention of losing your paper-based address book – calamity.

    I described my solution to the latter, and explained how I also enhanced the calendar experience to share both with my wife.

    The trick is to setup a separate shared Google account for the two of you. I’ve previously suggested this is a good idea because you can use this address when you’re asked to supply an address by any retailer or utilities’ provider. Doing this means not only is the information shared between the two of you, but potential “junk mail” is all in one place.

    So having your new Google account, you import all the contacts in your personal account into the new one. On your device you then disable (depending upon the device and email service) any contact list other than the new one. You do the same on your partner’s device(s). Any changes in Contacts on one device will change the same on the others. Bingo! You don’t need to worry about losing your paper-based Address Book again, and you should be relatively confident that your Contact list is up-to-date.

    A different strategy for Shared Calendars. This is a really useful feature in Google Calendars. You can create multiple Calendars within an account, and share them with whoever you might want to.

    Finally, all the above is predicated on the decision NOT to use the native calendar and contacts facilities supplied with your device. None of my far too many Apple devices use anything other than Google accounts. I may use the Apple application, but they only reference Google accounts.