Category: Cloud Computing

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In Second Factor We Trust

You hear of so many security compromises and hacks these days. There are major security breaches happening, with millions of passwords being stolen and used to steal or damage your stuff. So what can you do about it?

With so much of our lives now being lived in online spaces, losing a password, losing an account, having someone get into your stuff online,  would be a nightmare. What would happen if someone got into your Google account? Your Facebook? Your bank account?

I lost my original Twitter account (betchaboy) last year after a password breach and have never been able to get it back. These security breaches DO happen.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to turn on Two Factor authentication. Sounds complicated? Its not. It basically means that there are two passwords required to get into your account instead of the usual one… there is the normal password that you usually use, plus a second one that changes every 30 seconds or so. Even if the bad guys were to get your password, without the second factor – which only you know because it’s generated on your phone, in your presence, on demand – the first password is useless.

It’s a bit like having a door with two locks on it. You’d need both keys to open the door, not just one. Either key on its own won’t open it.

But wait, what? A second password that changes every 30 seconds? That sounds like a lot of messing around! I know it sounds like a hassle, but it’s actually not. Most Two Factor systems form a trust relationship with the devices and computers you use often so most of the time you don’t need the second factor for the computers you use regularly. It’s just needed when you log into a different computer or phone that you don’t normally use. Just like the one that a hacker might be trying to use to log in as you. Even if they discover your password, unless they have YOUR device they only have half the password.

I’ve been using Two Factor authentication on my main Google account for a while now. I resisted turning it on for ages because it all sounded too hard. I eventually relented and decided to give it a go. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. And it’s something that you, if you haven’t already, should do too. Right now.

I spent some time tonight setting up Two Factor authentication on all my Google accounts (about 5 of them), plus my Facebook, Evernote, WordPress, PayPal, Dropbox, Lastpass and Apple ID.  Here’s a good article on how to do it.

For most of these, the second factor can be generated by an app on your phone called Google Authenticator, available for Android, iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Phone. It uses Google’s open source token generation algorithm, and it spits out a new code every 30 seconds, specific to each account. Just log in to these sites as usual, but have your phone handy to generate the second password. It’s very straightforward and easy to use, and well worth whatever minor inconvenience it might cause (which honestly isn’t much)

If you haven’t set up Two Factor yet, can I strongly encourage you to at least give it a try. You can always turn it off if you hate it, but really, you should be using this! There was a report of a password breach for Dropbox users yesterday and it was such a relief to think that it didn’t really bother me as even if they got my password it didn’t matter. It was useless to them anyway.

Do it. Do it now. Seriously.

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The Cloud

He rolled his eyes and tried not to look distrustful. “I’m not sure about all this ‘cloud computing’ nonsense. It seems to me it’s just a passing fad and a huge security risk.  I’d never trust my important stuff there. I’d only put my files on my own computer. I like to know where they are so I can get to them when I need them.”

His friend responded with a wry grin. “Do you have a bank account?”, he asked.

The cloud sceptic replied, “Yes, of course I do.”

“Well… what do you think that is?   Do you think your pile of money is sitting in your very own little personal vault somewhere with your name on it?”, he smiled.

“No”, he continued, “your money is nothing more than a record in a computer database, a series of 0s and 1s kept on a server somewhere as a series of magnetic codes. You don’t know where your money is kept or what sort of machine it’s kept on, or who maintains it, or how often it’s backed up. You don’t know what operating system it uses or what type of database it is. You just know that when you go to the ATM, money comes out the slot. That’s all that matters. You don’t need to go to the same bank that you deposited at, and you don’t get back the exact same pieces of paper that you put into the account. All you know is that you put your stuff somewhere, and then you can access it from anywhere.”

That’s what the cloud is.

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Taking control of your Calendars: Part 3

Thanks to everyone who came back to me with such positive responses to the last two posts… it’s great to hear that other people were also able to benefit from some of the things I learned about Google Calendars recently.

This final post will just tidy up a few loose ends and give you an idea of some of the extra things I’m doing with my calendars now they are set up the way I wanted them.  It’s working far better than I anticipated, and certainly far better than Apple’s MobileMe service ever worked.  And did I mention that Google Calendars are free? (I’m pretty sure I did!)

Add to TasksWe’ve touched on Gmail, Contacts and Calendars, and looked at how these can be synced to your iPhone and iPad. Naturally, they can also all be synced to your Android phone and tablet if you have one of those. But what about Tasks? In the spirit of GTD, it would really help to be able to have a decent task (ToDo) list that also worked with the rest of my digital (Google) lifestyle.

Gmail does have a Tasks list, although it’s pretty anemic. It appears as a tiny little popup at the base of the Gmail screen and it looks very basic, even nondescript. No wonder people miss it. And it is basic and nondescript too, at least until you start doing something more interesting with it. The goal is to use the Tasks list to become a storing place for emails that you need to act upon in the future.

It’s easy enough to do. When you get an email that requires you to take some action, either in general or by a certain date, just click the More Actions button and choose the Add To Tasks option. (If it’s more of an event than a to-do, you can also choose the Create Event option to add it to your calendar… you decide)

Once you add the email as a Task, you’ll then find it in your task list in the lower right of your screen. Click the small right-pointing arrow to dig into the new task and you’ll find you can set a few other parameters for the task, such as editing its name if necessary, setting a due date and leaving some additional notes.  For this exercise, just set a due date. Once you’ve done this, click the Back To List button to go back to the list view.

Where it gets interesting is when you look at your calendar now you’ll see the Task showing up on your calendar on the due date, complete with a little checkbox to tick once you’ve completed the task.  I really like the workflow here – taking an email and turning it into a task which them appears on my calendar. Yes I know that other systems can do this sort of thing, but I like the simple way that Google makes it happen.  I also need to thank Roland Gesthuizen for showing me this stuff… I never realised you could integrate tasks into your calendar in this way.

Of course, it would be really useful to have these tasks also appear on your phone so you could access them (and tick them off) anywhere and anytime you wanted. There’s no built in app on the iPhone to do this, but there is a third party app called GoTasks that does it very well. Install GoTasks (a free app!) from the App Store and your tasks will appear on your phone in a nicely readable list that syncs directly from your Google account. Nice one!

If you’ve managed to follow along and get all this working for you, here’s one more handy tip. The standard Calendar app on the iPhone is pretty basic, and although it still works ok, it’s limited in its features.  No week view or year view, no custom colour coding on calendars, no landscape mode, etc.  If your iPhone calendar app is leaving you feeling a little unimpressed you should try Week Calendar from the App Store. At AUD$2.49 it’s a bargain and well worth the cost. It’s superior to the standard calendar app in every way and is more like what the standard app should have been. A special hat-tip to Brent Walters from Ontario for putting me onto this app.

So there you have it… some hopefully useful suggestions for helping you migrate your key applications – mail, calendar, contacts, tasks – to the Google cloud and to have them accessible from anywhere. No more getting out of sync, of having important information stored on different computers, of worrying about it whether the dog ate it, or even just getting muddled and confused and losing stuff.

Put it in the cloud! Sync it. Access it from anywhere, on any device. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!