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Samsung Note 4–contact sync issue
After updating my Note 4 to Android 5.1.1, I noticed that a few of my contacts weren’t synchronizing correctly from Google. After looking into it further, I realized there were MANY contacts that were missing. No real pattern, but I’ve never seen this before.
I tried to resolve the problem by stopping the sync for Google Contacts, but that didn’t work. I also read several articles (many, many articles) that were inaccurate or incomplete, then I started from scratch and documented my process.
- Removed all the accounts that synchronized contacts (Google, Samsung, Company e-mail, etc).
- Cleared cache for all applications
- Cleared System Cache
Process to clear system cache
- Press Home, Volume Up and Power buttons together.
- Let the Power and Home buttons go off when the Note 4 starts vibrating.
- Now recovery screen will be shown to you. Select Wipe Cache partition using the Volume Down key.
- Confirm the step by pressing the Power button.
- Reboot System Now option needs to be selected and confirm it by pressing the Power button.
Big Changes Ahead
I’m just back from TechEd 2014. I was drinking Microsoft Kool-Aid from the firehose for a week. I can summarize it in one word – “Cloud” (capital “C”). This is an oversimplification, but that was the theme.
I came home totally committed to testing the Microsoft Cloud. My original intent was to consolidate all my cloud services to one. I did a quick analysis, and focused on the ‘top tier’ providers – Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, and Google Drive. Based on my current ‘investment’, it came down to OneDrive and Google Drive and Google won for one reason – it seems that OneDrive has decided that random files need to be deleted. For no obvious reason I find files in the Recycle Bin on multiple computers. Most recently this was the PowerPoint and other docs I downloaded from TechEd.
Right now, I’m paying $1.99/month for 100GB of Google Drive storage. This will tide me over until at least the Fall.
Next project is migrating my web sites (including this blog) to a Virtual Private Server.
Yahoo! Mail security issues.
I’m seeing a lot of issues with Yahoo Mail accounts being compromised, so I’m posting my notes here and will update as I understand the problem better. An example is when you get e-mail from friends with a single, SPAM URL in the message and it’s sent to 10-15 people (in alpha order) from their Yahoo! Contacts.
I suggest that you NOT check the box ‘keep me signed in’ when you log into Yahoo Mail (highlighted in red rectangle on screen shot below). From what I can tell, some web sites with malicious content take advantage of cached Yahoo credentials and send mail with these SPAM links to everyone in your Yahoo contact list.
I also recommend using “two factor authentication” wherever possible. Two factor authentication uses something you know (your password) with something you have (phone number, cell phone). When accessing a web site, you enter your password (something you know), and then are prompted to enter a code sent to your phone (voice), or your cell (text), which are things you possess. This is used when resetting passwords on your bank or credit card web sites.
Another option is to consider moving to Google Mail which appears to be more secure, and I know from testing that Google’s two factor authentication is quite comprehensive and I use an Android app on my cell phone to generate a code.
Yahoo login – do not
Yahoo Two factor authentication reference links
http://lifehacker.com/5938565/heres-everywhere-you-should-enable-two+factor-authentication-right-now
Google Maps GPS integration
A family friend came down to visit, and he got a bit lost. One way to avoid this is to look up an address on Google Maps and save it to your GPS. This also helps you get an idea of what routing options you have for your trip.
Select the address, then click More and select Send
On the Send dialog box, you have the option of sending the address to your GPS.
NOTE – you need to have the GPS connected to your PC and turned on so Google Maps can communicate with the GPS.
Google+
I’m late to the party, but if anyone is interested in Google+, let me know.
OK, it took less than five minutes for someone to ask, but my other condition is that you show you’re not a bot, and your connection come from a valid IP address.
Yes, I’m being a pain, but apparently that’s what it takes these days…
I’ll review tomorrow and process.
UPDATE: Google “advanced sign-in security”
When you bump into people at a funeral discussing e-mail security problems, you know it’s a mainstream issue. A woman we were chatting with just spent the better part of two weeks restoring access to her MSN account after she received a variation of the “Mugged in London” scam. The result was someone hijacked her account and she had to work through MSN to restore access.
Just like Facebook’s support for SSL, using two factor security for Google is something everyone needs to implement.
The process is detailed on The Official Google Blog – Advanced sign-in security for your Google account.
The process is called 2-step verification – this allows you to link your account to your mobile phone, a Mobile application (Google Authenticator on the Android), and printable backup codes that you can keep in your wallet. In addition, you can have application-specific passwords to supposed access on your smartphone.
If you’re running Google Apps on your smartphone, I recommend doing this all at once – it will eliminate password prompts and confusion later.
The process also provides a summary of Connected Sites, Apps, and Services that have access to your Google Account. In my case, this includes paulbegley.com access to Blogger, pulsememe.com (Google Reader), google.com (Google Calendar), and tweetdeck (Google Buzz). I had forgotten about setting up Pulse access to my RSS feeds on Google Reader, but it was a good reminder.
You can revoke or renew access at any time using the 2-step verification process.
UPDATE: Note that once you enable advanced sign-in security, you may need to generate a new password for third party applications. I ran into this with Feeddemon, but it was a simple fix:
- In Google, sign in and go to My Account.
- Click on Using 2-step verification
- Go to Application-specific passwords
- In the section “Generate new application-specific password”, enter the name of the application (Feeddemon for my example), and click “Generate Password”
- A unique password will be generated containing four four character, alpha-numeric characters. Paste this into the password prompt for your application, and you will be authenticated.
Google Mail Android App Update
I have an original Droid, and while downloading updates today, I noticed a GMail application. It didn’t show up as an update, but as a new application. I installed it, and I am very impressed with the new features. Message threads are easier to follow and it uses color highlights to good advantage.
Highly recommended, and I’m still puzzled as to why it wasn’t just an update of the native app.