Step One: Get Thee to the Apple ID Site

You can manage your Apple ID from the My Apple ID site, which is found at https://appleid.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MyAppleId.woa/. Open a new tab in your browser and paste that URL. This is the site you will see.

Click on the “Manage your account” text in blue on this page.

Step Two: Sign In

Now, you will be asked to sign in with your current Apple ID information. If you have forgotten your username or password, you can use the “Forgot your Apple ID?” or “Forgot your password?” links below the fields to get them back. Just be aware that they may email you the information so if you don’t have access to the old box, you may just want to take an educated guess or two.

Step Three: Edit

You will see your email address listed on this page. Across from it will be the word “Edit”. Click on that word.

You will now see a box with your current Apple ID email address inside of it. This box is typeable. Go ahead and put in the new email address that you want in this box. Then click on the blue “Save” button at the bottom of the page.

There you have it, your ID is changed. If this is all you wanted to do, then you can stop here. If a change to a more memorable (or more secure) password is also in order, then let’s move on.

The Password Pane

On the left, you will see a set of menu options. Click on “Password and Security” to bring yourself to the password pane.

From here, we will be able to make changes to the password associated with your Apple ID. Find the blue writing labeled “Change Password” and click on it.

Now, you can go ahead and enter your old password once, and your new password of choice twice. This form will also ask you if you want to change your security question, which you may want to do if the question is out of date or you simply no longer remember the answer you selected. When you’re done, click on the big blue “Save” button at the bottom of the screen.

There you have it, one newly changed Apple ID and password ready for your use.

1. Using strong passwords

This is the first and foremost setting that a user needs to be responsible for. You should be using strong and secure passwords so that no one will be able to use brute force methods to guess your password. So what is a strong or secure password? The password which is:

• Not a dictionary word (regardless of any language)
• Not a variation of a dictionary word
• Not a sequential or repeated word
• Doesn’t include any personal information like name, birthdate, Govt. issued IDs etc.

There are many random password generators but if you want to remember your password then you should follow the way to create passwords recommended by Microsoft itself.

2. Connecting With HTTPS

Using HTTPS instead of HTTP means that you’re using a secure means of communication between the Hotmail servers and your computer. If a hacker intercepts the connection during the communication, the connection will simply break and the hacker will not be able to get any information about the communication. Almost all the modern browsers will display a green bar that shows the owner of the site in the address bar. Make sure that the owner of Hotmail.com when you open it is Microsoft Corporation.

Here’s how it looks like in Internet Explorer:

And here’s the screenshot from Firefox:

To always use HTTPS, just go to the Microsoft manage SSL page and select “Use HTTPS automatically“.

Please note that if you’re using a desktop client with Outlook Hotmail Connector or Windows Mobile, you’ll get some problems with HTTPS. Then you can leave the above settings to “Don’t use HTTPS automatically” and then always open Hotmail using https://www.hotmail.com in order to check your email.

3. Password Reset Information

You must ensure that your password reset information in your Hotmail account is always up to date so in any case if you forget your password, you’ll always be able to reset your password using the recovery information. To reset your password information, you’ll need to go to Windows Live account page.

You should always have a secondary email address that you can attach to your Hotmail account so that your password reset information is sent to your secondary account if you forget the password.

You can also add your mobile number as a recovery option so that the password reset information can be sent to your mobile phone in case of emergency but this option is only available to a few selected countries right now.

You can also add a Trusted PC if you use your account only on one PC. Windows Live Essentials is needed to be installed in order for this feature to work.

And the last and most important is the security question. The security question is like a password. You should always specify a secure security answer in order to have your account secured and away from hackers. Please refer to the “using strong passwords” topic for more information about secure passwords.

4. Using Hotmail On A Public Computer

There are times when you’ll need to check your email on a public computer when your own trusted computer is not available. You should always use HTTPS instead of simple HTTP on public computers. There is another feature “Get a single use code to sign in with” which works great if you are residing in a supported country. You can get a code for one time use on your mobile when you want to sign in to your Hotmail account on a public computer. This will ensure that you don’t have to type your real password and will use an auto generated password which will work only one time.

Keeping all these points in mind when using your Hotmail account will make sure that your account will always remain safe from wrong hands and hackers.

Image credit: CarbonNYC

1. AxCrypt

AxCrypt is extremely easy to use and does not add any burden to your system resources.

The usage is simple. After the installation, simply right click on any file/folder and select “AxCrypt -> Encrypt“.

Enter your passphrase. Make sure that it is strong and no one else but you know it. Optionally, you can also specify a key file (using another file as a key to lock the file) to further enhance the security. If you don’t want to use your own file, you can get it to create a random key-file that you can use for encryption.

Note: Using a key file is a double-edged sword. While it enhances the security, if the key file is modified or lost, you won’t be able to access your password protected file forever.

By default, after you have entered the passphrase, AxCrypt will remember the passphrase throughout your session. This is to allow you to access your encrypted files without having to type the password everytime. Thus, it is important to set a password for your screen saver so no one can access your computer when you leave for a short while. Alternatively, you can also clear the passphrase memory when you need to go away.

Lastly, AxCrypt also comes with a “Shred and Delete” function to allow you to delete your file beyond recovery.

AxCrypt is available as a full installer and portable version. It is best to install the full version if you need the full functionality.

2. TrueCrypt

The next encryption method is using the popular TrueCrypt. There are many encryption options in TrueCrypt, and one of them is create a virtual encrypted disk within a file. To others, this is just a single file and they can’t open it without the password. To you, this virtual encrypted disk is the place where you store all your confidential files and folders.

To make it even more secure, you can make the volume hidden so others can’t see this encrypted file.

For usage of TrueCypt, check out this article.

Unlike AxCrypt, TrueCrypt works to encrypt a whole bunch of files/folders rather than protecting individual file. This is extremely useful if you have plenty of documents that need to be protected.

Conclusion

While there are many other commercial software that can protect your files and folders, for free software, AxCrypt and TrueCrypt are the best, in my opinion. Both of them work differently and serve different needs. For protecting individual file/folder, AxCrypt is a good choice. For mass protection, TrueCrypt is ideal.

Which software do you use to protect your files/folders?

Image credit: Dan4th

For the example, we are going to use a folder with the name “Important Files“. Right click the folder and select “Properties“:

Click “Advanced“:

Select “Encrypts contents to secure data” and select OK:

You can either just apply the attribute to a folder or apply it to all subfolders and files as well. In this case, I will apply the encryption to any children object, as files or subfolders:

That’s it. As you can see, it is very easy to encrypt a file/folder.

Now, most of you will start asking “where is the encryption key and how do I back it up?”

Backing up your encryption certificate

Windows store all the encryption detail in a certificate. This certificate acts like a key to your safe. If you lose your certificate (the key to safe), you won’t be able to access your files anymore. That’s why you need a backup file.

Go to the Start menu. Using the search function, type “manage encryption” (without quotes). Select “Manage file encryption certificates“:

A window appears. It shows information about what you can do with the utility. Press Next:

Select the certificate you want to backup. In this case, there is only one:

Select the location to backup your certificate and enter a password to protect the file. It is very important that you copy this file to other device, and of course that you remember the password:

Now, the program allows you to associate this certificate to previously encrypted files. In this case, as we are creating a backup copy, just press Next:

The utility will show a message with information, just press Close. Done!

For those who are looking to encrypt your USB drive, check out the Bitlocker to Go

Have you ever use Encryption File System before? Do you think is a handy feature or do you prefer something like Bit Locker?

Well, that may be the case for any other account, but when it comes to TweetDeck, you are out of luck. If you are a TweetDeck user (with a registered account) and wanted to change your password, you will discover that there is no “change password” link anywhere in your account dashboard. Nor is it available in the web app or any of the mobile version. Until now, I still cannot figure out why such a useful software doesn’t come with the basic change password functionality.

To change your TweetDeck password, you will have to resort to the desktop version of TweetDeck (and that means you have to install Adobe Air, something that I don’t really prefer to have in my system).

1. Download and install the desktop version of TweetDeck. It works in all platforms, provided you have Adobe Air installed.

2. Launch the app. it will prompt you to login to your TweetDeck account. Under the login field, there is this link “Forgotten your password“. Click on it.

3. Enter your email address and It will then send you the link to reset your password.

4. Click on the link in the email. It will bring you to the page where you can reset the password.

That’s it. A long way to do a simple thing.

To reset login password in Windows 7, we are going to use the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor by Pogostick. This program can also be used to edit your registry from a boot CD. This can be very useful if you are dealing with a faulty driver.

Note: If you are using EFS encrypted files you cannot recover it using this method.

Download The ISO File

Go to Pogostick.net and click the BootDisk button.

Download the latest Bootable CD Image.

Unzip the downloaded file and open the folder. Right click the ISO file and select “Open”.

On the window that pops up, check the box beside “Verify disc after burning” and click “Burn”. Make sure you have a blank CD-R in your disc drive.

Execute The Utility

Restart your computer and boot from the CD. When it starts the following screen appears:

In case you have problems, for example the application don’t continue with the process, you can use one of the options on the screen. It’s very unlikely you need this so just press “Enter”.

The program need some information before it can clear the password. In this first step it will scan your computer for the Windows partition. In a default installation of Windows, it will create 2 partitions, one for boot and another for the whole system. You should see this information in the screen.

The first, the one that CD named as sda1, is used for booting purposes. In this example, you have to select the second one (the entry that contains your Windows system). Just type “2″ (without the quotes) and press Enter.

The program will start to scan for the location of the registry files. It’s very uncommon that the registry is not inside the default folders, so it shouldn’t have any problem locating it. When the process is finished, it will display the path. Press “Enter” to continue.

The program will list the registry content. Press space-bar to go to the end of the list registry. Select “Password Reset” by typing 1 (follow by ENTER).

Now we are going to select “Edit user data and passwords”. Type “1″ (without the quotes) and press Enter:

It will show a list of the users that have been found on the system. In this case I will use the administrator. Of course you can change other users as well.

Select “1″ (without the quotes) to clear the user password:

A message informing about password cleared will appear. Do the following steps to make it permanent:

• Type “!” and press Enter if you don’t want to clear more password accounts.
• Type “q” and press Enter, the program will ask you if there is something to save.
• Type “y” and press Enter. In case you select “n”, it will revert any changes you have made.

The utility then ask if you want to run it again. Select no, and press “Ctrl + Alt+ Supr” to finish the process. Now you can use that user account again. Don’t forget to quit the CD before starting your computer again.

Now, if you are like me, already have a huge database of password stored in your KeePass (or KeePassX), you won’t want to enter individually to LastPass. Similarly, if you are using LastPass and intend to switch to KeePassX (because LastPass don’t support desktop app password), you will be looking for ways to import/export your password database from one to another.

Import KeePassX password to LastPass

Note: I am using KeePassX (the Linux port of KeePass), so this tutorial will be based on KeePassX.

Open your KeePassX and log into your database. Go to “File -> Export to -> KeePassX XML File“. Save the file to your desktop or Home directory.

Open a Firefox browser and make sure you have LastPass installed. Click on the LastPass button and go to “Tools -> Import From -> KeePass -> Import”.

When prompted, select the keepass.xml file that you have just exported. LastPass will scan the XML file and ask you which passwords you want to import.

Select the password(s) you want to import and click “Import”. That’s it. Your KeePassX password is in LastPass now.

Note: I have tested it on Google Chrome and it doesn’t work. It could be due to my browser configuration or issue with the LastPass extension. I didn’t verify it. I got it working fine in Firefox.

Import LastPass password to KeePassX

The method to import LastPass password to KeePassX is not as straighforward because the LastPass export format is not supported by KeePassX. We can however use a conversion script lastpass2keepass to convert the password format.

First, in Firefox browser, click on the LastPass icon and go to “Tools -> Export to -> LastPass CSV file“. Save the file to your Home folder.

Next, download the lastpass2keepass script, extract the files and move the lastpass2keepass.py file to your Home folder. (You must make sure that the LastPass export file and the lastpass2keepass.py file are in the same folder)

Open a terminal and type:

chmod +x lastpass2keepass.py
python lastpass2keepass.py lastpassexport keepass.xml

Remember to replace the lastpassexport to the Lastpass export filename.

If everything goes smoothly, you should have a lastpassexport.export.xml file in the same folder. This will be in KeePassX format. Now open your KeePassX and import this XML file in.

Reference: LastPass forums

These days, most people use a variety of electronic devices every day – computers, smartphones, iPads – you name it. I think the only person left who only uses one computer is my mum.

We all know how difficult it is to keep your information up to date and readily available when we need it. If you’re anything like me, you don’t want to have to remember to update your USB key before you leave the office or email yourself from your work email address to your personal email address… most often you don’t even know what you will need.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have all your files, bookmarks, emails, passwords, contacts and calendar up to date, no matter where you are or which computer or device you are using? Here is the complete guide to synchronizing your digital life. Set it up once and then forget about it, it’s all automatic! It will take a bit of time to get it organised up front, but it will save you so much time from then on.

First of all we need to answer the question: what are the building blocks that make up your digital life?

I have narrowed it down to:

1. Documents
2. Email
3. Contacts and Calendar
4. Internet Bookmarks
5. Passwords

1. Synchronize Documents

You want to create a document on your office computer, save it before you go home, and then edit it on your home computer at 3am in the morning when you have had that brilliant brain wave.

You also want to be able to get that missing document while you are visiting a client – even if you didn’t bring your computer.

How you do it

There are a number of different file synchronization options available. Dropbox is my preferred choice. It has been discussed at length here, so I will keep it short.

You install a small program on your computer. A new folder is created and everything you place in this folder is automatically synchronized with every other device you own. And you can also access your files from an internet browser by logging on to the Dropbox site.

It is dead easy to use! You can even share folders with other people, so there’s no need to keep emailing each other different versions of a document.

Where to get it & price:

Go to www.dropbox.com and sign up.

You get the first 2GB for free. 50 GB is $9.99/month, 100 GB is $19.99/month.

2. Synchronize Email

Email is here to stay (just ask the Google Wave people). It is still the essential means of communication. And that will not change in the near future.

How you do it

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is the key here. IMAP is a techonology which enables you to synchronize your email with a server instead of downloading it to your computer. And this means you can access all your email from other computers and smartphone too. By storing a local copy on your laptop you can also work with your email offline.

There are many ways of doing this. I recommend you make use of Gmail’s excellent service. You can create a free Gmail account and use this as a central synchronization hub. The benefit of using Gmail is that they support a wide range of mobile devices, so you can get your email on your smartphone too. Another benefit is Gmail’s ability to collect and send email from your other email accounts too, whether webmail or another email client.

All modern email clients support IMAP (some better than others).

In short, the steps for setting up synchronization via IMAP are:

1. Create a Gmail account and enable IMAP (in the settings).
2. Configure Gmail to collect and send email from your other email addresses.
3. Setup your email clients (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail etc) to connect to your Gmail account using IMAP.
4. Setup your email clients to send email from your other email addresses too.
5. Setup your mobile devices to talk to your Gmail account.

Where to get it & price:

IMAP is a technology and is supported by most (if not all) email clients. So you can use your favorite email client or even a combination of email clients.

You can get a free Gmail account at www.gmail.com.

If you would like detailed instructions on how to set this up, you’ll find easy to follow, illustrated guides at Easy-Email.net (free for 1 email address, $37 for multiple email addresses).

3. Synchronize Contacts & Calendar

We meet more people than ever before. And we have more ways of communicating with those people than ever before. So we need to keep on top of our contact information.

And as we become busier and busier we need our calendar available at all times too.

How you do it

There are many ways to synchronize your contacts and calendars. Most of these are sufficient for point to point synchronization, so if you only ever use one computer and one phone it is easy to keep both synchronized. However once the number of computers increase, it becomes more difficult to keep everything in sync.

As with email, the best way to avoid headaches is to use Gmail as a central synchronization hub. Gmail can synchronize with most devices.

Where to get it & price

Mobile devices:

• A good starting point for contact sync between Gmail and your phone is here: www.google.com/mobile/sync
• Goosync: www.goosync.com (Free Service, Lite Service £8.99/year, Premium Service £19.95/12 months)

For Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010:

• Companion Link: www.companionlink.com ($39.95)
• Plaxo: www.plaxo.com (45€)
• Soocial: www.soocial.com (Free limited service or $3.99/month or $39/year)
• gSyncit: www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync ($19.99 per computer)

Thunderbird:

• gContactSync: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/8451/ (free)
• Zindus: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/6095/ (free)
• Google Contacts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307/ (free)
• Google Calendar Tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/70768/ (free)
• Lightning: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313/ (free)
• Provider for Google Calendar: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631/ (free)

Apple Mail:

• Built in functionality in latest releases of Apple Mail (free)

If you would like detailed instructions on how to setup synchronization of contacts and calendar between your email client and Gmail, you can get easy to follow, illustrated guides from Easy-Email.net ($10 or $1 in combination with an Advanced Guide). Available for Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, Apple Mail and Thunderbird.

4. Synchronize Internet Bookmarks

How many times have you been searching for that site you know you bookmarked only a couple of days ago? Only to find that you bookmarked it on your other computer!

Great news! Xmarks is still alive and kicking! (It was touch & go for a while)

How you do it:

You simply install xmarks in all your internet browsers, setup an account and forget about it. Easy!

Xmarks can even remember which tabs you had open! (Premium version)

Where to get it & price:

Go to www.xmarks.com.

Free for Internet Browsers, $12 per year for mobile devices/premium version.

5. Manage and Synchronize Passwords

Worried about identity theft? Can’t remember your passwords? Re-using passwords and user names across different web sites?

How you do it:

You create an account with Lastpass. Whenever you sign up for a new site, Lastpass will offer to generate a strong password for you and store it securely so only you can access it. Next time you visit the site, Lastpass will fill in the login information for you. This is much more secure than storing login details in your browser. Not only have you increased your security considerably, but you have also made your life easier!

You simply install Lastpass on all your computers and your user names and passwords will automatically be synchronized everywhere. You can even access them via the internet.

Now you only need to remember one password.

Where to get it & price:

Create an account at www.lastpass.com.

Free for Internet Browsers, $1 per month for mobile devices.

Extra Tip for Small Businesses

We run a small two man band business. We write the Easy-Email guides and run the web site. In the company we use Dropbox, Easy-Email and Lastpass to share everything company related. This means we can work on the same documents, respond to each others email when one is away and have easy access to all our company logins for our 40+ web sites. No problem!

Conclusion

I hope this helps save you hassle and increase your efficiency. As mentioned, we use all of these tools daily in our business and I’d hate to think how much time we would waste if we had to go back to how we used to work before.

So go ahead and get your missing pieces of the puzzle set up – then you can kick back and enjoy the freedom to compute from anywhere.

When you leave the public computer after checking your email, the hacker may gain access to your Windows live account by retrieving the username and password recorded by the keylogger program.

This goes out not only to a Windows live account but is applicable to other email services as well. This is where the concept of single sign on code comes in, which needs a little introduction.

What is a Single Sign on Code and How do I get it?

A single sign on code is nothing but a token which can be used instead of your email account password. A single sign on code can be used to sign in to your email account and is provided by your email service provider.

The single sign on code is destroyed immediately after the first sign in and can be used only once. Thus, if the keylogger program records the sign on code, it will not work the next time it is used to access your account. Unfortunately, Gmail and Yahoo does not yet support signing in via a single sign on code, but Windows live has lately implemented this security feature.

Activate the Single Sign on Code for your Windows Live Account

1. Go to this link and sign in with your Windows live account. You will be taken to the account overview page, which looks like the following:

2. Under the “Password Reset information” section, click the “Add” link placed just next to the Mobile Phone. In the next page, select your country and add your mobile phone number, as shown below:

Note: The single sign on feature is available only in a few countries which include United States, Australia, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom, France, China, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Columbia, Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey.

3. Click the “Add” button and you are done verifying your phone number with Windows Live.

Request a Single Sign On Code While Signing in to Your Windows Live Account

1. To request a single sign on code, go to the Windows Live login page and enter your username in the respective text box. Do not enter the password yet, because this will defeat the entire purpose of using the single sign on code for your Windows live account.

Instead click the link which says “Get a single use code to sign in with”

2. After clicking the above link, the page will refresh as all the previous cookies will be deleted. You will see the following screen and will have to click the “Get One Here” link as shown below:

3. After clicking the “Get one here” link, you will have to enter your Windows live ID and the phone number associated with your account. Also remember to choose the appropriate country, as shown below:

4. Next, hit the “Send text message” button and an SMS message will be sent to your mobile phone immediately. The text message will read like the following:

Windows Live Single-Use code : XXXXXXX. Reply STOP or HELP for help.

Note: If you do not want to use this specific code, you can reply back by texting STOP and the code will be permanently destroyed. You can get a new code anyway!

5. After getting the single use code, type it in the appropriate text box, as shown below:

That’s it, you have successfully signed into your Windows live account without revealing your password. If the computer has a keylogger program installed, it will trace the single use code successfully but the hacker won’t be able to use the same code again. This is because, the single use code is destroyed immediately after you sign out from your Windows Live account and will not work the next time anyone (including you) uses it.

Gmail users would love to read these security tips and we hope other email providers will implement the same feature in near future. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Password-protecting some or all of your iPhone apps is yet another security measure to take. Although, there are downsides to it, try to look at the bright side; no one would be able to use any of your iPhone apps unless they know what your password is. The good thing is, you don’t need to be a technical person to do this. What you need is an app you can use to set a password for other individual apps in your iPhone.

Now, if you are ready to take an extra step to secure your iPhone, follow these steps to individually protect your iPhone applications with a password.

Important Notes:

• Make sure to jailbreak your iPhone first.
• LockDown iPhone app is free.

Installation of Lockdown

Step 1. Launch Cydia from the Springboard and tap on “Sections” tab at the bottom of the screen.

Step 2. Navigate through different sections and select “System“.

Step 3. Now, try to navigate through the system apps and select Lockdown, developed by BigBoss system.

Step 4. Once you opened the package, tap on the “Install” button at the upper-right corner of your screen. Installation will not start unless you “Confirm” your action.

Step 5. Installation may take just a little while to complete. Once it is completed, it would be impossible for you to miss the “Restart Springboard” button at the bottom of the screen. After restarting the Springboard, you will be able to find the icon of Lockdown app. Just tap on it to launch.

As far as installation is concerned, that’s how you do it. You can also do a quick search on Cydia to find the Lockdown package.

Operating Lockdown

Alright, we are done with the installation. Now, let’s try to operate this app and how you can set password to individual apps in your iPhone.

Step 1. Launch Lockdown app from the Springboard. When it is your first time to launch the app, you will be asked to enter your “Safety Word” and “Password“. You just have to enter them and tap on “Continue” button. Make sure you can remember your own safety word and password.

Step 2. Lockdown will, then, present you a list of applications. Now, you just have to select which ones you want to be password-protected and tap on the “Lock” button thereafter. You can do this to all of the applications you want protected.

To avoid confusion, you will be able to know which applications are protected if you can see a padlock icon on the right of the protected apps just like the ones you can see on the screenshot below.

Step 3. Now, let’s try it out! Press the Home button to return to the Springboard. Launch the protected application and you will be asked of the password.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a downside of password-protecting your iPhone apps. One of which is that you have to enter the password every time you use the protected applications. It could be a hassle on your part especially when you are in a hurry. So, I advise you to protect the apps which you don’t want others to open when they are using your iPhone. Also, try to unprotect frequently used apps for your sake.

So far, that’s what this post is all about. Come back for more iPhone tips, tricks and guides. If you want updates delivered into your inbox, subscribe to our feed.

There are so many advantages which come when you jailbreak your iPhone. Some of them include the use of Twidget which enables you to view your tweets on lock screen and the use of Winterboard to let you manage the themes in your iPhone. Additionally, jailbreaking your iPhone will give you total control over your iPhone file system. However, once your iPhone is jailbroken, it will become vulnerable and less secure; you will need to take extra measure to retain its security.

One reason why the hacker was able to get into the iPhones of the victims is because they haven’t changed the default password after they had them jailbroken. Considering the fact that “alpine” is the default password of the root directory, and that the whole world knows about this, you should take some time to change it into your own password which no one knows about–except you.

Perhaps, the reason why people leave their password unchanged after jailbreaking their iPhone is because they do not know how. If you are one of them, then this would be the guide you are looking for…

Change the Root Password of your iPhone

Before anything else, I assume you had your iPhone jailbroken…

1. Open Cydia and install MobileTerminal app; you will need this to launch the Terminal app.

2. Launch the Terminal app. Key in this command:

su

Now, key in the default password:

alpine

By doing this, you will be able to log in as the “root” user. It means that you will be able to access everything inside your iPhone while using this user. Also, always remember that the passwords will not be shown/echoed on screen.

3. Once you have done all of the above, you are ready to proceed to this next step.

Key in this command:

passwd

This command will let you change the password for the “root” user.  After you key it in, you will then be prompted to type and confirm your new password.

And that’s it! I am sure you will find this tutorial easy enough to follow. But anyway, let me remind you that you also need to have a strong password; what’s the use of having a password if anyone can easily crack it, right?

Choose a Strong Password

This one may not be new to you. However, there are still people who do not know how to create a password which is harder to crack. The fact is, majority of the people use their birthdays, surnames or a combination of their first and last names plus their birthdays. Believe me, those passwords can be easily cracked even by a grade-schooler. Here is a quick guide for you to come up with a really good password;

1. Always use a combination of Numbers, Letters and Characters.
2. Capitalize some of the Letters randomly.
3. Have as many characters as possible in your password. A minimum of six characters would be good enough.
4. Never ever use your First Name, Last Name, Birthday or the names of your family and friends. More often, people know more about you than you think they do.
5. If possible, use a string of characters which you can easily type without even looking at the keyboard.
6. Do not use any actual word because crackers have dictionaries which contain millions of possible passwords that they can easily run to crack your password. Never ever use the word “password.”
7. Always find an easy way to remember your passwords. Writing them down is always the worst option you can have.
8. Above all, never ever give your password to anyone.

More often, we treat our iPhones as diaries which hold some of our personal information which we do not want to be exposed to anyone we don’t know. Therefore, making them more secure is the best thing we can do to protect our privacy. I hope this article is helpful enough. If you think I lack some important things in here, please feel free to leave comments or suggestions below. Or, if you want to get updates from this site, enter your email below.

In 2009, we saw the Twitter fail whale way too many times. There were several attacks that crippled Twitter and had many of its users (me included) wondering if they would ever be able to access their accounts again. In its 2010 Threat Predictions report, McAfee has predicted that social networking sites, like Twitter, and third-party applications will be the major victims of cyber threats. Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, released a statement,

“ Over the past decade, we’ve seen a tremendous improvement in the ability to successfully monitor, uncover, and stop cyber crime. We’re now facing emerging threats from the explosive growth of social networking sites, the exploitation of popular applications and more advanced techniques used by cyber criminals.”

Some of Twitter’s third-party applications; for instance, Bit.ly and Tinyurl provide users a way to shorten their URLs, so their tweets can fit in the 140 characters window. McAfee says that these abbreviated URLs can help people and services attempting to do a cybercrime against Twitter. People have become more trusting clicking on URLs shortened by these services, so they will not be as apprehensive to click on them. Here are a few ways you can protect your Twitter account from any security threats:

Password Management

1. Don’t Tell Anyone Your Password – Your password gives instant access to your private information. Therefore, never give anyone your password. Even if people from Twitter contact you claiming they need your username and password, do not give it to them. Only you should know your password.

2. Change Your Password Regularly – People usually get stuck using the same password for months and months, even years It is good practice to change your password every 60-90 days. Mark it on a calendar and send yourself a reminder so you don’t forget.

3. Have a Strong Password – Passwords are usually thought up from something dear to a person’s heart. Therefore, you should have a strong password that will make it hard for anyone to guess. Here is a good guideline for password creation:

• Include numbers, symbols, upper and lowercase letters in passwords
• Password length should be around 12 to 14 characters
• If the system is case sensitive use capital and lower-case letters
• Password should be easy to remember for the user

Backup Your Tweets

There are several services that provide a way for you to backup your tweets. This helps, so that if you do fall victim to a cybercrime, there is a way to recover all of your tweets. Here are three backup services that you can use:

1. TweetBackup
2. BackupMyTweets
3. Backupify

Regularly Check What Services Are Connected to Your Twitter Account

McAfee said in their 2010 Threat Prediction Report that third-party applications will be one of the main reasons for security threats. Therefore, review which applications are connected to your Twitter account. If you haven’t used one in awhile, remove the connection. You can always reconnect it, if needed. Login to Twitter, Settings, go to Connections, and Revoke Access.

Block and Report Spammers

Spam accounts on Twitter usually have repetitive tweets saying the same thing, and trying to sell a product or service. If you get contacted by a spammer, you can block and report them to Twitter. In the sidebar, there is an “Actions” area. You will see a link “Report to Spam.” This will notify the Twitter team about the Twitter account, and let them start investigating it.

Preview Shortened URLs Before Clicking

There are several services that will allow you to preview abbreviated URLs. Freenuts has a list of ten web sites that you can use to expand shortened URLs. There are two Firefox add-ons that will let you preview the contents before actually clicking on it:

• LongURL Mobile Expander
• Long URL Please

If you use, standalone service Tweetdeck, they have a feature that allows you to preview shortened URLs before you click on it.

What are some ways that you are protecting your tweets from attackers?

The administrator account provides you the full right to access your computer. Any guest account is a limited account and you could not access administrator right from this account like changing or removing administrator password, registry editing, group policy editing, etc. So it is not possible to retrieve administrator account password from here. That’s why you have to do it from boot option.

Remove or Change Administrator Account Password by Windows XP CD:

1. Insert a Windows XP disc into CD/DVD drive and reboot your computer.

2. Wait for the message “Press any key to Boot from CD or DVD”. Now press any key.

3. It will start to load the windows files from CD or DVD to your computer and after a short time there will appear  three options. Press enter to select the first option.

4. Now the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen will be appeared. Press F8 to accept the agreement.

5. Again you will be asked whether you want to repair Windows XP or not. Press R to repair. Now your hard disk will be checked and then setup will start to copy the windows files. It can take several minutes. Just after the copying  your computer will reboot automatically. Don’t press any key after rebooting. It will automatically continue the process.

6. Watch at the left side of the screen. When the “Installing Windows” is highlighted, press Shift + F10 to open DOS prompt.

Type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter. It allows you to access your user account.

7. Enter into your administrator account and change or remove admin password within a second. It’s not required to put the previous password. From here you can create a new user account also.

Now after the repair is done, log on into your system with the newly created password. This procedure will work with all the versions of Windows XP.

If your CD/DVD drive does not work properly, you can also create a bootable Windows XP USB drive and do a boot from USB drive. Note that you have to change the startup setting in the BIOS to boot from USB drive. Once the Windows installer boots up, you can then follow the steps 3-7 to remove/change your administrator password.

Using a secondary email address to recover your Google account

Before we go any further, let me remind you that you can reset your Google account password, if you have set up secondary email address. The process is simple enough. When you forget the password of your email account, Google will send a confirmatory link in your secondary email address. Click the link and you are taken to the password recovery page, from where you can reset the password and login to your account.

But, here lies a big question. What if i forget the password of my secondary email account ? You are totally compromised and cannot recover the primary email account.

Hence, using the phone number option is a much better and easy way to recover your Google account as it does not require you to remember any secondary email address or password.

Connect Your Mobile number with your Google account

Following are the steps involved to connect a mobile number with your Google account :

1. Sign in to your account and go to your account settings page.

2. For security reasons,you will be asked to log in again. After logging in, click “Change password recovery options”.

3. Choose your country from the drop down list and add your phone number. This phone number will receive a code to reset your password so choose your phone number carefully.

4. After adding the phone number, click on save to update your account.

That’s it. You have just added your Mobile phone number with your Google account. Now it’s time to test what happens when you can’t access your Google account.

Test your Google account password recovery using SMS message

After you have added the mobile number with your Google account it’s time to test whether you are able to reset your password or not. Following are the steps involved to test your Google account password recovery process:

1. While signing in, write your username and supply a wrong password. After that click the link “Can’t access your account”.

2. Now you will be redirected to the password recovery page. Select “I forgot my password” and then browse to the password assistance page.

3.You will be asked to submit your username. Just type your username and click on submit.

4. Fill the captcha and hit the submit button again.

5. As soon as you hit the submit button, you will get a text message in your mobile phone containing a security code.The message will read

“Your Google account recovery code is XXXXXXX. If you did not request this code you can safely ignore this message”.

To use the code sent to your mobile, browse to the page as shown above.

8. Just submit the code and click on the submit recovery code button.

9. Bingo ! You will be asked to reset your password. Choose a password,enter it twice and you can reset your Google account password.

Have you associated your mobile number with your Google account ?

Image credit: Saül Gordillo

This tutorial is applicable only if your Web host is using phpMyAdmin to manage your database.

Log into your Web host account and go into the phpMyAdmin admin page.

Search for the database that you have configured for the WordPress account.

If you have no idea what is the name of your WordPress database (probably because you used the auto installation script in cPanel) or forgotten the database name, download the wp-config.php file from the WordPress server (using SFTP). You should find your database information there.

On the left side of the phpMyAdmin screen, you should see a list of the table used in WordPress. Scroll down until you see the entry “wp_users“. If you are using a different table prefix other than “wp_“, you should see something like “yourprefix_users”

On the right, click on the Browse button. This will get it to display all the user information. The userpass column is the password field. Note that it is of an unrecognizable format, definitely not the same as the one that you have set for your WordPress. Don’t worry, this is the exact same password that you have set, except that it is encrypted with MD5 Hash.

Now, open a new tab in your browser and head on to MD5 hasher. Enter your password and and click OK to create a md5 hash of that password. Copy the hashed string to your clipboard.

Back to your phpMyAdmin, check the box beside your username and click on the pencil icon to edit the entry.

Replace the password with your newly generated md5hash password.

Click on Go to save the changes.

That’s it. You should be able to log in with the new password now.

Image credit: Tomás Rotger

If you have set your Ubuntu machine to auto-login everytime you start your computer, you will find that as soon as you reach your desktop, the keyring manager will automatically pop up and ask you for the password to unlock itself and retrieve the key to connect to the wireless connection.

The keyring manager is integrated with Gnome such that when you login from the main screen, it will automatically unlock itself as well. However, if you use the auto-login function, Gnome will skip the keyring manager process and log the user in without unlocking the keyring manger.

To get rid of this annoyance, what you can do is to set a blank password for the keyring manager so that it won’t prompt you  for password everytime you login.

Do bear in mind that setting a blank password for your keyring manager will expose all your passwords to anyone that use your computer.

Go to Applications -> Accessories -> Password and Encryption Keys

Go to Edit-> Preferences

Highlight the login – Automatically unlocked when user logs in entry. Press the Change Unlock Password button.

Enter your old password and leave blank for the new password. Click Change.

It will prompt you for security issue. Click Use Unsafe Storage to continue.

Done. Next time when you login, the keyring manager won’t prompt you for password again.

For anyone who is lazy (just like me) or is tired of remembering hundreds of password, they only need to remember one master password to activate the password manager, which is a simple task for everyone. There are plenty of free password managers that provide great encryption and security for anyone to store their passwords.

One of my favorite password manager is KeePass (KeePassX for Linux and Mac version). It has an easy-to-use interface and uses strong 256 bits encryption algorithm (AES and TwoFish). The features of KeePassX include:

• 256 bits AES or TwoFish encryption
• Easy to use interface
• Customizable. It allows you to save many different information e.g. user names, passwords, urls, attachments and comments in one single database.
• Integrated search function allows you to search in a single group or the complete database.
• Secure password generation.
• Cross platform. This is what attracts me most. Since it can be installed in all OS, I am able to port my password database from one PC to another.

Installation

For Windows OS, download the .exe file from http://keepass.info/download.html
For Mac OSX, download the binary package from http://www.keepassx.org/downloads or .dmg file from Softpedia
For Linux, download the .deb or .rpm file from http://www.keepassx.org/downloads. Alternatively, Ubuntu users can install using Synaptic Package Manager.

Installing and using KeePassX on Ubuntu

Open up your synaptic package manager (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager). Navigate to ‘keepassx‘ and check the box beside it. Click Apply. This will install the program and its dependency files (libqt4-core and libqt4-gui).

When installation is done, open the KeePassX (Applications -> Accessories -> KeePassX).

To save your password, you must first create a database. Click on File -> New Database. On the window that appears, set your database password. This will be your master password (and the only password that you need to remember), thus make sure you set a strong and hard to guess password.

The next step is to add a new group. This is to allow you to organize your passwords in various groups for easy navigation and retrieval. Click Edit -> New Group. Enter the title of the group and select an icon.

Now you are ready to add your password. Click Edit -> Add New Entry. On the window that appears, there are various fields that you need to fill in. Beside the password field, there is a ‘Gen‘ button. Press it if you wish to generate a random password.

On the generate random password window, you can select from a series of options to generate a strong password. Since you are not remembering the password, it doesn’t matter if it generates a 20 characters long password that is full of weird characters. What’s more important is its ability to give you a strong protection.

Once finished, click Accept to pass the newly generated password to the password entry form.

Click OK to save your password.

Done.

To add more passwords, click Edit -> New Entry.

Before you exit the program, remember to save the database (File -> Save database), else all the effort will be gone to waste.

The problem with using the same password is that once someone finds out your password, all your accounts become instantly accessible by third party. If someone cracks into your Amazon.com or Paypal account that contains your credit card information, the result is going to be devastating.

How can I remember so many passwords?

In programming, a secure way of storing password in database is to use salted hash. A string of words is used as the key (also known as ‘salt’) and append to the user entered password. This newly formed password is then hashed using md5 encryption and the result is stored into the database. To illustrate, a user entered ‘password1′ as his password. The script then appends a salt known as ‘iloveyou’ to the password which results in ‘iloveyoupassword1′. This password is then encrypted to produce a random string ’228e4011b6afbevge44e3d787d606407′ which is then stored into the database.

Now, how does all this apply to you?

This is simple. Using the same concept as salting, you can generate thousands of passwords easily. Using one base password, what you need to do is to append the site name to your password. For example, if my base password is ‘iloveyou’, then I can set the password for my Yahoo email as ‘iloveyouyahooemail’ and bank account password as ‘iloveyouXYZbank’. In this case, you can generate different password for different sites. And since your password is long and not a word found in the dictionary, it will be difficult for hacker to crack it.

To make your password even more secure, you can use a mix of number, upper case, lower case and special characters for your base password. ’15@gdH34′ would be a good base password. Some websites only allow 8 characters password, so you might have to play around with your base password to control the generated password length.

What I have listed here is only one of the way you can use to generate passwords. You are free to experiment and set your own rule. If you have some interesting ways to generate passwords, do share it here.