Why (and how) I'm saying goodbye to Gmail

MacworldWhy (and how) I'm saying goodbye to Gmail

It was great while it lasted, but I finally broke up with Gmail. Though I had relied on Google's popular email service for years, my level of satisfaction had been dropping steadily for a while, and changes in the Mavericks version of Mail (about which I've ranted at some length) were the last straw. Now I'm returning to a good old-fashioned IMAP server, and I'm not looking back.

Lots of people are blissfully content with Gmail. If you're one of them, far be it from me to change your mind. But I want to tell you what I found problematic about Gmail—and exactly what I did about it.

What's wrong with Gmail

Gmail does a great job of filtering spam and searching for content, and Google offers Gmail users a generous 15GB of free storage space (shared with other Google services). If you want to use your own domain name with your Gmail account (a necessity for me), you can sign up for Google Apps for Business, which starts at $5 per month per user and includes various additional features. At one time Google offered a free edition of Google Apps, and users like me who signed up while it was still free got to keep their accounts, for up to 10 users, at no charge. All in all, a pretty sweet deal.

I was never greatly troubled by Google's use of keyword scanning or the reports of government back doors to data. My main gripes were more practical.

Many people who've been turning away from Gmail these days cite privacy as their main concern, but that was a comparatively minor issue for me. I was never greatly troubled by Google's use of keyword scanning to display targeted ads; as for the reports of government backdoors into Google's data, I've always assumed that I have to encrypt email myself if I want to keep it completely private.

My main gripes were more practical. For example:

Outages: Several extended, widespread Gmail outages have occurred in the past few years, leaving me without email access at critical times.

Nonstandard handling of messages: Many people swear by Gmail's idiosyncratic approach to processing and labeling email, but it didn't suit my needs. Instead, I always wanted Gmail to work like a conventional IMAP server. Even though you can access Gmail via IMAP, Gmail's IMAP implementation is highly nonstandard—and I could never achieve exactly the behavior I wanted.

Limits on simultaneous IMAP connections: Gmail limits the number of simultaneous IMAP connections to 10, which seems like a reasonable number—except that a single copy of Apple Mail uses several connections at once. As a result, I couldn't have Mail open and connected to my Gmail account on all of my Macs and iOS devices at the same time; when I connected to more than three devices (give or take), I'd start getting error messages.

Problems sending mail: Sending outgoing mail via Gmail from my Web server—which I did, for example, when transmitting online contact forms—produced odd results, such as always including my own email address as the From address.

Buggy implementation in Mavericks Mail: Apple Mail in Mavericks treats Gmail differently than previous versions did; and on paper, that's a good thing. For example, it can now eliminate duplicate messages that previously wasted disk space and bandwidth. Unfortunately, Mail's performance with Gmail was so poor and buggy during my first week or so of using Mavericks that I wound up leaving Gmail open in a Web browser the whole time.

Some of my complaints are specific to Apple Mail, and I did consider switching email clients. But I've never found one that offers the features I rely on from a combination of Mail and third-party plugins.

Some of my complaints are specific to Apple Mail, and I did consider switching email clients. But though I've tried many other clients (such as Bloop's $2 Airmail, the $10 Postbox, and Google's $10 Sparrow), I've never found one that offers all the features I rely on from a combination of Mail and half a dozen third-party plugins. In any case, even a perfect client wouldn't solve Gmail's privacy issues, outages, and wacky IMAP implementation.

How to move to another provider

Once I decided to drop Gmail, I had to settle on an IMAP provider to use instead. I investigated dozens of paid services, including FastMail, Hushmail, and Pobox. Although each provider had its strengths (some are especially good at spam filtering, while others have extra bells and whistles), I settled on a rather obscure choice: EasyDNS. I've long relied on this Canadian company to provide DNS services for several of my domains, and its $40-per-year DNSPro package, which I was already using, includes a full-featured webmail/IMAP service called EasyMail. Since my domains were already managed there, setup was extra easy—and switching to EasyMail Apart cost me no extra money.

The steps involved in moving your email from Gmail to another provider vary depending on the type and configuration of the server that the new provider uses, as well as on how you manage your DNS records. But in broad strokes, these are the main steps:

Start with a local copy of everything: I'm assuming that you use IMAP with Gmail, and that your email client is configured (as most are, by default) to store local copies of all your messages. You should also have a backup of all those messages (using the backup tool of your choice), just in case.

If you used a custom domain name, you must change DNS records that used to point at Google so they point at your new provider. EasyDNS automates that entire process.

Change your DNS settings: If (and only if) you used a custom domain name with Gmail, you'll have to log in to your domain registrar's or DNS provider's site and change the records that currently point to Gmail's mail servers so that they instead point to your new IMAP provider. (Your new provider should be able to tell you what settings to use.)

Set up new mailboxes and aliases: You'll need one mailbox on your new IMAP server for each user you're moving. If you used a custom domain, you'll want the new email accounts to be exactly the same as the old ones. If you had set up any aliases (that is, extra addresses that point to a single account) in Gmail, configure those for the new provider, too.

Forward your Gmail: If you did not use a custom domain—meaning that your address ended in @gmail.com or @googlemail.com—log in to your Gmail account on the Web (just as before), click the gear icon, and choose Settings from the pop-up menu. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP, and then click Add a Forwarding Address. Type the address of your new account, and follow the prompts to confirm it. By performing this step, you'll ensure that email sent to your Gmail address will still reach you.

Add a new account in Mail, choose 'Other', and follow the prompts to set up your new IMAP account.

Add the new account in Mail: In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences, click Accounts, and click the plus (+) button. Select Add Other Mail Account and follow the instructions to add an IMAP account with the username, password, and server addresses of your new provider. After you enter your credentials, Mail will attempt to automatically configure the account; if automatic configuration fails (which is likely), Mail will prompt you to enter the necessary details manually.

At this point, you have both your old Gmail account and your new IMAP account set up in Mail. Incoming messages will start flowing into the new account shortly, but you'll still be able to access your Gmail account. That's important, because it enables you to perform the next step.

Drag a mailbox to your new IMAP account in Mail's sidebar to copy it. But note that you may also have to drag and drop the contents of the old mailbox into the new one to copy all your messages.

Move your mailboxes and messages: Choose Mailbox > New Mailbox and create a mailbox (any name will do) in your new IMAP account. Doing this forces that account name to appear in Mail's sidebar. Now you can drag a mailbox from your Gmail account in the sidebar to the new IMAP account label to copy it to the new location.

In some cases, this move copies only the mailbox and not its contents; you may have to go back to the Gmail mailbox, select everything inside it, drag it to the corresponding mailbox on the new IMAP server, and repeat as needed. (I recommend choosing Window > Activity to keep an eye on the progress; it can take a longtime.)

Once you've confirmed that all your messages and mailboxes have moved from Gmail to the new account, you can remove the Gmail account from Mail. In Mavericks, you must select the account in the Internet Accounts pane of System Preferences and click the minus (-) button.

Moving from Gmail doesn't mean you can't continue using all the other features of your Google account—Google Drive, Google Calendar, and so on.

Odds and ends

Moving from Gmail doesn't mean you can't continue using all the other features of your Google account—Google Drive, Google Calendar, and so on. They will keep working with your existing credentials, even with Google Apps for Business. You just won't receive any more incoming mail in your Gmail Inbox.

Note that if you used Gmail's server-side filters to process incoming messages, you'll have to re-create them on your new provider's website, and you may have to fiddle with rules in Mail (or another client) to make them work correctly with your new account.

But most of the hassle is simply the tedium of the transfer process. Once that's done, you can relax and join me in enjoying a Gmail-free IMAP experience.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2059230/why-and-how-im-saying-goodbye-to-gmail.html#tk.rss_all

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Road diet drawing flak

Local News from The Press DemocratRoad diet drawing flak

Road diet drawing flak

<p>After receiving a few raves and plenty of rants about the new Petaluma Boulevard South road diet, the Petaluma City Council is set to discuss at its Monday meeting traffic timing, congestion and other issues that have been raised by residents.</p><p>Councilmember Mike Harris said that he is happy staff will be offering some solutions to the increased traffic congestion. </p><p>"It's unfortunate because we're trying to persuade people to go downtown, not dissuade them," Harris said. "I've received a lot of feedback from people about the traffic backups. There are things we can do better and we need to explore all those aspects."</p><p>The project reduced four lanes of traffic to two on a four-block stretch of Petaluma Boulevard South, from East Washington Street to D Street, in an effort to increase bicycle and pedestrian safety. It also added a center turn lane and median meant to enable delivery trucks to park for short periods of time. It cost about $1 million and was funded mainly through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The project came to a close this June, after beginning in the summer of 2012.</p><p>Many bicyclists and pedestrians say that getting around downtown now feels safer.</p><p>"I see traffic flowing more smoothly and people adjusting well," said Petaluma woodworker and bicycle commuter Scott Braun. "It's made it safer and easier for me to ride downtown and traffic is still moving well."</p><p>But many others argue that several aspects of the project, including the reduction in lanes and the timing of crosswalks and traffic signals, have made traffic congestion unbearable. </p><p>"Traffic is terrible downtown," said Petaluma resident and driver Mistie Ann Lema. "If you are on Petaluma Boulevard, you're stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I've lived in Petaluma all of my life and used to love going downtown. Now I hate it."</p><p>Downtown commuter Courtney Pastrick said that while she generally approves of the road diet, she sees some serious issues with traffic signal timing.</p><p>"Particularly at the D Street and Washington Street crossings," Pastrick said. </p><p>Several Petaluma officials also said they have received complaints about traffic on Petaluma Boulevard South from residents, and that aspects of the project, such as signal timing, may need to be tweaked, </p><p>"The primary mission of this project was to fix dangerous conditions in the downtown area," said Mayor David Glass. "Having said that, ideally, we would fix a condition without worsening traffic flow. There are some things we can and need to address regarding signal timing and crosswalk timing."</p><p>City staff has been studying the issue and will present its findings Monday night. </p><p>"Now we have some hard data to look at, both before and after the road diet happened," said Glass. "There are some small things that might provide some relief and would be fairly easy to accomplish."</p><p>Based on complaints that travel time downtown had increased by as much as 15 minutes, staff has been analyzing the time it takes to make it through downtown since the Road Diet was completed. According to City Engineer Curt Bates, staff drove The Boulevard several times a day on a dozen different occasions. The average time it took to make it from East Washington Street to D Street ranged from two to six minutes, depending on the time of day. The city did not track how long it took to travel the same distance before the changes were implemented.</p><p>Staff has also been collecting data on the number of vehicles that travel through that area, and how the traffic signals are timed. Bates said he is recommending that the City Council allow city staff more time to study current traffic conditions before they form a plan regarding possible changes to signal timing and other minor improvements that may further help alleviate traffic congestion in the area.</p><p>"We forget that we're dealing with an already difficult traffic situation," said Public Works Director Dan St. John. "We are constrained by problems that existed before the Road Diet occurred. If the area was completely undeveloped, we would have engineered the road wider, put in bike lanes and made better parking. But the right of way that exists there today isn't wide enough to put all that in. At least the lanes we have now are wider and bikers can share the road with drivers. Before the road diet, you couldn't ride your bike down there and have a car pass you and stay in its lane. It was very unsafe."</p><p>Since work ended on June 17, six collisions were reported through Aug. 28. None have been reported since. </p><p>"Although the post-project sample size is small, the trend is encouraging and suggests a reduction in reported collisions from 2.1 per month to 1.7 per month," said Bates in a staff report provided to the council.</p><p>Petaluma Boulevard South was a frenzy of activity Friday afternoon. Cars drove along The Boulevard, cyclists zipped through the area and pedestrians leisurely strolled the sidewalks. Despite the wider car lanes and increased safety for bicyclists, some still illegally drove their bicycles on the sidewalks and down the newly constructed middle lane of Petaluma Boulevard South. Overall though, foot, bicycle and vehicle traffic moved smoothly — albeit, somewhat slowly — through the downtown corridor. </p><p>But when pedestrians used the lighted crosswalks in front of the Starbucks and 24 Hour Fitness on Petaluma Boulevard South, traffic quickly piled up. In fact, when several pedestrians used the crosswalk in a row, the backup of cars stretched for several blocks. And it wasn't just the untimed pedestrian crosswalks, which automatically stop traffic whenever they are pushed. Traffic signals along Petaluma Boulevard did not appear properly timed and often caused additional backups. </p><p>The Petaluma City Council will discuss the Road Diet on Monday at its meeting at 7 p.m. in council chambers at 11 English Street in Petaluma.</p><p>(Contact Janelle Wetzstein at janelle.wetzstein@arguscourier.com)</p>

http://www.petaluma360.com/article/20131018/community/131019488

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13 Bone-Chilling Attractions From Around the World

http://mashable.com/2013/10/17/scary-attractions/?utm_campaign=Feed:+Mashable+(Mashable)&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner&utm_content=My+Yahoo

10 great cloud opportunities for SMBs

10 Things 10 great cloud opportunities for SMBs

These cloud solutions are well-suited to the SMB with a limited budget.

Cloud-based applications can fill critical needs for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). With the help of the cloud, SMBs can not only level the competitive playing field with larger companies, but they can also afford important business applications that they wouldn't be able to support internally. Here are ten great cloud app choices ideally suited for SMBs:

1. Healthcare and wellness management

In a small company, it is difficult to find time in HR or administration to fully administer all aspects of a healthcare or health management program—yet small businesses want their employees to have this. Insurers and medical providers understand this, too. This is why many of them now offer portal-based healthcare options, tutorials, and program self-management for employees at client companies. The next time you search for a healthcare insurance provider, check into their online options for employees as part of your RFP (request for proposal) process.

2. Online training

Whether it is for products you sell, services you provide, or IT or other technologies and safety practices that you need, small companies want to provide employees with training just like their larger counterparts. But unlike large companies, many SMBs lack budget for an internal training staff. Fortunately, the abundance of online training from both private companies and universities can address many training needs in a hurry—and inexpensively.

3. VDI

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has been adopted by many smaller companies that are looking to reduce their software licensing fees for the office—as well as the time that they spend on individually updating users' desktops with new versions of software. Many VDI implementations are fully completed and then supported by the outside vendor, too.

4. Back office services

Software as a service (SaaS) companies now provide an assortment of software and automation for "back office" functions that include payroll, accounts payable and receivable, and even inventory management. Especially in administrative areas, the cloud can handle tasks that free up SMB employees so they can focus on the end business.

5. Sales force management

One of the most popular cloud-based applications is Salesforce.com. It allows a company sales force to track leads and sales activities. It also gives sales managers visibility of field sales efforts in the cloud. For SMBs with field-based sales, having a cloud-based sales application also enables salespersons to log in their activities at any time and from anywhere.

6. Video and teleconferencing

Cloud-based video and teleconferencing facilitate collaboration and save travel time and expense. They are invaluable for small organizations with small budgets and are a perfect fit for many SMBs because most of their payment models are "pay-for-use."

7. Application testing

You'd be amazed at how much computer processing and disk are consumed in application development and testing. For this reason, both enterprises and SMBs are taking a hard look at going to the cloud for on-demand compute resources that are deployed for application development and testing—and then deprovisioned once apps are all tested and ready to be moved into corporate production in the home data center. Some companies have even been able to avoid building new data centers by going to the cloud when they needed extra IT resources!

8. On demand computing resources

Similar to going to the cloud for application development and testing, some organizations also now go to the cloud during busy times of the year when they might need extra computer processing and storage. A good example is the holiday season, when sales (and transactions) might be up—but not to the tune where they warrant a permanent expansion of IT resources. Instead, many SMBs choose to pay for temporary IT resource augmentation from a cloud provider—returning to their internal data centers for all processing after their heavy sales periods have wound down.

9. CRM

Every company, regardless of size, is striving to be more customer-centric. This makes having a CRM (customer relationship management) system invaluable, since with CRM, anyone in the company who interacts with a customer can see everything that has transpired in the customer's experience in the system. The trouble is, CRM systems are historically not easy to implement or to fully exploit. This can make a cloud-based CRM an excellent choice for many SMBs, which can go to a cloud services provider that already has expertise with CRM best practices, and that can also provide both CRM and CRM support.

10. Document management

Managing documents and ensuring proper archiving procedures are real headaches for many SMBs. Especially if they have already chosen to implement virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), SMBs can attain additional leverage from this strategy by moving all of their documents (and management ) to the cloud. Before doing so, however, the SMB should carefully review the cloud provider's governance and information protection standards to ensure that they meet company expectations.

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Server 2012 Setup

My team and I have deployed a handful of Server 2012 machines into production now.  There are some distinct features that we like, the most prominent one being for file servers and that's data deduplication.  This is a feature that historically exists on very expensive SAN/NAS equipment but Microsoft added it to the operating system for their 2012 server product.  In the 3 file server deployments of Server 2012 that we've done, which were all upgrades from Server 2008 or 2008 R2, we've realized about 30% deduplication ratios.  In one case a 500 GB file server went from having 40 GB of free space to nearly 200 GB!  Knowing that the price of the operating system is far cheaper than adding additional SAS drives, this was a no-brainer.  No issues with Mac or Windows clients either, no more trying to train users not to copy the entire set of contents from one deep folder to create a duplicate.

There are a few things to keep in mind, at least if you'd like to take your time getting familiar with it and be able to function as you did in pretty much every previous iteration of the OS, at least if you're using the GUI.

Network Location with a stock installation may often be set to 'Public.'  This can create problems on many levels.  I used this article as a guideline for being able to switch to 'Private.'.  I just launched 'secpol' from the command line to get the security manager console running.

It drove me nuts that I couldn't readily open Windows Explorer from my desktop to see the hard drives, network locations, etc.  In order to get that running, I had to add the server 'Feature' called User Interface.  Be sure to select all options and reboot.

One of the other curiosities is the inability from the GUI to change the license key when it comes time to activate, that has to be done from the CLI.  Go figure.  The command is this:

Cscript.exe %windir%\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk <Your product key>

x

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1Password 4 for Mac review: State-of-the-art password management for everyone

Macworld 1Password 4 for Mac review: State-of-the-art password management for everyone

Canadian developer AgileBits has always positioned its 1Password password management software as a premium product, focusing on a combination of performance, portability, and ease of use to command a premium price and develop a significant following. Such continues to be the case with 1Password 4 for Mac (Mac App Store link), which the company released at the beginning of October.

The new version of the popular app, however, enters a market that has changed significantly in the last 12 months, with numerous competitors contending for users, and even Apple entering the fray by implementing basic password management right into its operating systems.

A familiar face

Faced with the increased competitive pressure, it would have been easy for AgileBits to focus on making 1Password cheaper, perhaps by moving to a "freemium" model that nickel-and-dimes its customers; or, in an attempt to justify the price, the company could have overloaded the app with a complete interface redesign and a bucketload of "advanced" features that complicate its use.

Luckily, the company decided instead to stick with the basic infrastructure and build on top of it. As a result, the new 1Password feels familiar and allows existing users to transition from previous versions effortlessly. The new features—numerous and, in some cases, very useful—have been inserted into the existing workflows, making them easy to discover just by using the app.

That's not to say that everything looks the same; 1Password 4 has received a fresh coat of paint, and slicker graphics inside and out, including the ability to download professionally designed icons to represent various websites and software products for the items saved in the app's database. Many interface elements have likewise been simplified and slightly repositioned to make the software easier to use and more modern looking.

1Password 4 underwent a complete redesign, but it maintains the familiar user interface of its predecessors, making the transition to the new version painless for users.

What's inside

Despite these changes, what really drives the updated version of the app is the knowledge that security is, at its core, a compromise between convenience and risk. Thus, every effort is made to ensure that your information is readily available when you need it, and that 1Password's functionality integrates as transparently as possible with your workflow.

This is perhaps best exemplified by the new 1Password mini, a compact view into your password vault that installs itself in the menu bar, from where you can access it even when the 1Password app isn't running. It gives you access to all your saved credentials without your having to launch the main app, and it even allows you to "pin" a particular entry so that its window remains open and visible above everything else. Despite the fact that its bigger sibling launches quickly and doesn't impose any significant performance hits, the "mini" panel is surprisingly useful.

New in this version is also compatibility with a number of external launchers, like Running with Crayons' Alfred, Objective Development's LaunchBar, and perennial Mac favorite Quicksilver.

In the browser

Like its predecessor, 1Password 4 also comes with extensions for all the major browsers—Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and even Opera. The most significant changes affecting these components can be summarized in one word: louder. Once you install the extensions, for example, the browser components now use proper dialog boxes to ask you if you want to inject usernames and passwords in a webpage, generate a new password, or save and replace an existing one. Unlike the tiny little panels that their predecessors used to add to the browser's chrome, these windows are modal and cannot easily be ignored: You can either use them or close them, but you cannot fail to notice that they exist.

When I encountered this new modus operandi, I instantly hated it; the idea of anything interposing itself in the normal flow of filling out a Web form and demanding my attention seemed like the antithesis of good usability. It didn't take me long, however, to recognize  the genius behind this implementation, because the flip side of demanding constant attention is that the app can more easily help you generate, save, and use the information you save in its vault.

This is not just an abstract thought, by the way. I like to think that I'm fairly savvy when it comes to online security, but even after just a couple weeks of use, the number of passwords I've saved in my 1Password vault has jumped by a good 20 percent, and the vast majority of these are now of the strong variety, automatically generated by the app to provide good randomness and resistance to cracking. In fact, I'd venture to say that, when you combine the beefed-up browser extenstions with a significantly enhanced ability to fill in complex forms, this is by far the most significant change that AgileBits has introduced in its app, if perhaps not the flashiest.

1Password 4's 'mini' menu companion is surprisingly useful.

Security is not just encryption

So far, I've spoken mostly about the app's user interface, but some interesting changes also exist behind the scenes. 1Password's security remains on a par with much of its competition's: Vaults are encrypted using a fairly secure AES–256 algorithm, backed by a new tamper-detection mechanism based on digital signatures.

The new version also supports multiple vaults, which means that you can more easily compartmentalize your saved data. This will please professionals who wish to keep information from different clients separate, or employees who want to ensure that they don't mix personal and work data. Even better, vaults can be shared among multiple users, perfect for both family and business use.

Another new feature that should help keep passworld data in good shape is a "password audit" that can detect weak logins or passwords that haven't been changed in a long time. Unfortunately, you still have to change your passwords by hand—there is little that 1Password can do for you there, although AgileBits has at least improved its automated password engine by adding several new options, including the ability to use mixed-case letters when generating pronounceable passwords.

That syncing feeling

Wi-Fi sync has finally made its way back to 1Password for Mac. If you dislike saving your personal data in the cloud—understandably, considering what governments have been up to of late—this means that you can now keep all your password data on a local network and still synchronize your vault across multiple devices.

The App Store version of the app also supports syncing through iCloud, if you feel brave enough to trust that Apple's black-hole-in-the-cloud service won't suddenly decide to "disappear" your data into the ether. For my part, I've relied on Dropbox sync for years, and the service, which has never let me down, works as well as ever with the new 1Password.

Your syncing needs, incidentally, are likely to dictate which version of the app you will want to purchase: Due to Apple's own rules, you will be able to use iCloud only if you buy the software from the Mac App Store.

1Password's generator offers many different options for creating credentials that are secure and easy to manage.

Still the state of the art

And this brings us, finally, to pricing. 1Password 4 costs $40, or $56 for a family license. If you are an existing customer, there's a good chance that you qualify for a free upgrade, which the company makes available to all App Store users and to other customers who purchased their copy of the software after the beginning of the year. For everyone else, the upgrade price is $35—temporarily reduced to $25 as part of the app's launch.

Frankly, I think that the folks at AgileBits are trying a little too hard to make everybody happy here, resulting in an upgrade scheme that is a little confusing. It's always hard to judge a product solely by its price, and having multiple price points to contend with is only going to make it harder for prospective customers to decide whether they should invest in the app or not.

Bottom line

As far as value is concerned, 1Password is a no-brainer. Sure, it's an expensive product, particularly when you compare it with many of the other options out there. However, I've taken at least half a dozen password managers for a test-drive in the last 12 months, and 1Password is the only one that truly nails the right balance between security and convenience.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2053261/1password-4-for-mac-review-state-of-the-art-password-management-for-everyone.html#tk.rss_all

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Actually, you do need to share your passwords

Funny thing, I've been planning this out myself...
Macworld Actually, you do need to share your passwords

No one stays healthy forever. At some point, your loved ones will need access to all of your accounts. You can make that job easier for them.

No reader questions today. Instead, I'm answering a question that someone should ask: In our password-protected digital world, how do you prepare for that inevitable day when you die or otherwise become incapacitated?

This is no small problem. When you're gone, or have otherwise lost the ability to remember or communicate, loved ones will need access to your email, contacts, bank accounts, and more. Without your pre-planned help, this can be quite a challenge.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com.]

If you don't believe me, check out Google's page for Accessing a deceased person's mail. You have to gather up and snail-mail several items, including the death certificate (each official copy of which comes with a price). Part 2 of the process "will require you to get additional legal documents, including an order from a U.S. court and/or additional materials."

It would be a lot easier if someone you trust had your Google password--and other important passwords, as well.

One solution is to print out a hard copy of your passwords and store it in a safe deposit box. But you'd have to repeat the process every time you change a password. Not so good.

Here's a better one:

Pick someone who you really trust. Your spouse is an obvious choice. Or a very close friend or relative. It could even be your lawyer or accountant. For brevity's sake, I'll refer to this person as your executor.

You'll need a password manager--a program on your PC that allows you to store your passwords in an encrypted database. You should have a password manager anyway, as I explained in Manage passwords, and not just on the Web; I also recommend a couple of them in that article.

Your executor will need a password manager, as well, although it doesn't have to be the same one.

Give your executor a few key passwords--those for your Windows and mobile logons, your email account, and, of course, your password manager. Make sure they store these passwords safely in their own encrypted password manager.

If your relationship with the executor is personal rather than professional, add their key passwords to your manager, as well.

I've done that with my wife. Her Password Safe database contains a section called Lincoln. Mine contains one named Madeline.

And, of course, when you change these few key passwords, make sure to put the new ones in the other person's password manager.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2050343/actually-you-do-need-to-share-your-passwords.html#tk.rss_all

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This Week's Reading - 20131007

Configure Windows Server 2012 As An NTP Server | Krypted

7 top tactics of hack attacks | PCWorld

10 best new features in Excel 2013 - TechRepublic

Essential free software you can't afford to miss | PCWorld

Window Server 2008 R2: Overlooked Features - Petri, good reminder as well that you can run the non-GUI version of Hyper-V server for FREE!

 Remote Network Access: Deploy a SSTP Server - Petri

 What's in Windows Server 2012 R2 for small businesses | News | TechRadar

 Five free tools to aid in graphic design - TechRepublic

 Remote Network Access: Configure an SSTP Client

10 signs it's time to let an employee go - TechRepublic

The 10 tech podcasts you must listen to today | Macworld

Restore album art on iOS devices, and get the iTunes Store app to work in iOS 7

Macworld Restore album art on iOS devices, and get the iTunes Store app to work in iOS 7

This week's column looks at some problems involving album art going AWOL on iOS devices, and the iTunes Store app having trouble getting up in the morning with iOS 7. I also answer a couple of iTunes Store questions related to gifting items and copying links to songs.

Q: I have a number of album covers that got scrambled in the move to iOS 7; some albums now show the wrong artwork. Any ideas on what happened and how to fix it?

Problems with album artwork on iPods and iOS devices are common. Sometimes nothing displays at all; other times the wrong artwork appears. The only solution I've ever found to such troubles is a bit radical: Delete all the music on the iOS device and resync the music.

To do so, connect the iOS device to iTunes, select it, and click the Music tab in the header bar. Uncheck Sync Music, and then click Sync near the bottom of the iTunes window. After the syncing is complete, recheck Sync Music—iTunes will have remembered your settings, whether to sync all music or just selected items—and then sync again. This can take quite a while, especially if you use iTunes' feature that converts your music to a lower bit rate when syncing. In that case, you might want to start the sync before you go to bed at night.

If you copy music manually to your iOS device, this technique won't work. Start by displaying the iTunes sidebar: Choose View > Show Sidebar. Then click the disclosure triangle next to the device's name, and click Music. Choose File > Library > Export Playlist, and save this playlist on your computer.

Next, choose File > Library > Import Playlist, and select the playlist you just saved. It will be added to iTunes. Back on your iOS device, select all the music you see when you click Music; then press the Delete key, and iTunes will delete all of the music. Find the playlist you imported, select all of its tracks, and drag them onto the iPhone in the sidebar. iTunes will then copy all the music back, though the operation might take a while if you have a lot of files.

Deleting the Cache folder may resolve issues involving incorrectly displayed album art.

Another method that sometimes resolves album artwork problems is to delete the iTunes Album Artwork Cache folder. You'll find this inside your home folder (the one with the house icon). Go to Music > iTunes > Album Artwork. Delete the Cache folder, quit iTunes, and then relaunch it. As you display music, iTunes will extract the album artwork from your files and create new items in the cache folder.

Make sure that you don't delete the Download folder in the Album Artwork folder. The Download folder contains album artwork for iTunes Store purchases—artwork that isn't embedded in the actual music files. (I explain how to do embed it in those files in another column.)

Q: When I play the Purchased playlist in iTunes so I can listen to music it contains, it also plays the videos in that playlist. Is there a way to prevent it from doing that?

The Purchased playlist is a list of items you've bought from the iTunes Store. It's there as a convenience, so you can always find your purchases. But as with a regular playlist, you can delete anything you like from it.

I have two solutions to offer. The first is simply to delete all videos from the playlist. Select them and press the Delete key. This will remove them from the Purchased playlist, but not from your iTunes library.

The second option, if you want to keep the videos in the playlist, is to uncheck them. You'll see a little checkbox to the left of each one; just click the box for each of the videos, and iTunes will skip them when you're playing anything from that playlist.

Q: I want to gift my sister a song: How can I do that from my iPhone and the iTunes Store?

Unfortunately, you can't do it from an iPhone or iPad. Your gifting options from an iOS device are limited to albums, though you can gift almost any iTunes item—song, album, movie, or the like—from a Mac or PC.

Using an iOS device, you can send an album from the iTunes Store as a gift.

On an iOS device, find an album you want to gift, and then tap the Share button. Follow the instructions to send the gift.

In iTunes, click the arrow next to the price of any item and choose Gift This Song (or movie, or app, and so on—though not a book). Follow the instructions from that point.

Q: I recently updated my iPhone to iOS 7, and the iTunes Store app no longer works. If I launch it, it just quits. How can I get it to start working again?

I had the same problem. When I launched the iTunes Store, the screen flashed for a second and then quit. I tried accessing the iTunes Store by tapping the Store button in the Music app, but I got an alert reading 'Unable to Connect to iTunes Store'. I tried rebooting my iPhone, and that didn't work either.

The solution was to sign out of the iTunes Store and then sign back in. I did so in Settings > iTunes & App Store. After that, the iTunes Store app worked properly.

Q: I have several friends in different countries. We all want to have the same song, but there are different versions of the song we want. How do I tell each of my friends how to find the song is so we can have same version? Is there a "part number" or id or something so we know we have the same song?

First, the song you want may not be available in all countries. If you click the arrow next to a song's price, you'll see Copy Link as an option in the pop-up menu. Select that and you'll get a link that looks like this:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-star-live-at-veneta-or/id680077190?i=680077232

The bit that begins with id identifies the album; the bit after the ? is the song id. Clicking the link will take you to the album on the Web, possibly with the song highlighted (this behavior is inconsistent). But if you click to view that track in iTunes, you'll just go to the album page in the iTunes Store. (The link will be for whatever country's store you were browsing when you copied the link.) That should be sufficient for what you need.

You can copy a link to any item on the iTunes Store in order to send it to a friend.

Alternatively, select the Tell a Friend option in the same pop-up menu. Then enter your friends' email addresses, and Apple will send them the link.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2051370/restore-album-art-on-ios-devices-and-get-the-itunes-store-app-to-work-in-ios-7.html#tk.rss_all

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