How To Reset your SBCGlobal.net password

Hello all,

Over the course of the last couple of years, a few of my friend's online email (e.g. SBC Global, Yahoo, MSN, gMail, and HotMail) accounts have been hacked and became the source of un-wanted spam to everyone in their online address book.  SBC Global can be particularly difficult to figure out how to change the password since the SBC Global e-mail accounts and management thereof has changed ownership several times over the last decade.

To fix this issue, simply change your password to a more secure password.

Before getting into the steps on how to change your password though, consider that some bad guy with nefarious intent now has your favorite password that may be used for 20 other online accounts.  The clear implication is that you should also change the password of all those other accounts to a new and more secure password.

By now, you have probably clued in that I recommend that you need a unique and MORE SECURE PASSWORD for this and every account that you own. Most people tend to stick to one or two favorite, simple and easy to remember passwords for all of their online accounts.  This is natural for most people but has the consequence of being easily hacked by any bad guy that want's to get into your accounts.  I recommend instead that you choose a password that you likely will NEVER remember.  For example, consider a unique 32 character password for every account that includes upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters like 2p0qVf1ml=mMUjrBwKSXP+r=#579USQA.

The typical response to this recommendation is shock and dismay because most people typically have between 20-30 online accounts and they couldn't possibly fit that many individual long passwords on a sticky note under their keyboard. ;-)

That brings me to the modern age of password management tools.  There are some really great tools out there to help you employ truly secure passwords for every account and even make logging into web sites much easier.  For example, on the personal side I highly recommend 1Password.  This app enables you to capture all of your individual passwords and secure them with one easy to remember but yet strong password.  That way, you only have to remember one strong password.  1Password enables you to do much much more but I won't go into that here.

For businesses, there are products like Oracle Enterprise Manager Single Sign-On.  This product accomplishes the same goal but also provide some controls for identity governance by the company as well as give the company the ability to enforce strong passwords for all online accounts.

Now that I covered strong passwords and password management, let's get back on topic.  Here are the instructions that worked for me to change my SBCGlobal.net password as of November, 2012.  AT&T/SBC/Yahoo/... tends to change this process on a semi-regular basis, so be prepared for it to change a year from now.

1. Go to http://att.yahoo.com
2. Click on the mail icon, which at the time of this post was in the upper right hand side of the page.
   
3. Either login with your SBCGlobal.net e-mail address and password or click on "Forgot Password".
4. Once logged in, click on Hi _your_first_name__, in the upper left-hand corner and then click on Yahoo Account Info.
   
5. You may be prompted for your password again, but then once logged in again, click on "Manage passwords and account security".  This will take you to the AT&T Online Account Management (OLAM) page.
   
6. Enter your e-mail address and password again on the OLAM page and this will take you to the page where you can finally change your password with the form that looks like the following:
   

Once you submit your password change, the SPAM to your friends should stop.

Blessings to you and yours!

Brad
PS: Note that I am an Oracle employee.  However, I hope that doesn't stop you from using what I consider to be the best corporate password management and enterprise SSO product on the market.

iCloud for Old iThings

One of the great things about the iCloud is that as a family, we can share calendars and address book (e.g. contacts) to keep everyone on the same page.  When one of my children wants to know what we are doing today, I just refer them to the calendar on their iThing.  The problem with this approach is that some of our youngest children have ancient iPod touches that don't support iOS5 or later.  Thus, for those devices we needed a workaround.  I found a set of instructions from Xairbusdriver at TechSurvivors that was helped me figure out how to make this work.  Thanks Xairbusdriver!!!

Basically, we just needed to manually add the Address Book (e.g. CalDAV) account and Contacts (e.g. (CardDAV) accounts through the iThing's Settings.

Below are the steps that I used to setup the Calendar (e.g. CalDAV) account:

1. Make sure that you have successfully added the iCloud account to your Mac.
2. Open a terminal and look at the number that corresponds to the e-mail address of your iCloud account in the ~/Library/Application Support/iCloud/Accounts directory.  This number is is that account's iCloud ID number.
3. On the old iThing (e.g. iOS4 iPod Touch in my case), open Settings-->Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
4. Select "Add Account"
5. Select "Other"
6. Select "Add CalDav Account"
7. Open the "Account Settings" of the iCloud calendar by bringing up iCalendar, clicking on Calendars, left clicking on the desired calendar, click on "Get Info", then click on "Account Info".  The server for that calendar will be listed to the right of Description:.  In my case, it is p08-caldav.icloud.com
8. Back to the iThing's setup you were on the CalDav Account settings.  Here you will enter the following:
• Server: (or p08-caldav.icloud.com in my case)
• User name:
• Password:
• Description: iCloud Calendar
• Advanced Settings --> Use SSL, Port 443, Account URL: https:////principal
9. Click Next and wait for setup to complete
10. Click Done

Here are the steps that I used to setup the Address Book (e.g. CardDAV) account:

1. On the old iThing (e.g. iOS4 iPod Touch in my case), open Settings-->Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
2. Select "Add Account"
3. Select "Other"
4. Select "Add CardDAV Account"
5. Enter the following:
• Server: (or p08-contacts.icloud.com in my case)
• User name:
• Password:
• Description: iCloud Contacts
6. Click Next and wait for setup to complete
7. Click Done

Hope that helps your family to get better connected.

Blessings to you and yours!

Brad

Aldi vs. The Illusion Of Choice

I found this info graphic from Barry Ritzholtz blog on the illusion of choice fascinating.  I had no idea that most product found in the local grocery store is produced by only 10 companies.  At least it helps to understand why prices of goods are often very similar and yet somewhat inflated.  This may also help explain how a store like Aldi can offer much lower prices on commodity goods because they only offer a single brand... their brand.

World wide QE appears to be the new norm for now

I am no financial analyst but the news that I continue to read regarding the devaluation of the United States dollar as well as other currencies is staggering.  The following graph shows that quantitative easing (QE = printing money) isn't just going on in the US but around the world.  This graph basically suggests that in 2008 and 2011 roughly one third of the world's market capitalization was on world federal bank balance sheets that resulted from the federal banks printing money through some form of quantitative easing.

Read the full article from which this graph was taken titled Living In A QE World at Ritholtz.com.  They provide much more information and shares more detail on each of the 8 central banks.

Apple iPod Packaging Re-imagined... the Microsoft Way!

In a world of contrasts, there is none like the contrast between Apple and Microsoft's approaches to marketing and packaging.  This video re-imagines what the packaging of the 2005 iPod might have looked like if Microsoft had been in charge.  Enjoy!