Chris Salmon Technologies

OK so we backed everything up to our online account at MyBackup Pro for Android, easy and no problem.  We've now activated the phone over the Verizon network.  Now to restore the Apps and Data.

First we have to use the phone's browser to install MyBackup Pro again, and activate it with a new PIN# for the new phone.  The default browser on the phone will have to do (I prefer Dolphin as you'll see later, but we have to restore it first!).  We go to MyBackup Pro and download the APK.

Android OS is not going to like this at first, because it defaults to not accepting apps that don't come from the market place.  Choose to change the setting from the complaint dialog box and check the box that tells you it is ok to accept unknown apps.

Download, install.  Open the app, agree to the UA (user agreement).  I'm going to use the same password and email that I used on the other phone.  But MyBackup will give me a different PIN.

MyBackup is integrated with Google and uses Google Checkout for purchase, therefore it's best to have a GMail account to retrieve the key and communicate with RerWare - the makers of MyBackup Pro.  So I quickly set up my GMail account on the phone.  I use my desktop computer to retrieve the key, activating the software by typing the key in with the built in fold out keyboard on the 'Droid.

Now I choose "RESTORE" and "Applications" -- VERY COOL this is exactly what I was hoping for!  I can restore ONLY those apps that I wish to restore.  Perfect.  I'm going to go over the apps I've chosen for the Android operating system and why I've chosen them later individually, but for now, let's just get these all installed.

Hmm - a bit of a problem here, you have to individually acknowledge that you wish to install each app, so I have a lot of them, I have to stop what I'm doing here and ack each one.  It's going fast though, so not such a bad problem.

One thing you will need to keep in mind - when you restore the backups from an old phone, you will need to put the PIN they gave you for the OLD phone in the login form to retrieve your backup.  The NEW PHONE with the new PIN doesn't have any backups yet.

OK!! Very, very nice!!  We have completely cloned our old Droid and now have a brand new phone with 100% of our old data, all the apps we wanted off the old phone, and all the contacts, pictures, video, music, and everything else we had on the old phone.

Well that concludes the backup and restore part of this series of articles.  Next we're going to look at all the apps I use, including a very, very nice iTunes clone/replacement app for the Droid that does everything iTunes does for the iPhone.

And we have an OPEN-SOURCE phone here, that is NOT RESTRICTED the way the iPhone is.

Until next time, enjoy the power of Android!

Today I got a replacement phone for my Motorola Droid phone, which had developed a hardware malfunction such that the microphone would not work unless I put it on "speaker."  In other words, I could not talk to someone without using it as a speakerphone.  The Droid is still under warranty, so Verizon, after going through diagnostics to verify what I was telling them, sent a new one for free.

This gives me an opportunity to set up this new phone in a smarter way, now that I have some experience with the phone, and I'm going to share my setup and favorite apps with the readers of my website and social media accounts.

The first thing we are going to do is backup the old phone.  There is a very handy, cheap, and popular backup application and website called RerWare MyBackup Pro.  I'm going to purchase that for $4.99 and use it for this procedure.

MyBackup Pro for Android

OK I've got too many applications on here that I don't use enough to really need them.  But, for now I'm going to back up ALL of them, for easy retrieval later.  MyBackup Pro gives you the option to check only the apps you want to back up, but since I'm getting rid of this old phone, I'm backing up everything.  I'm choosing a name for the backup file, of "old phone apps."  The backup proceeds very quickly, and zips up easily onto the MyBackup Pro website.

OK next we're going to do the same thing, but with our data.  It gives me the option to backup to the SD card, which has plenty of space and which I will use in the new phone, but for this I'm going to backup to the web.

OK everything is backed up!  Now one note, you can look at your backup data on the website, but it will NOT SHOW THE APPS FILE - I supposed because there is nothing in there to read.  It DOES show the apps files when you go to restore!  So keep that in mind and don't be afraid you didn't backup your apps - you did.

Allright now to activate the new phone and get going with that.  We'll start up that process in Part II.

Valleywag over on Gawker (one of my favorite Silicon Valley & Tech gossip sites) revealed, apparently in near real-time, that Facebook pushed out a code bug that revealed private, personal email addresses to the open web last night for about 30 minutes.  This follows last months' flub when they sent personal messages to the wrong people ( chuckle, hehe :-D ).  Mashable quotes a "Facebook Spokesperson" (?) as follows:

“Last night during Facebook’s regular code push, a bug caused hidden e-mail addresses to be visible briefly. The bug was detected within minutes and corrected.”

Hmm... it appears to me, not to give anyone ideas, but I'm sure you could set up some network scripts running continuously to probe some various Facebook data you wanted to retrieve, sort of examine their "nooks & crannies" then just wait for them to screw up and accidentally leave the door open for a bit during one of their regular code pushes.  But you know, it's just thinking out loud on my part.  You'd have to move the IP source of the probe around or they'd see it and block you, too, of course.

Facebook has a tough job.  But they should be well-funded enough, patient and skilled enough, to perhaps do more testing on the code they so frequently update.  It seems they are in a constant rush to "improve" "upgrade" "update" "close holes" and etc., etc.,  As I used to tell some of my over-enthusiastic staff members, when they would again do an "upgrade" or a "patch" that broke something on one of our many services, "We don't need to worry about hackers finding a hole - hell, you've just hacked us yourself."   

New password-stealing virus targets Facebook

There is an email that is being sent to Facebook users, likely to have a return address such as This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it is another obvious one) that claims that your facebook password has been "reset" and asks you to click on an attachment that will assign you a new password.

The attachment will contain several different types of malicious code, including apparently at minimum a trojan horse and a password stealing program, and possibly a keylogger that records all your keystrokes and sends them to a remote location.

The criminals behind this are not just pulling a prank - they are serious professionals out to access as many bank accounts, credit card accounts, internet access accounts, whatever they can gain from you that will enable them to steal money, assume your identity, or otherwise further their criminal interests.

The fake email is titled "Facebook Password Reset Confirmation! Customer Support."

I was able to find one image of such an email out on the internet:

McAfee estimates that hackers sent out tens of millions of spam across Europe, the United States and Asia since the campaign began on Tuesday.

Dave Marcus, McAfee's director of malware research and communications, said that he expects the hackers will succeed in infecting millions of computers.

"With Facebook as your lure, you potentially have 400 million people that can click on the attachment. If you get 10 percent success, that's 40 million," he said.