TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

 That is, the "sharing" options are completely missing. I had 1 calendar of several like this.  I never could figure out how to fix it; I had to create a new one, move events from the broken one to the new one, and delete the broken one. Yes, it's a pain, but there wasn't anything else for it. Note that - depending on your calendar app - you may have to go into your phone Calendar app settings to make the new calendar actually visible!

 Similar to this post , but a different issue. Problem:  You can't redeem a Google Play gift card, they need "more information", which you provide. Then Google replies with "According to our system, your Google Account or one of the Play Gift Cards you submitted isn't eligible for appeal."  Meaning you've just lost your money. Solution: It seems there isn't one. The most likely explanation seems to be that gift card codes are being stolen between time of purchase and time of redemption .  Meaning by the time you try and redeem it, the funds are already gone.  But nobody seems to know for sure. Although people love to hate on Google, it is not in Google's interest to deny legitimate customers use of their bought-and-paid-for gift cards.  Consistent failure to honor would destroy that part of Google's revenue stream. The only solution, therefore, is to not buy Google Play gift cards.

 Similar to this post , except switching to mobile data did not fix it.  Seems many people are having similar problems . In my specific case, my son was trying to buy Robux.  I was able to redeem his gift card using mobile data (as in this post ) but when attempting the purchase all I got was "Your Play balance can only be used in Canada". To be fair, I am using a VPN - with a Canadian ISP address.  Turning it off did not help even though I live in Canada and my DNS was correctly reported as being in Canada.  Every setting I could find said the account was in Canada. I was able to fix the issue by switching to mobile data, downloading the Roblox app on my own phone, signing in to Roblox as him, then paying for the Robux using my own payment information. I could theoretically have done the same thing via a web browser, except that Roblox did not allow purchase of the # of Robux he wanted via web.  (On mobile, you can buy 80 Robux; on web, there is no option...

Note: this affects ONLY the situation where you have a gift card FROM YOUR COUNTRY and are actually IN YOUR COUNTRY.  If you want a means to redeem a foreign card, or redeem a domestic card while in another country, look elsewhere.    This issue popped up recently on Google Play. Location services were off, but turning them back on did not help. What did work was turning off Wi-Fi and completing the transaction over mobile data. This might work for other countries, I don't know.

Here are some items that are potentially useful to know when setting up a hardware key (i.e. Yubikey) for online security. 1.  Yubikey is grossly overpriced.   HyperFIDO has fully compatible keys at a quarter of the cost , and they even protect the USB plug contacts - something Yubikey does not do. (Why most key makers choose designs that expose the USB contacts, I will never understand.) They also have a mini version .  Reviews say it is not as well built, but at this price, you can afford to buy spares.  Plus it comes with a cap to keep grunge out of the USB plug. Unfortunately, they don't have a Bluetooth / NFC version.  For that you should consider a Feitian at half the cost of a Yubikey . [Update]:  I have noticed that some services work with Yubikeys, but don't work with other FIDO-compatible keys.  This is a problem on their end.  I've had good luck with companies fixing their issues once I point them out. 2.  You can't use...

Problem:  Firefox suddenly barfs "Your connection is not secure" messages on major sites such as Mozilla, Google, Blogger, PIA, and possibly several others.  But several other major sites (news, Bing, etc.) are OK.  Phones, tablets and other PCs on the same network are not affected.  And there is nothing in recent news that Google has somehow messed up their security certificates and basically screwed the entire online population of the planet. Solution:  Chances are your PC clock is wrong, either because you just reset your BIOS or replaced the backup battery in your PC, and forgot to re-set your clock. If your PC thinks it's 2004, it will fail a lot of current security certificates. Another possibility is your antivirus is interfering with Firefox security validations.  This is not likely unless your AV and/or Firefox has changed recently, but is supposedly a known problem with Avast in particular. Similar issues can cause a "Your connection isn't...

Though it might seem odd, I have been resisting upgrading Firefox for years. The reasons are twofold and simple.  First, I rarely have time to constantly dick around with upgrading shit.  I have things working well, thanks so much, so don't screw with it. Second, I am addicted to Google Toolbar.  Maybe it is not much better than the default Firefox search,but it is what I am used to.  Plus I really, really like the fact that the search terms automatically come up as "find" buttons. Unfortunately, and for reasons unknown, my Firefox crashed today and restarted as version 34.  No more Toolbar for me! Fortunately, things are just a tad slower than usual.  Or maybe I was so pissed I just ended up staying up until past midnight to fix everything and write this post.  Either way, I found some time. To make it short (it is late): -  Googlebar Lite replicates most, if not all, of the previous Google Toolbar functionality in Firefox 29+.  ...

Symptoms:  Google Drive persists in giving the error "Sorry, upload of the file failed".  This occurs when using drag-and-drop or the "upload" button in the browser.  Errors occur regardless of file size.  A good test is to try and upload a tiny text file, to ensure bandwidth or other issues are not the problem.  Re-enabling Java in the browser does not help. More info:  Google help had nothing on this error message, and as far as I could see, nobody else had reported this exact problem.  I'm guessing people who access Drive via their browser are in the minority. I could not use the PC Drive interface in this instance since I was uploading video files that I did not want mirrored to my PC SSD. Solution:  You're probably using an older browser.  It may have worked fine in the past, but Google is presumably always tweaking / upgrading the Drive interface.  I have stuck with Firefox 14.0.1 up until July 2014 because I knew it and t...

If you have any combination of multiple Google Apps and Gmail accounts, you're probably sick of signing out and signing in to different accounts to do different things.  Fortunately, Google allows "multiple account sign-in" that can alleviate the pain.  Makes it sooo much easier to manage all that email. The feature is not supported across all Google services (like Blogger, for example).  Not working for you?  Try these other solutions from TechRepublic.

Like many people, I had to do this when setting up a Google Apps account - I needed my personal calendar and Apps calendar to both show up on my phone. You often cannot just add another Google account to an Android.  You typically get a "Can't establish a reliable data connection to the server", which is complete crap.  Essentially, you are stuck, unable to add another Google account to your mobile - dumb, but true. However, if you follow the instructions so helpfully provided by Marc Fonteijn , you can get it working.  No import/export required.  Basically, you share the Calendars between both accounts, and give both sides the ability to edit events on both calendars. If you run into the bug where "Share all information, and outsiders can change calendars" is not shown as an option:  Set up the share email accounts anyway.  Shut down all your Firefox windows, restart Firefox, and clear everything in your history.  Then sign back in to your Apps ...

OK, you're stuck in the middle of the pissing match.   What do you do? Maybe try Google Apps. I'm usually pretty wary about this sort of thing.  I don't want to waste time, I'm leery of cloud-based 'stuff', and 'free' services are often anything but.  So I did some homework, and here is what I found: Apps is (supposedly) to custom domains what Gmail is to personal domains.  In fact, it seems that there is no difference between a Gmail account and an Apps account - except Apps email 'comes' from your own domain name. For example, in Gmail, I am "titam@gmail.com".  In Apps, I am 'titam@titam.com'.  Cool. Aside from that, Apps is just Gmail.  Sure, you do get Calendar, Drive, Docs, etc.etc. thrown in for good measure, but for the purposes of getting off GoDaddy email and on to something else, the Apps mail service is what we really need right now. I've used Gmail for a while now to back up my GoDaddy email.  So I kn...