Tip: A cautionary tale about syncing

— -- Q: My BlackBerry is syncing my contacts to Google, even though I never installed any sync app.

A: This reader had thought he'd installed a simple Gmail-downloading app when he had really downloaded a more complex synchronization tool, then didn't notice what was going on until he checked in at Google's site. The combination of software involved may be a little esoteric, but the underlying problem — granting an app unnecessary access to your data and then forgetting about it — is not.

After asking for help in one of Google's tech-support forums, he learned that the problem was the "Enhanced Gmail" app, developed not by Google but by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.

He only discovered that this program had uploaded his contacts when he saw those contacts listed in his Google profile. Then he saw them vanish from his phone after he deleted them from Google.

The fix involved returning to the BlackBerry's e-mail-setup screen, selecting the Gmail account in question and then scrolling down to clear a checkbox for contacts syncing. That was what he wanted in the first place: to use Gmail strictly as an e-mail inbox, not a gateway to Google's other services.

I'd imagine that most of you won't have this particular issue. The BlackBerry isn't the most popular phone these days, and Google's own mobile apps should be a more obvious choice for Gmail access on RIM's phones anyway.

But many of us probably do have all sorts of other data-synchronization relationships that we set up a long time ago and have since forgotten about. Do you remember how many apps can see your Facebook friends list, access your Gmail or post as you on Twitter? A few weeks ago, Andy Baio observed in a cautionary piece for Wired.com that he had "49 apps connected to my Google account, 80 to Twitter, and over 120 connected to Facebook."

(Because all of these sites let you approve a third party's request for access using a sort of secret-handshaking feature called OAuth, you don't need to provide your password to that app — which may lead people to be more generous at granting permission than they would have been otherwise.)

Baio suggested visiting a site, MyPermissions.org, that links directly to the app-permissions pages of 16 Web services, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Windows Live, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Dropbox and Instagram. You'll need to log into each service separately to see these details; this is not yet another site requesting access to your account credentials.

I'm happy to repeat that endorsement here. Visit this free site, see what programs and services can borrow your keys to these services, and think carefully and skeptically to decide if they still deserve that privilege.

Tip: Alternate Android keyboards

Even though Google provides a perfectly good onscreen keyboard in its Android operating system, some Android phone vendors can't seem to resist inflicting their own, lesser keyboards on users.

On Motorola's Droid Bionic, for instance, the default keyboard would suggest corrections but not actually make them for me. Samsung's Galaxy Note provided the opposite problem: I was constantly thumb-wrestling with an overactive keyboard that tried to auto-complete words even as I was backspacing over my own typos.

You can usually veto these choices and either return to Google's own "Android keyboard" or switch to an alternate bundled by the vendor, such as the ingenious Swype. Hold down a finger (aka, "long-press") in a blank text-input area like the browser's address bar, and you should see a short menu pop up with "Input method" listed. You can also change keyboards in the Settings app's "Language & keyboard" category.

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Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based in Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, e-mail Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/robpegoraro.