With the release of BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0 for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet (pssst – have you downloaded the most recent update yet?), here’s a quick refresher on how to secure physical access as well as file sharing on your tablet. This is important information because using a password is a simple way to prevent someone from accessing your personal information, which is why this is one of the first things I recommend doing when you set up a new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or BlackBerry® smartphone.

I’ll also be showing you how to secure file sharing on your tablet whenever you want to send files to and from our tablet using USB or Wi-Fi® Sharing. Learn more about securing your tablet after the jump!

How to secure physical access to your tablet

To set a password that allows you to lock and unlock your tablet, complete the following steps while viewing your tablet’s Home screen.

1. While viewing your Home screen, swipe down from the top bezel to access your tablet settings.

• Tip: You can also use the Gear icon that appears in the top right corner of the Home screen to access your tablet settings.

2. Tap “Security” followed by “Password”.
3. Toggle “Enable Password” to “On” and when prompted, enter your desired password twice followed by selecting “Ok”.

• Note: This password cannot be reset so ensure you remember what password you have entered.

4. Specify a desired “Lock After” value to determine how long your device waits before entering standby mode.

• Tip: To exit standby mode, just swipe across the screen from bezel to bezel.

After enabling a password on your tablet, here a few things you should know:

• To change your password in the future, use the “Change Password” option that’s available in the Password settings screen.
• To lock your tablet, press the Battery icon on the Home screen status bar followed by selecting Lock.

• To unlock your tablet, swipe from bezel to bezel; for example, left to right, top to bottom, etc.

Help! I forgot the password used to unlock my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet!

When you set a password on your tablet, you’ll have 10 attempts to enter the correct password. If the wrong password is entered 10 times, your tablet will perform a security wipe which will wipe and erase your stored data. As mentioned earlier, this password cannot be reset so make sure you remember what password you will be using.

To help prevent data loss, we always recommend performing backups of your tablet’s data using BlackBerry® Desktop Software. For more information on how to back up the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s data, check out KB26134.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

(Not a fan of text? Check out the above video instead to learn how to secure your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet)

How to secure shared files and folder access

In addition to setting a password to secure physical access to your tablet, I also recommend using a password to secure access to shared files and folders on your tablet. Something to keep in mind is that changing any of the settings below will cancel any file transfers that are currently in progress.

1. While viewing your Home screen, swipe down from the top bezel to access your tablet settings.

• Tip: You can also use the Gear icon that appears in the top right corner of the Home screen to access your tablet settings.

2. Tap “Storage & Sharing” and enable one or both of the following options:

• File Sharing – Allow access and sharing your tablet’s files and media over a USB connect to your computer
• Wi-Fi Sharing – Allow file sharing over Wi-Fi networks

3. Toggle “Password Protect” to “On” and when prompted, enter your desired password twice followed by selecting “Ok”.

• Tip: Need to change your password in the future? Just tap on the “Change Password” button to enter your new password.

4. Tap “Network Identification” and review the Tablet Network Name, Workgroup and Username

After doing this, whenever you connect your tablet to a computer using a USB cable, you’ll need to enter a password on your computer in order to access the tablet’s file system. In the event you are using Wi-Fi sharing, you’ll need to enter the user name obtained in the step 4 listed above and the password you set in order to view files and folders on your tablet using a Wi-Fi connection. For more information on using Wi-Fi Sharing, check out my post on how to copy files to and from a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet using Wi-Fi sharing.

	Explore tablet hardware Using the tablet interface BlackBerry Bridge Personalization Docs To Go Print To Go Calendar Contacts Video Player Messages Video Chat Browsing the web

More about BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0

1. Help Blog: Getting Started with Email, Contacts and Calendar in BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0
2. Help Blog: Getting Started with Video Chat in BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0
3. BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 is here!
4. New Video Chat features with BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0
5. BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 Reviews from CES
6. CES 2012: BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 Communicates [Video]

Protecting the contents of a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet in case it gets lost or stolen is really easy – all you need to do is set a password on the tablet. Today I’ll show you how to do this, in addition to how to protect shared media on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet if you are using File sharing and/or Wi-Fi® Sharing.

Before we begin, the password we’ll be creating to lock and unlock the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is a separate password from the BlackBerry® ID password that you would have entered when you initially set up your device. With that being said, here’s how to set a password and how to configure the amount of time before the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet locks automatically if you aren’t using it.

Setting a Password and Lock After value

1. On the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, tap the Gear icon in the upper right corner to open Settings. (circled in yellow)

2. Tap Security from the list on the left followed by tapping on Password.
3. Next to the Enable Password option, swipe the slider to the On position.

4. This will prompt the Set Password screen. Enter the password in the New and Confirm Password fields, then tap OK.

5. Next to the Lock After option, tap the drop down list and select an appropriate timeout setting.

To lock the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet after setting a password, just tap on the battery icon that appears in the top right corner and select Stand By. To use the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet again, just swipe your finger across the screen (top to bottom, or side to side) and you’ll prompted to enter a password to unlock it.

An important thing to note here is when you are prompted to enter the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet password to unlock it, you have 10 attempts to enter the correct password. If the wrong password is entered 10 times, a security wipe will occur that will erase all the user-stored data.

As mentioned earlier, the next thing you should do after setting a password to secure the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is protect shared media by setting a File Sharing and Wi-Fi Sharing password.

• File Sharing is when you access files stored on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet using a USB connection with your computer.
• Wi-Fi Sharing allows to access files stored on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet over a Wi-Fi network.

Securing File and Wi-Fi Sharing

To enable File Sharing & Wi-Fi sharing in addition to (and protecting) shared media, complete the following steps.

1. On the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, tap the Gear icon in the upper right corner to open Settings. (circled in yellow)

2. Tap Storage & Sharing in the list on the left.
3. If you haven’t already, toggle the slider for File Sharing to On.

4. If you set a password to lock the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet using the previous set of instructions, you’ll be asked to enter that password confirm this change.

5. After enabling File Sharing, the following message to appear.

6. Scroll down to password and toggle the slider for Password Protect to on.

7. Enter a new password and confirm the new password.
8. Optionally toggle Wi-Fi Sharing to On as well if you would like to use Wi-Fi sharing.

After setting this option, you have successfully secured sharing capabilities of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. In case you haven’t used Wi-Fi Sharing yet, I strongly recommend checking out this post on how to copy files to and from a BlackBerry PlayBook using Wi-Fi sharing to learn more about this feature.

Got a question about the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet? Leave a comment and let me know!

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

A really cool feature offered by the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is the ability to access its file system using Wi-Fi® sharing. This feature allows you to quickly – and wirelessly – copy files to and from the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet using a computer that is on the same network.

In order to use this feature, all you need to do is ensure that your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is connected to the same network as the computer you’d like to access it from. Provided you meet this requirement, you’ll be able to use Wi-Fi sharing – so let’s take a look at how to set it up and access your files today!

The first thing you need to do is enable Wi-Fi sharing on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, in order to access it wirelessly from a computer that is on the same network.

Enabling Wi-Fi sharing on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

1. On the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet home screen, tap the gear icon in the top right corner to view the Options menu.

2. Select Storage and Sharing.

3. Toggle Wi-Fi Sharing to On.

• A notice will appear suggesting you set a File Sharing Password, which I strongly recommend doing. If you do not set a password, other users can access your files through a Wi-Fi connection without being required to enter a password first.

4. Press OK, and if you would like to specify a password, toggle Password Protect to On and specify your desired password.

5. After choosing your password, scroll up and next to Network Identification, tap Properties and review the following settings. The username by default is “playbook” but you can optionally change it desired.

• Tablet Network Name
• Workgroup
• Username

At this point, you’ve successfully enabled Wi-Fi sharing and set a File Sharing password, so the next step is connecting to your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet wirelessly from your computer. To do this, you’ll need to know the IP Address that is assigned to your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

How to identify the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet IP Address

1. On the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet home screen, tap the gear icon to view the Options menu.

2. Select Wi-Fi.

3. Tap the Wi-Fi symbol with the Question Mark that appears in the bottom left corner.

4. Toggle Diagnostic Information from Device Information to Internet Connection.

5. The IP address that is assigned to your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will be displayed:

Okay, at this point we now know the IP address of your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and the username and File Sharing password if one was set earlier. All that’s left to do now is connect the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet wirelessly so you can start copying files to and from it without requiring a USB connection!

Accessing the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet using Microsoft® Windows

1. On your Microsoft Windows computer, select Start.

2. Select Run.

• If you are using Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7, you may need to search for the Run option first. If you cannot find the Run option, open My Computer that appears on your computer’s desktop, and enter the address mentioned in the next step in the My Computer address bar instead.

3. Enter the following and replace 1.1.1.1 with the IP Address you identified earlier. You will also need to enter the username you identified earlier and the File sharing password if you set one.

• \\1.1.1.1\

4. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet file system will now appear. Select Media then the folder you’d like to access, such as camera for photos and videos you’ve made recently, documents, music, et cetera.

Accessing the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet using Apple Mac OS X

1. On your Apple Mac OS X computer, open Finder and select Go.

2. Select Connect to Server.

3. Enter the following and replace 1.1.1.1 with the IP Address you identified earlier. You will also need to enter the username you identified earlier and the File sharing password if you set one.

• smb://1.1.1.1

4. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet file system will now appear. Select Media then the folder you’d like to access, such as camera for photos and videos you’ve made recently, documents, music, et cetera.

And that’s that! You can now access your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet file system without the use of a USB cable!

For more information how to transfers files to and from the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, check out KB26068 – How to transfer files to and from the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Do you have a question about Wi-Fi sharing? Leave a comment and let me know as I’d love to hear from you!