Bottom line is everyone hates SPAM. But there is going to be no way to get rid of it apart from spam filters but that's just going to clutter up the filter. (great!). 

A recent victim to Spam has been Virgin. Email accounts were being flooded with spam newsletter's meaning that user's couldn't access their emails for up to 4 days. I can just imagine that being the hardest thing to do if you are a workaholic. Haha. 

The spam became so bad that the emails that the actual legitimate couldn't get through to the receiver. This in itself is a frustrating thing if you are waiting for an email. I myself have been in the same situation! Whenever a customer tried to access their account they got an error message. Error messages can be very annoying so if you were trying to look at your emails then imagine that ! Thank god for Google Mail i say. 

Around 200,000 people use the Virgin service. However only half of those were affected. Good for those who were on the half who didn't get it! This is totally ridiculous that spam can breach these parameters that the webmail services put in place. We should really start to do anything possible to get rid of spam.

Although Spamza doesn't help! We can only hope that it stays down. Sorry for all those who are spam enthusiasts!

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind? (link)

Then again, all things can be broken. (link)

1) Metaboli - Unlimited Gaming

Might as well get the gaming site out the way to start with, metaboli is a online website and service that allows you to download and play as many as the 292 games for a monthly subscription fee.

There is a lot of newer games, Assassins Creed, World in Conflict and The Witcher among them, however there are also plenty of good quality older games.

The games are divided into the Ultimate and the Essential collection, the Essential collection contains mostly older games and is priced at just under £7. The Ultimate collection is more expensive at around £12 a month but includes all the games on the service, not just the older ones! 

2) BBC iPlayer

Chances are if you live in Britain you have already heard of this one, and if you haven't you ought to check it out, basically it lets you watch the last 7 days of BBC programming, it has developed a lot since it was released as it now allows watching it in a flash player from within the browser in both high and lower quality, depending on your bandwidth, it also lets you download to your computer at a even higher quality, however this only works on windows systems. One of the newest features is the ability to download for mobile devices, however this is fairly limited and the majority of devices are not supported. Still its a great way to watch tv if you dont have time to watch it when it is broadcast and can't be bothered to set a recorder!

3) Google Mail

Essentially another version of GMail. Google Mail is probably the best free email provider out there, with plenty of features including checking other pop accounts, stupid amounts of storage and the ability to message other google mail users from within the web client. The final cherry on the cake is there are no annoying adverts all over the place like other providers!

4) Flickr

 Flickr is simply the best photo sharing and online album software on the web, mostly specialising in more artistic photos rather than the drunken night out type common to other sites. Like most social networking sites flickr allows the adding of friends and family as contacts to link them to your profile and restrict viewing to certain contacts. Flickr also has plenty of add on sites that allow you to turn your photo into various items including books and prints. 

If you want to see my flickr photos you can find them at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alogan 

5) XFire

Xfire is a instant messaging application designed for gamers, it records your the number of hours you spend in each game and allows you to talk to other gamers from inside the game. The website also has several other features including downloads of demos, patch's as well as free games. It also allows you to view screen shots and videos other gamers have uploaded to the website. Another interesting feature is overall stats for each game both daily and overall, worth a look if you want to see how a new game is faring in the whole scheme of things!

Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning

As you must have understood, just like the police prevents you from drunken driving, Gmail is trying to prevent you from drunken emailing.

What it does is, ask u to solve a series of mathematical equation just before the mail is sent and after you've hit the send button. And this has to be done in under 60 seconds.

Interesting message it shows in case u get the equations wrong,

Water or bed for you

Not sure how much of a help would this feature be. I am a teetotaler. So for sure its of no use to me. And the people who drink and whom I know, are absolutely in no condition to mail when they are high (friends reading this would know what I mean, I have seen a lot of "drama" ;-) ).

Good thought though.

To enable Gmail Labs you'll have to go to Gmail Settings and there should be Labs tab sitting pretty there.

I found a few very useful apps in the Labs. Here I list the ones I have been using.

• Right Side Chat: The chat window in Gmail by default on the left hand side below the mail folders and lables. This means that every time you want to see who is online, u'll have scroll down and check the chat window. Well no more. With Right side chat in the labs enabled, chat is now placed neatly on the Right hand side of the window. Even when u open a conversation, the ads on the right hand side a placed below the chat.
• Mark as Read Button: This option I find very useful. See the thing is I have a lot of mail conversations that I just do not bother to open (newsletters, forum updates, news updates etc). Just looking at the subject I decide should I look at it or ignore. What I do is mark all such conversations as read. But by default marking as read a involves selecting the conversations and then selecting Mark as read from the drop down More Actions menu. But some extra clicks are saved with the "Mark as read Button" as the button is placed right next to the Delete button. Good One this.
• Custom Lable Colors: This is another useful feature. My mail conversations have a lot of lables. And I do like to give each lable a different color. But I hate the colors provided by default. This feature comes in handy to add custom colors to lables.
• Pictures in Chat: Dont know much about this. I dont used the chat from Gmail when I am on my MacBook. I find iChat much much better that any other chatting software. Effects that are available in Photo Booth are available in iChat too (Have a look at the fun I have with Photo Booth here)

These were a few of the Labs apps that I use. Do leave a comment about with app u like the most or just leave a comment about anything.

It didn't seem like a random mistake I might have made.... I don't even touch those settings.

My account has not been hacked. My account saw activity only from the computer I was logged on.

Why does this happen?

Rather, why does this happen only to me?

Or does it.... Has anyone else undergone the same thing? Did it recur?

Folks who designed/implemented GMail, any answers? What can I do to solve this?

And a humble request to folks reading this... pass this post along, share this post... please do something such that it comes to the notice of someone who can help.

Google announces mail goggles to stop you sending random emails when you've had one or two shandies more than usual. Lots of services happen in text world already but first email version as far as I know.

Thanks to Carrie for the heads up.

Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn |nr_gill@hotmail.com

Here is the post: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret

I rarely send drunk emails but being an occasional Drunk Myspacer, I think this is a great idea. Just a quick reminder to make me think; "Hey, do you really want to send that handsome lead singer a message with the subject 'I Agree' and the body just your phone number?" I probably would say, yeah, you're right, not a good idea.

The best, most practical spawn of this idea would be the Text Goggles. Honestly, it would improve the quality of my life. Eighty percent of the people I know are usually out until three in the morning on any given night of the week due to their professions- most are artists of one form or another and are creatures of the night. So, hitting someone up to kick it at midnight isn't that big of a deal. But when it rolls around two and you've been at Barragan's for five rounds of $2.50 concoctions of rubbing alcohol and margarita mix, it's probably best not to be sending suggestive messages to ex-flings or even friendly "Come hang out!"s to guys you think are your "friends". Yes, all bad ideas. I promise. But I hate math. If I had to answer math problems before texting between the hours of midnight and three am, I would save myself a lot of stress. No more mornings of seeing my full sent folder of superficially intelligent yet obviously drunken messages and an empty inbox. No more worrying about trying to resolve any issues I might have conjured up for myself. No more awkward, red-earred confrontations about my absurd and unforeseeable forwardness. No more, "God damn it, I told myself I'd never make out with that dude from The Standard who owns every 7 Diamonds shirt again !!!"

Yes, TEXT GOGGLES !
THE WAY OF THE FUTURE !!!

Blackberry, get on that app, STAT.
kthanks<3

Before you send that drunken email at 1:48am on a Saturday night, Gmail's Mail Goggles app will ask you to do some simple math problems:

If you can't multiply 2x5, you probably shouldn't be emailing your ex-boyfriend.  No, it's not a "game changer" or a "killer app," it just makes you love Google more.

Nun kuck ich vor ein paar Wochen zufällig in den Account und finde zich fremde Mails:

Erst dachte ich es ist Spam, bei genaueren hinsehen merkte ich das es eine normale Kommunikation einer Firma aus Österreich war.
Dann guckte ich nach falschen Antwortadressen usw in den Headern der Mails, alles ok.
GMail Google-Mail scheint anscheinend alle Emails des Accounts X.X.meinalias@gmail.com auch in das Postfach von meinalias@gmail.com zuzustellen.
Allerdings klappte es durch normales anlegen eines weiteren Y.Y.meinalias@gmail.com Accounts nicht diesen Effekt erneut zu erzeugen.
Nachdem ich den Eigentümer des Accounts X.X.meinalias@gmail.com von GMX aus angeschrieben habe hat sich dieser sich mit Google in Verbindung gesetzt. Die Antwort-Email landete wieder (auch) bei mir und egal wie wir dann das Problem erklärt hatten, Google schrieb immer:
"
Liebe Google Mail-Nutzerin,
Lieber Google Mail-Nutzer,
vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht.
Wir empfehlen Ihnen, sich an den Kundensupport des anderen Webmail-Anbieters zu wenden, um weitere Anweisungen zu erhalten. Vielen Dank für Ihre weitere Unterstützung.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Ihr Google Mail-Team
"

Also statt sich an Google wg  X.X.meinalias@gmail.com zu wenden empfiehlt Google sich an den Anbieter des Accounts  meinalias@gmail.com zu wenden. Blöde Sache..., die antworten genau das gleiche.
Naja, da ich den Account eh nicht lesend verwende ists mir eigentlich egal. Trotzdem könnte ich emails eines anderen und in dem Fall eines kleinen Betriebs zugreifen und schindluder treiben.

Die Emails an Google waren Mitte Juli. Heute gingen wieder ein paar an X.X.meinalias@gmail.com bei mir ein so wie jeden Tag.

Aber stellt sich die kleine Frage: Liegts an google oder am anderen Account. Wenns an Google liegt:
Wieviele lesen noch bei fremden Accounts mit?

Header der Mails die ich bekomme:
------------------------------------------

Delivered-To: meinalias@gmail.com
...
X-Forwarded-To: meinalias@gmail.com
...
X-Forwarded-For: y.y.meinalias@gmail.com meinalias@gmail.com
...
Delivered-To: y.y.meinalias@gmail.com
...
Return-Path: <blabla@gmail.com>
...

MIME-Version: 1.0
...
From: "blabla" <blabla@gmail.com>
To: "Firma" <y.y.meinalias@gmail.com>
Subject: nur ein test

------------------------------------------
und nein, ich hab keinerlei Weiterleitung eingestellt:

aber ich wäre eh der falsche "Empfänger" für diese Weiterleitung.
Was der andere macht / gemacht hat weiss ich leider nicht...
------------------------------------------

Lustig fand ich auch das GMail Google-Mail immer nocht nicht seine Hilfeseiten ausgebessert hat.
Seit Monaten fehlen dort Bilder aber die Firefoxnutzer bei Google merken das wohl nicht weil der Browser fehlende Bilder nicht anzeigt. Google-Chrome zeigt auch den Platzhalter für das fehlende Bild ;)

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77662

Passenderweile schützt Google die User schon vor "Selbstentblödung" schreibt golem:
http://www.golem.de/0810/62796.html

Gmail is rather functional and I find that my time is not taken up by useless tasks. However, there is still room for squeezing some more time out of the famous Google inbox; mouseless navigation.

There are numerous shortcuts that can be used to navigate, organise, write, send and archive, all from the comfort of your keyboard. The even got a mention on the Official Gmail Blog. Just Google It explains and tests them out...

The first thing when you are greeted with your Gmail (or Google mail) inbox is your unread messages.

Time to put these shortcuts into action! (If you try these shortcuts and they don't work, do what I did and turn on 'keyboard shortcuts' in your settings! ¬_¬ )

Using J and K to move up and down (I think that King is the higher card = up, and that the Jack is the lower card = down) we can browse our messages. Some of them, we know, we don't need to read, so selecting with X, we group the messages and Shft+I to mark as read (I think that my I has shifted across them). If you want to mark it as unread you use Shft+U.

If we want to go into a message, use J or K to move to it, then hit Return to enter the message. From here you can Reply, Star or Forward the message. Those are the easier shortcuts. You can also reply to all [A], report spam [!], archive [E] or delete [#] the message.

From the inbox we can compose a message with C, tab down the boxes, fill in the info and when its ready to send with hit Tab+Enter, and away it goes.

Other universal shortscuts I found useful are G+I (Go-to-Inbox), *+U (Select Unread emails) and *+N (Deselect all).

Now to see if we can remember them all...

A great page to bookmark, apart from our homepage of course, for a reference guide is the sheet that Odeo CEO Evan Williams provides here.

Have you used the shortcuts before? Did they become routine? Let us know. Leave a comment!

Adesso basta!

Non se ne può più!

Ha rotto il c***o GMail stavolta! Ieri ho raggiunto un nuovo record personale: 30 messaggi di spam in una sola giornata nella casella di posta personale, quella che non uso mai se non per gli amici e per la posta importante.

Per un totale di 462 messaggi di spam in 30 giorni (poi li cancella in automatico..)! Per carità il 99% la riconosce in automatico e la mette direttamente nella cartella apposita, però...

Era nato come un servizio innovativo: tanto spazio, grafica bella, semplice e intuitiva, ma soprattutto la possibilità di scaricare la posta da tutti gli altri account sparsi per il web (eccetto hotmail ovviamente...)! Oltre altre chicche come la possibilità di avere un'infinità di altri indirizzi associati semplicemente inserendo il simbolo "+" al termine del nome utente, seguito da qualunque combinazioni di lettere o numeri, o aggiungendo/spostando il "." nel nome utente...

Non è concepibile che invece nella casella su yahoo, per intenderci quella fake che uso per iscrivermi a tutti i siti/forum possibili, per le newsletter, ecc. non arrivino più di 3/4 messaggi di spam al giorno...

La conclusione è una sola: bigGim vende i nostri account a peso d'oro a quelli che fanno spam, non ci si scappa! Questo tra l'altro spiegherebbe anche perché il filtro Spam funzioni così bene! O magari nel contratto di vendita è prevista una clausola che dice che in automatico le e-mail ricevute andranno nella cartella Spam. ;-P

Almeno ci desse metà degli introiti sulla vendita...

So what's the most important takeaway from this ugly, yet amusing, incident? That Yahoo!'s email security policies suck? I'm guessing that Alan would answer that with a resounding "yes!" (albeit more emphatically and certainly more colorfully). Or is it that all web-based email services' security sucks? Or maybe that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy to discredit our lovely GOP VP wannabee? (Oh! - I like that one).

Not to minimize or criticize the excellent analysis and advice proffered by fellow security bloggers, I think the most important takeaway was this:

Security is about managing risk. First you identify the assets that are exposed, then determine the threats that those assets will be exposed to, and finally determine how best to to manage that risk. This was yet another, albeit high profile, case of poorly managed risk.

Does Yahoo!'s mail security, particularly their password reset mechanism, introduce threats? Of course. Same with Google Mail or Hotmail. Can these threats be mitigated? Of course. Is it safe for me to use webmail? Ah, now we get to the question, however obliquely, that we should have asked first. So lets start at the beginning shall we?

1. What is the benefit received from a web-based email/calendar/contacts system?
2. What are the information assets that would be exposed?
3. What are the threats to those assets?
4. How can those threats be mitigated?
5. Given the value of the exposed assets, can the threats be mitigated sufficiently such that the risk can be accepted?
6. Do the benefits outweigh the cost in money and risk?

So if I'm me (which I was last time I checked) I would get a great deal of benefit from an online system like Yahoo! (disclaimer: I don't actually use Yahoo!, I use something else), since I like to be connected everywhere and I make a point of keeping my work and personal stuff well separated.

In my case, the information assets that are exposed by my webmail are intentionally minimal. No important numbers or addresses and minimal Personally Identifiable Information.

The major threat to my assets is exposure due to data breach, with the most likely vector being a compromised password.

I've already written a blog entry about password security and I also use some of the stuff outlined here.

The value of my exposed information assets is pathetically low - my family weekend plans or my personal address list are, sadly, valuable only to me. So any common sense mitigation I can put in place will definitely make the effort required to compromise my data a very poor investment indeed.

Therefore, the convenience of having my todo list available on my iPhone far outweighs the risk of that data being exposed.

But then I'm not the Governor of Alaska and a vice presidential candidate. Ms. Palin should have gotten to #2 and started hearing all kinds of alarms going off. Barring that (hey, she only recently became a celebrity - er... high profile person) the answer to #5 is "no!" (actually "HELL, NO!"). Particularly since the data identified in #2 was not hers to risk - some of it belonged to the people of the sovereign state of Alaska. I can safely say that were I to expose my employer's data via a personal online account, no matter what precautions I took and regardless if it were actually compromised, I would be fired. Immediately. Walked right out the door. And rightly so.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get promoted to Vice President.

online calendars are never going to set the world alight but google's offering builds on the success of some of their other services and includes features like sms reminder messaging free of charge. one of the smartest features within the application is 'quick add', which analyses the text you've typed into the globally available pop up window and creates a calendar entry based upon what you have written. it does so with surprising accuracy and it soon becomes your default method of adding events

the main screen displays events in day, week, month, 2 week and agenda views. selecting an event from the main calendar window allows you to edit the event details, delete the event or view the location via google maps

editing detailed event information allows you to set up repetitions, edit the events duration and add a detailed description. you can edit dates manually or drag and drop them on the main screen

google have provided three types of event reminder: pop-up, email and sms. within the uk the sms functionality is restricted to sending text message reminders a set number of minutes before the event is due to begin. set up is quick and free of charge and you wont find yourself receiving unwanted texts from associated third parties. in the united states the service has been extended and you are able to add calendar events via sms. it's a great service for those without a web enabled mobile phone and although all of the google apps seem to perpetually be in beta, it's also reliable

google are really pushing the idea of letting you share your data with friends and the public across all of their online apps. calendar is no exception and lets you add other people's google calendars to your own, share you calendar with others and it even lets you publish content via rss feeds or web pages

you can create multiple calenders to help manage things like work and home events, allowing you to show all or just selected calenders. this can be used to overcome a constraint in the basic calendar functionality whereby you can't tag events depending on type. it's tough to criticise a free service but as yet there's also no easy way to sync with imap enabled calendar tools such as microsoft's outlook without the use of third party sites or software. as you'd expect, the service works well with the iphone and other mobile platforms and will likely work even better with android based mobile handsets

in summary, google calendar is a very good product offering a decent feature set without charge. as you'd expect from a company that makes most of it's revenue via online advertising their 'adsense' adverts feature within the calender but are limited to a small area down the right hand side of the page. it's a small price to pay for the functionality on offer. with the increasing level of integration between the googles online web services this is certainly something to try out if you are in the market for an cloud-based calendar solution

Was ist so toll an Google?

Google ballert eine Anwendung raus und Tage später ist sie bei zigtausenden - wahrscheinlich sogar auf Millionen Rechnern installiert.

Immer wieder liest man von der Sammelwut, die Google mehr oder weniger öffentlich an den Tag legt, und doch ertappe mich selbst auch immer wieder dabei, wie ich auch private Dinge, wie z.B. Termine in den Google Kalender eintrage.
Aber was macht die Googleanwendungen eigentlich besser als andere Programme/Anbieter im Netz?

Ich versuche immer wieder Alternativen zu finden. Nicht nur, um eine bessere Anwendung zu entdecken, sondern auch, um ein Statement zu setzen. Frei nach dem Motto: Google? Nicht mit mir.
Aber ich finde nie Anwendungen, die so gut harmonieren und so komfortabel sind, wie die von Google.
Sei es der Google Reader, der mit meine Feeds im iGoogle serviert, oder der Mailservice Gmail.
Die Benutzeroberfläche ist in allen drei Fällen (Reader, iGoogle, Gmail) für mich einfach perfekt.
Ich kenne keinen Mailclient, der auch nur ansatzweise so gut zu bedienen ist, wie Gmail.

Der Google Kalendar integriert sich ideal in die Startseite iGoogle, die nebenbei auch noch meine eMails und Feeds aus dem Google Reader anzeigt.
Komfortabler geht es doch garnicht!
Und dieses auf iGoogle komprimierte Interface, dass mir alles anzeigt, was momentan wichtig ist, bietet nicht nur mir einen Vorteil. Nein - auch Google profitiert davon, dass ich alles auf deren Servern hoste.
Sie können an Hand meiner Termine (Pizza essen mit X in Y) und meiner eMails gepaart mit meinen Routenanfragen aus Google Maps einfach die passenden Pizzaläden oder Restaurants anzeigen.
Und schon ist ein profil für meine Person erstellt.
Verfeinert wird das ganze dann noch durch meine Suchanfragen, die ich an Google schicke.

Aber ich will das eigentlich garnicht!
Ich will meine Feeds nicht über Google abrufen; ich will meine privaten eMails nicht auf den Googleservern ablegen; ich will keine Startseite, auf der alle Suchanfragen gespeichert und analysiert werden.

Aber was gibt es schon für Alternativen?
netvibes.com ist eine schöne Startseite.
Anpassbar, mehr oder weniger kompatibel mit den Gadgets, die es auch für iGoogle gibt, aber doch anders.
Zum Beispiel fehlt mir da eine schöne Auflistung meiner RSS-Feeds.
Wenn ich alle 70 Feeds, die ich abonniert habe, in einem Tab auf netvibes anzeigen lasse, muss ich fünf virtuelle Meter nach unten scrollen, damit ich die letzten Feeds lese.
Von Effektivität oder "mal schnell einen Blick auf die neuesten Feeds werfen" kann dort nicht mehr die Rede sein.

Der Liferea (Linux Feed Reader) ist ein toller Feedreader für Linux, aber meiner Meinung nach einfach nicht schnell genug. Es müssen immer die einzelnen Feeds von den einzelnen Servern geladen werden. Das dauert einfach seine Zeit.
Und ganz nebenbei finde ich es einfach schade, dass ich Liferea nicht in iGoogle meine Startseite einbinden kann. Dann kann ich nämlich einfach meinen Blick 20cm nach rechts lenken, und schon sehe ich die neuesten Posts!

Gmail ist sowieso außer Konkurrenz - wie gesagt, das Interface ist einfach zu gut...
Da kommt Evolution nicht mit. Thunderbird mocht ich eh noch nie.

Also was bleibt?

1. • Mail-Client immer laufen lassen; auch, wenn mir der Aufbau und das Interface nicht gefällt
   • Feed-Reader laufen lassen; auch wenn ein Update der Feeds ein paar Minuten dauert.
   • Kalendar bietet mir Evolution; aber nur, wenn ich zu Hause bin
2. • Bei den Google-Anwendungen bleiben und zusehen, wie meine Privatsphäre aufgehoben wird.
     Aber immerhin passiert es komfortabel.

Ich weiß nicht...

Early 2007. Google Mail opens up for public registration.

Late 2007. Google Mail is upgraded.

During all this time, I and many others have been using the same interface of GMail. Of course, some bits and pieces were changed here and there (esp. on the sidebar). Then came along Userstyles which allows to change the display of web pages in Firefox by tweaking the CSS. Stylish is a FF extension that did all the nifty look-changing work. All one had to do is get hold of a visual style (which was nothing but a CSS file) and load it into stylish and voila! the look of GMail was changed. Thanks to Harsh, I was introduced to this userstyle (GMail Redesigned by Globex Designs) which by far was the coolest looking one I've come across! I've been using it ever since but with the advent of FF 3, some of the CSS began to break and the look and feel was lost somewhat!

Enter GMail Redesigned v.0.1. This time its neatly packaged into a Firefox extension (.xpi) which is available via the Mozilla Addons page and once its downloaded and installed, it resides on your FF statusbar. Allow it to update the stylesheet once and you're good to go. GMail will be a different experience altogether - visually, that is! And yeah, it also has a style for Google Calendar. Keep in mind that the layout is all black and gray...so if you're the types who likes bright and rosy colours, this ain't for you. See the screenshots here before you decide to use it.

I've been impressed with the take-up of LeaveBooker so far purely from search engines.  Usage is strong and people like using it.  There have been a couple of requests for new features and we're working on including as many of those as we can in the next release.  I expect the next release to happen end of September, early October.

Now that there are real LeaveBooker users, doing any updates is going to have to be planned better than it has been up to now.

Google Chrome is something that has caught my eye this week and I'm using it right now.  So far I'm impressed with the speed and I think it might just become my browser of choice.  I'm a Google Mail user and also make extensive use of Google Docs.  I find their products generally easy to use, very very fast and stable.  You can see that they've thought about what they've made, which is really refreshing.

I just noticed it today. Has this been around for a long time now?