Gmail Allowing Remote Log-off and Last account activity details
Thursday, 10 July 2008

One of the benefits of Web-based e-mail is the ability to log on from just about anywhere - at home, at work, a friend's house, a mobile device or even a public library or cybercafe.
But what if you forget to log off? Someone else who encounters an active session not only can read your personal correspondences, but they also can use that account to grab your passwords from many online services that offer to send reminders via e-mail.
Google Inc.'s Gmail service is trying to address that by letting you know if you're still logged on elsewhere and giving you a chance to disconnect remotely.
At the bottom of a Gmail inbox is a small notice of other active sessions. The new feature, being rolled out to users in waves, also offers some information on the time and location of recent Gmail activities.


The notification is bound to be useful, though it's by no means foolproof. You have to be logged on somewhere to learn of other active sessions, and you have to look carefully for that notice. And if you have chosen to save your password on the other computer, someone else can simply log back on unless you change it.
But the feature does offer an extra level of comfort.
"Usually I remember to sign out, but every once in a while I wonder if I really did," Gmail engineer Erwin D'Souza wrote on a company blog. "Now I no longer have to wonder."
Other major Web e-mail providers - Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL - also allow simultaneous sessions, but they do not provide similar notice or ability to remotely log off. However, AOL does have a setting forcing automatic logoff after as little as 30 minutes of inactivity. Microsoft said Hotmail will ask for a password if the session remains idle for too long.

Clicking the Details link next to the Last account activity line at the bottom of your Google Mail account pages shows information about recent activity on your account.

Recent activity includes any time that your Google Mail account was accessed using a regular web browser, through a POP client, from a mobile device, etc. We'll list the IP address from which the account was accessed, as well as the time and date.

How to use this data

If you're concerned about unauthorised access to your Google Mail account, you'll be able to use this data to find out if and when unauthorised agents accessed your mail. Does the Access Type column show any unusual access? If you don't use POP to collect your mail, but your Recent activity table is showing some POP access, it may be a sign that your account has been compromised.

The IP address column is also useful. If you always or most often sign in to your account using a single computer, your IP address should be the same, or start with the same two sets of numbers (i.e. 192.168.xx.xx). If you're seeing an IP address that differs greatly from your usual IP address, it could either mean that you've recently accessed your account from a different location, or that someone has accessed your account. Your current IP address is displayed below the Recent activity table.

Concurrent sessions

If your Google Mail account is currently being accessed from another location, we'll list the other session(s) in the Concurrent session information table. This could mean that you simply have another browser window open with your Google Mail account loaded, or that your home computer is logged in to your account while you're accessing your mail from work. If you're concerned about any concurrent access, you can sign out all sessions other than your current session by clicking Sign out all other sessions .

If you think your account has been compromised

You'll need to change your password and your security question. The first step is to read our suggestions on choosing a good password to make sure that your new password is secure. Then, follow the instructions in How do I change my password? to update your password.

Second, read about choosing a good security question and answer before updating your settings. We also suggest reading some tips on keeping your account safe .

Finally, because you still have access to your account, please note that the Google Mail Team is unable to provide additional assistance.

Posted by Gaurav Shukla 20:41 0 comments    

Labels: Gmail, Google

What’s actually a blog?
Thursday, 19 June 2008

The general formula of a blog involves three key components – an extract, embedded links and personal commentary. The common denominator is the embedded links. Many of today's blogs, especially the personal journal or diary types, do not contain embedded links.
ON THE surface, it might seem obvious what a blog is but these days that term is bandied about so much that almost anything published online is referred to as a blog. But it wasn’t always the case. There used to be a precise definition of what a blog is or should be.
The word “blog” itself is actually a shortened version of the word “weblog”, which itself is not a very intuitive term. By looking at its component parts, one would be forgiven for mistaking a weblog for an online diary.

But blogs weren’t originally meant to detail activities of a person’s daily life or musings. They were originally used by geeks to share with other geeks the various interesting articles, postings and tools that they found on the web.

The general formula used involved three key components: i) an extract ii) embedded links iii) personal commentary.

So, if a blogger were to come across an interesting article about some new gadget for example, he would then take an extract from the article, embed a link to a keyword in the extract and then add in his two cents’ worth. Voila, you have a blog posting!

Of course that formula is not set in stone and even the early bloggers would occasionally deviate from it. But they generally had at least two of the three components.

The common denominator it would seem is the embedded link. And that’s a crucial point that distinguishes the original form of blogging with what blogs have grown to become today. Many of today’s blogs – especially the personal journal or diary types – do not contain embedded links.

FROM : THESTARONLINE

To see an example of “classical blogging” at work, visit blogs by Jeff Ooi, Rocky’s Bru and Tony Pua. Whether by design or just by natural inclination, these bloggers typically have at least two of the three components found in the classical blogging formula. Embedded links are always there.

Contrast that to the diary type bloggers such as Kenny Sia and Nicole Tan. You’ll find that their blogs contain a lot of pictures, lots of personal comments, observations and stories but no extracts or embedded links.

What that tells you is that the ethos of classical blogging is very different from that of online diary blogging.

The former is designed for the reader to come in, read what the blogger has to say about a particular topic and then move on to the original source of the story (which can be found by clicking on the embedded links). Such blogs are not meant to be sticky but to inform you about something the blogger discovered and wants to share.

The latter is designed for you to come in and hang around for a while. To read the witty or irreverent stories and to enjoy the pretty or funny pictures that accompanies them. In other words, they are meant to be sticky, not to send you away to some other site.

The online diary type of blogs, in contrast, are standalone and rarely refer to or derive their content from external sources.

Earlier this week, I moderated a forum on blogging where the panellists included Jeff and Rocky. At one point both of them remarked that although they are part of the alternative media movement, they still appreciated mainstream media because without mainstream media, they’d lose an important source of stories to link to and to comment on.

Interestingly, The Star’s Group-Chief-Editor, Wong Chun Wai, who was also a panellist also regularly, makes use of embedded links in his blog.

Although many of his postings consist of breaking news rather than commentary on a published topic, the fact that he includes embedded links makes him more of a classical blogger, in the mould of Jeff and Rocky

Many socio-political bloggers tend to adopt the embedded link approach to blogging. One very popular online presence who generally does not embed any links is Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who is often mistakenly referred to as a blogger.

He’s definitely an online pundit or commentator. Even the term online columnist would be a fairly accurate description. But in very few respects is his a blogger, be it in the embedded link or the online diary sense of the term.

In fact, his website, Malaysia Today, is very much an online news portal that aggregates content (often without permission) from all over the place. I have been amused in the past to suddenly find myself being a “Guest Columnist” on Malaysia Today without my knowledge!

In a sense, the ethos of blogging is there in that it’s about sharing information that Raja Petra (or his team) find interesting. But the form that they use – cutting and pasting whole articles rather than referring people to those articles through embedded links – is not that of blogging.

Some would say a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. And perhaps they are right in a sense. But if we are to use the terms “blog” and “anything published online” interchangeably, why even have the word “blog” in the first place? Surely, a phrase must have some specific characteristics in order for it to have any meaning.

Posted by Gaurav Shukla 00:32 0 comments    

Labels: Blogging

Show off your favorite blogs with a Blog List on Blogger
Monday, 9 June 2008

Adding a new page element to their inventory, Blogger has released Blog List function, which provides the bloggers the power to

• Link to blogs, web pages, and feeds from your blog’s sidebar, with an optional favicon
  
• For pages with RSS and Atom feeds, Blog List can show last updated time, post title, and a snippet of the latest post
  
• Sort links alphabetically or by last update time
• Show all links, or hide some behind a “show all” link
  
• Import subscriptions from Google Reader
  
• Blog List links are visible to search engine crawlers, so your blog’s PageRank and reputation flow to those you link to

Posted by Gaurav Shukla 02:14 0 comments