Crenk » Gmail

BBC Hacks Into GMail eMail Account over WIFI

Steven Finch — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:20:59 +0000

This article was just written over at TheNextWeb. I didnt want to just rewrite the article for everyone so here is what they said. I was wondering if anyone has any answers, mainly because this is a Gmail account and could affect millions of people.

BBC Watchdog is British TV program that investigates viewers’ reports of problematic experiences with traders, retailers, and other companies around the UK. A recent investigation has discovered that wi-fi hot spots across the country are not secure – leaving tens of thousands of users at risk of fraud.

In this particular case they reveal how easy it is to hack into someones GMail account over Wifi, sending emails and changing their password. According to Danny Sullivan who shared the link on Twitter, if he’d signed via secure https, he’d probably have been safe – can anyone verify?

If you can’t see the video below, watch it here.

How To Remove Advertising from Gmail

Steven Finch — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:16:59 +0000

For a long time now Gmail (like nearly every other Google product) has had Google Adsense ads in the sidebar. Have you ever wanted to get rid of these ads from your Gmail? Well now you can by simply adding in two fail-proof sentences into the signature of your emails.

All you need to add is:

I enjoy the massacre of ads. This sentence will slaughter ads without a messy bloodbath.

Then your Gmail should look like this:

Google Mobile: Links Getting Shorter and Smarter

Augusto Alvarez — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:29:57 +0000

If you have some kind of mobile addiction and feel the necessity to constantly check your email with your mobile; I’m pretty sure that you usually get uncomfortable trying to use the small screen on your phone. Well this is not a revolutionary invention, but it keeps reminding me that Google is trying to keep things simpler: “Smart Links” automatically shortens long links and converts them into named links.

This is what you usually when you are reading an email with a long link:

And Smart Links converting it like this:

Of course these links, at least for now, will only work with Google related sites: Google Maps, Google Sites web pages and YouTube videos (but they are expecting to make it available soon for Google Docs as well).

There’s an important disclaimer about the use of this feature: only works with plain text emails.

The Ultimate Google Cheat Guide

Luis Sandoval — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:51:32 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

There’s a lot to find when surfing the net late at night, and thanks to RSS Feeds, a lot of the internet can come to you with some nice key words.

For those of you that want to sharpen your skills in searching, perhaps get more power out of Gmail, or even maximize your RSS efforts in Google Readers, this interactive guide is right up your alley.

This guide is not necessarily supported by Google, but they are aware of it, and having used some of these amazing “hacks” to get out of my google applications, it works and you’ll be happy to have used it.

Read the GOOGLE GUIDE!

Google Voice, Get Ready

Augusto Alvarez — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:55:10 +0000

Google keeps up with his strategy to amaze ourselves constantly. Google Voice is a very interesting project that will allow you to receive all of your calls and messages in one number, and apply special rules whenever you receive these phone calls or messages.

Not convinced yet? There is more:

Integration with Gmail contacts and phones.
Recording conversations.
Manage and listen your voice mails. Including forwarding voice mails to other users.
Forward calls or messages to other six phones.
Text and phone calls within the US completely free.
Conference calls up to four members per conference.
You can set up rules to route each call to a specific number. For example, customers call -> automatically routed to my business phone; daughters call -> rings every phone; wife calling -> blocked
Google Voice can even transcript voice mail via e-mail. Yeap, that is right, you dont have time to listen your voice mails? Google Voice can send it that message as an e-mail with 90% accuracy in the transcript.
Service cost? Completely Free.
Availability? Currently available only for GrandCentral customers. But it is expected an official Google statement about general availability of this service.

Here are some videos about the Google Voice usability and features.

Even though we dont have any confirmation about the release of this new feature, get ready because I am sure it is going to change the way you communicate.

Gmail Manager: Firefox Add-On

Augusto Alvarez — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:48:26 +0000

Do you use several Gmail/Google Apps accounts? I only have two that I use constantly, but it is always hard to keep an eye on both. Gmail Manager is another great Firefox Add-on that can get your browsing and mailing experience a lot easier and nicer. You will get mail notifications and even check the new mails using only the lower left corner of your Mozilla browser.

Here’s how it looks:

For every new mail you also have a preview that you can check by only hover your mouse over the Gmail Manager area.

The installation procedure it is the same used for any Firefox Add-on, and the configuration panel it’s quite simple as well. You can have different options for each account configured: Notifications, toolbar and check for new messages frequency.

Instead of having different tabs with your accounts, or even different browsers to be able to log in with separate Gmail accounts, this is a great option for you to optimize your time. Give it a try.

Zemanta Now Available on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and ScribeFire

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:19:52 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

In less than a year, Zemanta has made a name for itself in the blogosphere. By becoming the premier add-on to the FireFox browser, bloggers now had access to an amazing set of tools to provide further depth to their posts. With hundreds of thousands of downloads, it seemed like a surefire winner, and there was little doubt that Zemanta has room to expand, but where and when?

Zemanta late last year supported another FireFox add-on called ScribeFire, a simple blogging tool that opened up in your browser without having to log into any other site or leave the page you are on. This allowed for amazingly quick posting to the blog of your choice, but also provided the same depth that you had available to you from within most popular blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad.

Recently it was announced that Zemanta has made another move towards mass market exposure, it has integrated with Gmail and Yahoo Mail, offering users of those mail clients the ability to attached related articles, pictures, and keywords to their emails that the recipients might need to fully understand the topic. I personally can’t imagine a better mass exposure opportunity than attaching yourself to two of the largest mail clients on the internet today.

Zemanta is a key tool that I recommend all bloggers install, but now with mail enhancements, I’m happy to see them growing. I’ve always been a big supporter of their efforts as it’s nice to see innovative ways to breathe life into a long standing medium like blogging.

It’s apparent that Zemanta will continue to offer what it always has; by offering photo suggestions, article suggestions, and keyword suggestions, as you type, updating every 300 words, there is bound to be another leap into further integration.

Perhaps a jump into an office platform for document and presentation creation, like Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. Only time will tell!

Kayne West Has Had His Twitter, Gmail and Myspace Accounts Hacked

Steven Finch — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:27:24 +0000

There has been lots of news recently about Twitter accounts being hacked from several stars, including Britney Spears. Today there is a new star who has been hacked and he hasnt just lost his Twitter account but also his Gmail and Myspace accounts.

The hackers were responsible for spreading an online rumour – seemingly from Kanye himself – that he was plotting a move into bisexual pr0n movies. “Please I beg you, give me a break!” West wrote on his blog, which appears to be the only arm of his online empire NOT to have been hacked.

Build Better Relationships with Zentact

matt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:54:49 +0000

Social networking is turning into a bit of a bramble patch. Whilst making loads of new contacts and keeping in touch with old ones, we’ve somehow lost the part of the networking that is the social – the sharing of information. Be it photos, music or words of wisdom, it’s not quite as easy to let those who’d like to, know.

A solution, however, is afoot. Zentact, brought to us by among others, Eric Marcoullier of MyBlogLog fame, aims to collate your contacts into one place and allow you to share bits and pieces as you browse.

After signing up and adding in a few personal details, you can simply import your contacts from Hotmail, LinkedIn, Gmail and Outlook via a CSV address book and after a few seconds, they are on your system.

Next, and I highly recommend this, download the Firefox extension, all will be revealed shortly.

Now, the genius part. Each contact is taggable with their likes and dislikes and when a web page which has tags that match your contacts, if you installed the extension, a smart little box will flash up in the top right hand corner of your screen with the list of contacts who’s interests are relevant to the site. You can then send them a link and be merrily on your way. Remember, social.

Now the one down side to this is that if you have hundreds of contacts, it takes ages to go through them all tagging away. I’d recommend doing it bit by bit, adding tags as you go – this will take longer but does two things:

It lets you see who you will really be sharing with – there’s no point in having 300 contacts if you only ever talk to six of them regularly anyway, which means you can quickly identify those defunct e-mail addresses you’ve not used in years or people who don’t share common interests.

Secondly, it makes the whole process a lot smoother – you may like a tag binge, but frankly I’d rather be spending my time actually looking at what I came to see rather than typing in long lists of keywords, especially ones that are tricky to spell.

Now, it will take a while for you and Zentact to get to know each other, but the more contacts you tag and the more sites sites you send, the better Zentact becomes at recommending what is suitable for whom. This is a great service and especially suitable for anyone who is on a lot of social networks but can’t quite keep up with what is going on with who. Now you can build your relationships easily and stay in touch better.

We are lucky enough to have a handful of guest invites so you can try the private beta version of this site and tell all your friends about, which you can get by clicking here. Incidentally, you can tell your friends about it via Zentact and you can then invite them to join in this most social of networks.

Top 10 Google Tools for Entrepreneurs

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:16:28 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

2009 is here and for a great many of us are looking at some huge opportunities before us. Whether you’re suffering because of the economy, or taking your idea and making it a reality, there is always risk involved going out on your own. As an entrepreneur the rules of the game change, and while you are your own boss, there is a lot you have to answer to when it comes to ensuring your success and proper execution of your idea.

As such, there is a big need for the right tools for the right job. Just like approaching any big project, the right tools can make you, the wrong tools will break you. I’ve taken the time to do a post on the top 10 tools that an entrepreneur can use to keep their professional life and business life in check. I’ve chosen Google tools simply because they all sync with one another. There are a lot of people out there that may naysay Google products, but having everything sync together just makes things easier.

1. GMail
A lot of services out there offer great email services, but GMail was one of the first out of the gate to offer a substantial amount of storage with the ability to manipulate the interface. Many of the competitors could not offer what GMail has offered and since then have copiedGMail’s efforts in an attempt to eat up some of the market share for email users. There are a lot of Google Labs additions that make GMail more useful so make sure you get an account and explore what it has to offer.

2. GCal (Google Calendar)
Once again this calendar works hand in hand with its email companion. From GMail you can instantly add events to GCal, and within the GCal interface you can send email reminders for specific events. SMS messages are also available making this calendar even more useful by having your event reminders go straight to your mobile device. Within GCal you can color code different calendar needs, such as one color for personal appointments, another color for professional appointments, etc. This allows you to see everything at once, or only the calendar events you choose to see by deselecting the colored tabs you wish not to see. The diversity makes this a must have, and the ability to access it from any computer is the icing on the cake for any professional.

3. GDocs (Google Documents)
Microsoft Office has taken a lot of heat for not diversifying itself over the years. It’s still the most widely used software package out there for all of our project and document uses. Still, the idea of cloud computing, and online word processing has eaten up a lot of that market share, and as more and more turn to online alternatives,GDocs is a clear leader in this movement. You have the ability to type your documents and save them for access from any computer you canlogin from. Along with saving them “in the cloud,” you can also include contributors to your document or include other readers as well. The versatility once again shows how vital this tools is for everyday business use.

4. Google Alerts
If you’ve got a brand out there, whether it’s you or a specific product, find out what people are saying about you. Google Alerts allows you to setup announcements based on keywords. Google will then focus on these keywords and when they are mentioned will collect the information and alert you of the mention. It’s also useful when looking for trending topics, or what other people are saying about the market you are in. Take heed, if you’re not listening to the chatter of the global users, you’re missing a lot!

5. Google Bookmarks
There’s a lot to be said about social bookmarking, but what if you’re not into socializing with others, and simply want to keep a record of key sites you want access to from any computer. Google Bookmarks will sync on any computer you have the toolbar set up on, but if you’re traveling, simply login through Google site and you will find everything you marked as key for your studies, research, and product ideas. You can add notes to the bookmarks and even add keywords to make them searchable for later.

6. GReader (Google Reader)
Many of us subscribe to RSS feeds, but for those of us that don’t, it would be a good addition to our business arsenal. Google Reader takes all of our RSS subscriptions and groups them in one place for you to read. You can keep track of all the news you follow within your industry, or recreational purposes, and mark favorites, share with others, email them directly to your contacts. Keeping track of what’s happening on all the sites you visit through a tool like GReader can save you a lot of time.

7. Google AdSense
Have a site where your product is featured, or perhaps a blog promoting your company? Why not make money off the site with Google AdSense? It’s all possible by finding keywords that Google decides are searched enough to be of value. By matching ads to your sites content, the author can earn money when traffic to your site clicks on the ads. You have the choice of whether to offer ads via text or images, but either way the readers of your site will find them useful. The amount of money made varies on your traffic and the amount of ads.

8. Google Analytics
With a solid idea, a site with popular traffic, you can keep tabs on the success and popularity of the site by subscribing to Google Analytics. The tool basically monitors all back-end information for your site. where your traffic is coming from, how many visitors to you site daily, weekly, monthly, etc. It will share with you how long people are on your site and what they are reading, giving you the opportunity to market yourself just right to keep the readers coming to visit.

9. Google Pages
Any entrepreneur needs a place to display a portfolio of work, somewhere to share their resume, or feature ideas for a close group to critique. Google Pages gives you that opportunity to design a site with easy to follow templates to choose from and internal tools that make it easy to include text, images, and files. You have the ability to customize the URL and decide whether you want to keep the site private or publish it publicly. Either way, the opportunity is too good to pass up, create something now and let the world or a few close friends know what you’re up to.

10. Grand Central
Finally, an acquired entity, Grand Central is an amazingly easy way to customize all of your business calls. Think of Grand Central as a landing site for all of your phone calls. When calls come in, before they get to you, your Grand Central settings will kick in. Ring all your phones or just a few. Route calls to different voicemail boxes each with unique greetings, but have them all in the same inbox. Block callers, have callers leave the reason why they are calling before you answer. All of this is possible with Grand Central and never waste time with wrong numbers or pointless chatter again. During business time, make every minute count!

Top 7 Gmail Skins For The Expert Gmail User

Steven Finch — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:58:24 +0000

Although Gmail is still in beta there has still been a lot of changes and developments with the product. Gmail has to be one of the most heavily adopted free email clients in the marketplace at the moment. Thus, I thought I would put together a very short list of the top 7 Gmail skins. Enjoy!

1. Super Clean skin — probably the most popular Gmail skin, Super Clean replaces the standard interface with a minimalist white and sky-blue version. Perfect for the budding Zen-master.

2. Air skin — makes subtle changes to the visual interface, adding clean lines, a cloudy color combo and changes the primary font. The perfect solution for users looking for a fresh look without any radical changes.

3. Mac skin — a Mac-inspired Gmail skin to match the Mac you’re checking your mail on! Adds a Mac-style menu and color-scheme to your Gmail account.

4. Fe Mail skin — a well-crafted and very pink Gmail skin.

5. Dark Gmail skin — almost the complete opposite to the last link, this skin is one for the dark and brooding Gmail user.

6. Silverstar skin — a popular minimalist gray theme.

7. Brushed skin — a gray and maroon theme with nifty gradients thrown into the mix.

AOL Changes the Gameplan

Luis Sandoval — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:57:37 +0000

When I think of AOL, I think of other similar companies like Microsoft and AT&T. What do they all have in common? Basically all of them are large companies that think themselves at the top of their game and otherwise frown on smaller more open and approachable initiatives.

For the longest time AOL was an island unto itself. Until just recently AOL users were isolated from other users. The homepage was closed off to competitors, the ISP itself is not open to offering it’s users options, but rather forces them to believe that AOL is all there is.

Interestingly enough, as internet users wise up, and are introduced to various social media networks, connecting over the net with blogs and micro-blogging tools, the internet is a whole new world for users and professionals alike. AOL is finally facing this reality and has added a new feature right off their homepage. They are actually offering users the opportunity to select other email clients as opposed to forcing users to type in the desired destination.

As noted in the photo below you can see how Yahoo, Gmail, have all found a spot right on the AOL homepage (Hotmail access has also been added). This is a welcome addition for AOL users considering the response on the AOL blog post.

What does this mean for AOL? How will this impact their users and will they turn away from AOL Mail? No likely, many of us have multiple accounts for various uses; junkmail, newsletters, subscriptions, purchases, contact with friends and family. AOL is quoted as saying, “We realize that AOL.com is not the only web site that you use and that you may, like many of us, have multiple email accounts with different providers.” So AOL looks to become the official “launchpad” for all their users online experience. This will prevent them from having to type in the address of their preferred email providers and instead provide instant access with a simple click.

AOL confesses that not all of their users will appreciate the change, but for those that don’t, they have made it easy for users to change out the panels in the menu with other popular selections such as Music, Radio, and eBay options to name a few.

With the emergence of a fully customizable homepage, AOL is taking a step in the right direction with their new approach. It is even hinted, according to Techcrunch, that come October AOL could add access to “bookmark[ing], social networks and a RSS reader.” At this rate AOL users will now have a one stop shop for all their online needs, and this is what AOL is banking on.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this new approach by AOL. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been an AOL homepage user, and even longer since I was a subscriber to their ISP, but I find this approach innovative for them, if not a little late. I think this will keep AOL in the game, and I look forward to see what other ideas they plan to roll out.

5 Firefox To-Do Plug-ins

Luis Sandoval — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:38:40 +0000

ReminderFox

This neat little plug-in goes for simplicity. While not necessarily an official “to-do” application, I find it almost necessary for those that seem to forget the important dates. People that forget birthdays, anniversaries, parties, and other date based events, ReminderFox will send out an alarm or an alert to remind you of what’s coming up. This plug-in has no aspirations to be a full calendar application, but rather makes its home at the bottom right of your browser ready to announce the days you NEED to remember!

ToDo Cue (experimental)
ToDo Cue unfortunately was very buggy in my use of this plug-in. It relies on the user creating simple, let me stress that again…simple, to-do lists. Once installed a side bar will appear in both your Gmail and Gcal accounts with the lists of things to-do in priority order. I was only able to get sustainable functionality with the older version of Gmail, which did me little good as I have updated it. There are a lot of other tools that do the same with better results. This plug-in needs more work, but remember, it is still labeled experimental, just not sure if it will ever be ready.

Todo Reminder
I found this to be the plug-in with the most potential. Currently the plug-in is very effective with event reminders. Things like parties, birthdays, get togethers, anniversaries, etc. What I loved about it is that alerts not only come via email, but you can set yourself up with SMS alerts. If more than one person is involved, take it further by setting up group alerts. This will make sure everyone is on task and aware of what is coming up. I especially found the one mouse click addition through emails and pages very effective when needing to list something quickly. The site says further development is needed, but I think this little plug-in has a great future in the productivity field.

Delegate to Remember the Milk
A lot of you have heard of Remember the Milk. If you’ve not, no worries, Remember the Milk (RtM) is simply another way to create your to-do lists with functionality with both web apps and mobile apps. There are a great number of power users for RtM, and as such, this plug-in is very popular. For starters, if you follow the GTD (Getting Things Done) philosophy, then this plug-in will be very effective. A “remember” button is added to all of your emails for quick task managing directly from you email. No bothering with cut and paste, simply click and the message is tasked into your RtM account. Yes, it’s that simple!

GTD Inbox
GTD Inbox is a plug-in that tries to do a whole lot. Unfortunately in this endeavor it tends to fail on a lot of fronts. This plug-in completely changes the face of your Gmail inbox by adding the functionality of GTD (mentioned above). For hardcore GTD’ers, the layout will be very familiar with intuitive clicks to productively manage all of your information. Similar to the RtM plug-in, you have a button that will take your emails and place them into your task list. You have the ability to create labels, ticklers, and build the productivity method that best suits your needs. This productivity juggaurnaut is definitely not an entry level “to-do” plug-in and may confuse first time users of GTD. A little buggy with newer versions of Gmail, but useful if you can understand it.

There are more I am sure, and even more being created for Firefox 3, but share your favorite To-Do Plug-ins here and let’s all get more done.