I.N: Increasing Net Crimes
I read this CNET article stating that web site-based crimeware is hitting all-time high.. I must add that I am definitely not surprise by this development.
An excerpt from the article:
“The number of URLs with hidden code for stealing passwords nearly tripled between July 2007 and July 2008, to a record high of 9,529, while the number of malicious-application variants hit a high of 442 this May, the APWG reports in its quarterly report (PDF) issued this week.”
With the current generation all internet connected and the older generation starting to move online, with more seeing it as an avenue to connect, it is not surprising that the percentage of crimeware would increase.
As population increases, I a proportional increase in the number of online crime would be expected. However, I think that this does not mean that more people are turning to crime, rather, the increase in online population is an incentive for current perpetrators of online crime to become more active. With more people online, the chances of having someone fall prey to them would increase. Furthermore, according to the CNET article, the current recession is also making things worse…
So what should we do? I guess the usual “do not be click happy with our mouse” applies as well as always. With online applications become more sophisticated, direct attacks (some of which are quite simple in methods) like SQL injections would become increasingly common.
In the end, I guess our best option is to hope that developers test out their applications thoroughly enough, and trust our own intuition when it comes to submitting information online…
FTI: Gmail As Task Management
Adding a task management list is definitely one of the most requested feature of Google Mail.
Up till now, users have had to resort to workarounds like emailing themselves with “+notes” attached to the end of their user name, setting filters and labels, or using third party applications like Remember the Milk for task management integration. Thus, the introduction of a “Tasks” in Gmail Labs is a much awaited news for many.
However, its worth a note that the new lab feature is far from a full featured task management service, YET. As quoted from the Official Gmail Blog its a
“lightweight way to keep track of what you need to do, right from within Gmail.”
Therefore, it would probably be more suitable for people with simpler task management needs. I am sure that, by the time its fully released from labs, it would be featuring more functions like sync options or integration with Google Calendar. With that said, I must add that Tasks in Gmail is still in development and has no guaranteed release. However, I am quite sure that this feature has a high chance of reaching release status due to its popularity. For now, if there is any feature you think may improve the service, users can suggest it at Gmail’s Task listing in Google Groups.
One of the features of this new lab feature is the conversion of email to tasks: select one or more messages and go to “More Actions” and then “Add to Tasks” (Or turn on keyboard shortcuts and use + t). The interface feels a lot like Gmail’s Chat feature, allowing you to “pop-in” or “pop-out” when needed.
Check out the Official Gmail Blog for screen-shots, or try it out by enabling “Tasks” in the “Labs” tab of the “Settings” page in Gmail.
[via Official Gmail Blog]
FTI: Tame your email
Everyone who has been surfing the web for a while would most definitely have amassed a sizable amount of accounts across many websites. Many websites nowadays require you to “sign up to enjoy the full benefits” of the website.
After a while, it may actually be difficult to sort through all those newsletters that this sites tend to send. However, a relatively new service called OtherInbox may be able to solve this problem.
From their website:
“OtherInbox is the cure for email overload – it provides consumers with a free email account that automatically organizes newsletters, social networking updates, coupons and receipts from online purchases so that its easy to find the most interesting things and ignore the rest.”
It is quite an interesting concept as signing up for an account seems like creating your own sub-domain which you can have virtually unlimited email addresses. For example, if your user name is user, then you can have:
- facebook@user.otherinbox.com for your facebook account,
- youtube@user.otherinbox.com for your youtube account
- etc.
It can be argued that current email services like Google Mail have filters which can used to the same effect, it will be interesting to see how a service dedicated to such sorting would go down in the long run.
In my personal opinion, after creating my account there and using it for a while, I feel that this service really has lots of potential, especially as a first line of defense against rogue websites. One benefit of giving out different addresses to different websites that I can think of is: If you start receiving spam at a particular addresses, you can now narrow it down to which website may have leaked your information.
It has definitely earned a place in my personal list of online services to look forward to…
FTI: Google Mail (Gmail) has themes!
Google Mail a.k.a. Gmail has been improved under the hood far too many times to count. However, one feature often neglected is the color scheme of gmail which cannot be changed. Long time users of Gmail has created plugins in browsers like firefox to enable the theme-ing of gmail.
Up till now, I’ve been using Stylish plugin for Firefox and Cascading Style Sheets to theme my gmail. One problem with this is that it is only available on my personal computer, and the styles aren’t resistant to Gmail Code changes.
Following in the direction taken by Google;s Personalized Homepage, Google has implemented themes on Gmail also.
According to the Gmail Blog, the developers
“wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time…”
“…We’ve also done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look to make it crisper and cleaner — you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here and there.”
It is definitely a step in the right direction for the gmail theme to provide customization options for users. At least now, the theme changes aren’t limited to your own personal computer.
Maybe Gmail can now go a step further and allow users to upload a theme? However, I guess that will be a security issue.
Gmail Theme Settings
To apply the new themes, go to the Themes tab in the Settings page..
To read more about the themes, head over to Gmail’s Help Center.
Anyway, my current favourites for now are “Graffiti” and “Desk”. What are yours?
Opinion: Can you give up your email?
According to BBC News, the new U.S. President Elect, Barack Obama may be giving up his email during the course of his presidency as “transparency laws would open his correspondence to public view.” In fact, I was surprised that that neither Bill Clinton nor George W Bush used their email duing their presidency.
Reading that report, I wondered how things would be like to actually give up your email. This question got me thinking for quite a while…
Would I be able to do it?
My Conclusion: It is possible… Only for a short while.
I thought of a few possible scenarios after giving up email. Yes, we can stop using our emails and depend solely on new web trends like Facebook Private messages, Twitter or FriendFeed messages. Going one even further, we can create a private blog on services like WordPress.com or Blogger and get your friends to direct any messages there. WordPress.com also has a theme like the prologue theme which would be perfect for such usage.
However, if we look further into all the “solutions” I came up with, the essence of all these “solutions” is still the act of sending and recieving of messages a la email..
So, physically, you might seem to have given up on using the email, but psychologically, you did not…
At this juncture. one may start to ask about other services such as Instant Messaging (IM). However, unlike email, IM does not have the benefit of allowing the recipient to be absent at the point where the chat is being initiated. Sure, you can use offline messaging, but email is still more suited for large amount of text per message compared to IM.
Reading through this post, it seems that I am just finding reasons to hold on to my email… This may be true to a certain extent, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is an addiction. Rather. it is because email is just crisp and simple.
So…. What do you think?
Articles mentioned in this post:
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I.N: Microsoft and Google.. updates on services.
Google and Microsoft has been pushing constantly into the domains of one another. Microsoft has been playing the catch up game with Google’s online services while Google is trying to use its online services to encroach into Microsoft’s desktop territory. It is an unspoken competition for users.
I.N. this week
FTI: Seeking for Reference
For students, disregarding the time we spend on Social Networks, the bulk of our time online is spent on researching and doing projects, scouring the web for information. When I was a student, Google, Yahoo and Windows Live Search have been and still are hot-keys on my keyboard. However, when searching for academic material, we are always swarmed with links to sites totally nonacademic related.
Enter RefSeek (rĕf-sēk), a new service which promotes itself as a web search engine for students and researchers. The front page of the website is reminiscent of Google’s minimalistic approach.
Refseek Frontpage
Doing a sample search, it would seem that RefSeek’s search results focuses more on Government Organizations, Education and Wikipedia sites. I did a sample search on the “World War 2″ and did find quite a few interesting articles. For example, a time-line from SparkNotes, which isn’t found on the 1st page results from Google’s, Yahoo or Windows Live Search.
However, do note that this doesn’t apply to all search queries. For example, if you are searching for latest movies, you’re better off searching on Google. RefSeek gave results to torrent sites which doesn’t do any good if you’re trying to find out more about the movies… So those taking theater studies looking for maybe 70’s movie write-ups or related articles may be disappointed with RefSeek.
As always, I think its still best to run your search through all the usual search engines when doing any kind of research due to different search algorithms the search engines employ. Its still probably worth to keep RefSeek on your arsenal of search engines.
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