You might have already read it elsewhere that it is possible to reveal the real name of any Gmail user by sharing a calendar in Google Calendar with him. Let me explain how this is done. Google Calendar can be loaded in the header area of Gmail after logging in. A click on settings will load the settings where users can change all sorts of information like the date format and time zone.

A click on the Calendars tab loads the calendars that are currently active. A click on the Calendar loads the details of that calendar with information about the calendar timezone and addresses. There is also another tab in that view that lets the user share the calender with other users.

A click on the Share This Calendar tab displays a list of all users who have access to this calendar with the option to add new users by pasting their email address into the form field.

continue reading "Gmail Has a Privacy Problem"

Gmail quicklings is a new feature rolled out in Google Labs for Gmail which enables you to create some links for frequents searches, but it can be used for much more. Not all of you have this feature yet, so if you don’t see any “Labs” option in your settings, try navigating to this link and you should see it. I couldn’t find a way to enable this in my Google Apps email account, but I’m sure it will be rolled out there soon too.

Once you have quick links enabled, all you need to do is create some custom searches. Now let’s see what you can do here. For example I get a lot of comments on some of my Youtube videos and I like to take a look at them and keep track. However I don’t like them clogging up my inbox, so I have a filter that archives them right away. I could create a filter for the comments, even a filter for comments on separate videos, but I can also search for them, and create a quick link to that search page by clicking “add a quick link” to the side. The major advantage of this method is that you don’t need to create a lot of labels. I find that labels are great for organizing, but if you use too many, it’s the same as not using them at all.

continue reading "Gmail Labs quicklinks to find anything in a flash"

The award for the longest title ever could go to this one. But it’s good news actually. Both Email services are “supporting email authentication standards including DomainKeys and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) to verify senders and help identify forged messages” for a few years now but could not eliminate all phishing emails because of companies signing their mails only partly. The filter was therefor not perfect which still meant that users were seeing phishing emails in their inboxes and spam folders.

PayPal and eBay finally made the decision to sign all emails originating from their servers including the international versions which means that it is possible to eliminate PayPal and eBay phishing emails before they even reach the inbox or spam folder. The system was tested for a few weeks silently and only a few users did notice according to the official Gmail blog.

continue reading "Gmail And Yahoo Mail Users Now Protected Against eBay And PayPal Phishing Mails"

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Service Pack 1 freezes and hangs occasionally for some users depending on their actions. A search on Google revealed more than 250000 pages for the search term Outlook Freezes. The developer of the Defrost Outlook software mentions one instance where his software can help overcome a seemingly frozen Microsoft Outlook: Fix for the hang of Microsoft Outlook when receiving meeting / appointments with HMTL entities.

The first public release of Defrost Outlook has the version number 0.8 and the author Daniel Cohen asking the users to contribute by sending him error reports and descriptions of hangs in Microsoft Outlook.

The source code and the binary of the application are available for download. The binary can be installed as a plugin for Microsoft Outlook and intercepts appointments and fixes them so that they do not freeze the system. The plugin is a workaround until Microsoft publishes an official fix for the bug.

continue reading "Defrost Microsoft Outlook"

Google Mail introduced a new feature recently that can be helpful in finding out if someone else has or had access to your Gmail account. The function is a bit hidden in the footer area of Gmail after you log in. Just scroll down to the bottom until you reach the line at the bottom starting with Last account activity.

Gmail provides information about the time of the last login and which IP has been used to login to the account. A Details link is available at the end of the line which opens a popup window with further information.

Activity on this account is the name of the window and it displays the last five activities in a table with information about the access type (pop, mobile, browser), IP of the computer that logged into Gmail and the time.

continue reading "Tracking Gmail Account Usage"