gHacks technology news » aol

Backup Messenger And SMS Online

Martin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:20:21 +0000

Many users with more than one computer system face a problem if they use Instant Messengers: How can they make sure that the data of all messenger clients is synced. This might not be a problem for users who simply chat and forget but what if you use a messenger for business and need to be able to check previous conversations regularly?

One option is offered by Dexrex, a company that is providing the means to backup these messages and SMS online. Support are a wide variety of clients and networks including Skype, Windows Live, AOL, Yahoo, Jabber, ICQ, Blackberry and Google Talk. It is possible to sign in with the network accounts at the Dexrex website to initiate the backup of the data. Some users might be concerned about security and privacy.

There is obviously always a risk when entering data in third party websites. Dexrex uses the https protocol to transfer data between the client computer and the server. Backups can either be started using the Conversation Importer, a Java program that can import old conversations, or so called Extensions which run in the background and import messages in realtime.

The conversations are available online after transferring them to the server. It is for example possible to search the conversations, use filters to filter by contact or date or to share conversations with trusted users. It is even possible to edit conversations online. SMS archiving is currently only supported for Blackberry cell phones. Users need to download an application to their Blackberry to backup the SMS.

Dexrex provides an easy way of backing up conversations and SMS from Blackberry devices. It can be a a useful services for users who work with multiple computer systems and messengers.

Tags: aol, backup messenger, blackberry, blackberry sms, dexrex, google talk, icq, instant messeger, messenger, skype, windows live, yahoo

Gmail Adds Email Import

Martin — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:33:12 +0000

One of the things that many users like about Google’s email service Gmail is that the service is constantly advancing. Users get to test tools in Gmail Labs all the time and new features are added regularly. One of the new features is the ability to import emails from other popular email providers such as Yahoo Mail, Windows Live or AOL but also POP3 accounts. There have been workarounds to accomplish that like the excellent gExodus email importer for the Windows operating system which allowed users to easily import mailboxes into Gmail. The new email import feature is not yet available for all Gmail accounts but will be added to all of them over time. New Gmail accounts on the other hand do have the email import feature enabled already.

Interested users find the email import option in the Gmail account settings. The second link is displaying as Accounts for users who have not had this new email import feature enabled and as Accounts and Import for those who have.

Gmail users have to provide account login data of the email service that they want to import into Gmail. Options that are provided allow the user to import emails and contacts, add a label to all imported mails and to enable email imports for the next 30 days.

Being able to import emails into Gmail is another feature of Gmail that is poised to become popular as soon as it is activated for most Gmail accounts.

Tags: aol, Email, gmail, gmail import, google-mail, hotmail, pop3, windows live, yahoo mail

Truemark Email Identification

Martin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:35:33 +0000

Inexperienced users and even some experienced users have troubles identifying fake emails from legit ones. It is sometimes hard to tell if the email that just arrived in your mail inbox came from a legit company like eBay, Amazon or Citibank or if it is just another phishing attempt. There are some basic guidelines that help identify phishing emails. They are not that hard to learn, read our anti-phishing tips for pointers. Many inexperienced computer users think that it’s complicated, they prefer an easier way of telling if an email is legit or not.

Enter Truemark by Iconix. Truemark uses authentication techniques to identify more than 1500 different company email addresses including the three companies in the example above. It is backed by some of the most popular shopping and financial websites on the Internet which makes it attractive for many users. Even better is the fact that the software is free to use and compatible to several popular email providers like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Aol Webmail but also Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007.

Another advantage of Truemark is that is it working in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox which should cover more almost 90% of the web browser market. The installation of the software will install a Browser Helper Object in Internet Explorer and an add-on in Firefox.

Truemark will automatically scan the emails in the mail inbox if the user opens a supported email client or web email client. It will display a verification icon next to the email to notify the user that the email is legit.

Moving the mouse over the icon will show an overlay with additional information about the sender and if the sender passed both identification and authentication.

Tags: aol, Email, email certificates, email security, gmail, hotmail, iconix, microsoft outlook, outlook, phishing, Security, truemark, yahoo

What’s Up With The Download Squad

Martin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:09:29 +0000

The Download Squad is one of my favorite technology blogs along with Lifehacker, Cybernet News and a few others. Recently though activities came almost to a halt. Brad Linder (also Liliputting a mobile computing blog), one of the major writers for the Download Squad and the rest of the team seemed to have stopped writing for the Download Squad blog which only saw one new article yesterday and none the days before that.

While weekends were a bit slow they usually saw a few posts from the dedicated staff. I was a bit worried about the website and emailed Brad who said that the could not speak about it. I did some research on my own and it seems that AOL has told some bloggers, among them the bloggers of the Download Squad, to hold off for the month in what seems an effort to cut costs.

I’m not sure why AOL would make them hold off in first place because I know that the bloggers were paid on a per article base which should not be a problem for a multi-billion Dollar company like AOL.

Apparently though I’m wrong. AOL is cutting costs and trying to sell some properties like XDrive or Bluestring.

While all news articles speak of holding off until the end of the month none know for sure what is going to happen on August, 1st. Will they start blogging again or will this be the end of the Download Squad?

Meanwhile AOL is also telling some bloggers who contribute to its Weblogs group to cut back or to halt writing for the rest of the month. Contributors to the DownloadSquad have been told to hold off, while The Unofficial Apple Weblog will cut back to a couple per day. DIY Life will go on hiatus.

I would like to analyze the blog for a bit. I do not know the real traffic statistics for the download squad but they surely are above my own here at Ghacks. A few indicators are Alexa, Comcast and others and although they are not accurate they seem to suggest roughly twice the amount of traffic that my site gets.

That would be between 1.5 and 2 million unique visitors per month for the Download Squad. If proper advertisement would be added to that website they could probably rake in between $15K-20K per month from that website alone which would obviously be more than enough to pay Brad and his team. Those $15K-20K are based on free advertising opportunities and no special deals like high paying CPM campaigns that are running on the whole blog network. Could very well be much more if those were included.

Heck I would buy that website if I would have the money to do so if Brad and his team would continue writing for it..

Let’s hope for the best and pray that the Download Squad will be back in full strength in August.

Tags: aol, brad linder, download squad, weblogs

Protect PayPal Accounts With VeriSign Identity Protection Devices

Martin — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:37:13 +0000

I had a rather unpleasant experience with PayPal lately where someone transferred all the money from my account. PayPal was not very forthcoming and I do not know until today how this was possible. One of the first things that I did after this experience was to order a PayPal Security Key. I was contacted by VeriSign, the creators of those security keys, just a few days later and they send me a key as well.

The VeriSign Identity Protection device can be used to add another layer of security to the login process. The PayPal Security Key mentions only eBay and PayPal and I’m not sure if it works with the other websites and services that the VeriSign Identity Protection key works with.

The key is a little device that displays a six digit security code when a button is pressed. That code is active for 30 seconds after which it disappears again. The device has to be activated on the website that you want to use it for by entering the serial number of the device and two six digit codes.

Once a device has been linked to an account it has to be used to log into the account by pressing the button and entering the six digit code after the password on that website or by entering the login credentials normally and the six digit code on the next page where it is requested before the user can proceed.

The real benefit of this key is obviously that an attacker who is getting hold of your login credentials cannot login into the account if he does not have access to the active six digit code.

PayPal seems to heavily subsidize the key. If you order the security key at PayPal you receive a blueish-gray device for roughly 5€ while the VeriSign key is delivered in dark red for the price of $30. As I said I’m not sure if the PayPal key works with other services as well.

The VeriSign website offers two additional devices. One is the so called VIP Security Card (for $48), a credit-card sized device that seems to offer the same functionality and the SanDisk U3 TrustedSignins
which works with SanDisk U3 devices but does not seem to come with additional charges.

This is definitely a step into the right direction and I strongly suggest to everyone using eBay and PayPal regularly to get one of those security devices to add another layer of protection to their account.

Tags: aol, ebay, paypal, paypal security key, VeriSign, verisign identity protect

Send AIM Messages without a software

Martin — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:39:43 +0000

Most Instant Messengers have one serious disadvantage and that is that they are tied to a specific computer. If you are on another computer that is not your own you most likely will not have access to your Instant Messenger. That’s probably one of the reasons why people love Twitter and other web services that do not have that requirement.

AIM Express tries to change that for users of the AOL Instant Messenger. It’s a web service that is offering AIM users a way to send and receive messages without the AIM client. That comes pretty handy if you are at a library or at work and want to send your friends a short message.

The only requirement of AIM Express is Adobe Flash 9.0 that has to be installed on the computer so that the service can be started. All that needs to be done is signing in with the username or email and password and you get access to the AIM Express client that opens in a popup window.

Make sure you don’t block the popup. The client offers a basic functionality, you see all your buddies, may chat with one or several of them, may add new buddies and may change your online status.

It’s a nice web application for everyone who is using AIM and needs access to it on computers that are not his own. Just pray that the system admin did not disable access to either Flash or the AIM Express website.

Tags: aim, aim express, aol, aol instant messenger, im, instant messenger

Remove viewmgr.exe

Martin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:04:54 +0000

A program called Viewpoint Media Player was suddenly installed on my friend’s computer and he was so surprised that he had to call me and ask me if I knew why this program was installed on his computer. I have never heard of Viewpoint before but did a quick search for viewmgr.exe and Viewpoint Media Player to find out that it can be automatically installed with several programs from AOL and other vendors.

The software Viewpoint Media Player is used for several AOL applications like AIM themes. It comes along with a software called Viewpoint Manager which phones home once a day and a Viewpoint Toolbar. Some anti-spyware applications remove viewmgr.exe but it appears again when the user uses a program that requires it for the next time. It’s reinstalled so to speak.

I have two solutions to remove viewmgr.exe and all Viewpoint products from the system. The first is to use a software called Viewpoint Killer which removes all traces from your system. It scans the computer and Registry for Viewpoint references and removes the Viewpoint Manager, the Viewpoint Media Player and the Viewpoint Toolbar.

The second option is a trick that I read at Doug Edelman’s blog (please note that I have not tried this).

Open AOL and go to “help” on the toolbar. Select “About AOL”. Next is the SECRET STEP. You must then press “CTRL+D” to access a “secret” panel to disable all of the desktop and IM fancy features that are associated with viewpoint. This is the only way to prevent AOL from re-installing Viewpoint at AOL startup.

Many users reported performance gains after removing Viewpoint from their system.

Tags: aol, viewmgr.exe, viewpoint

Check Webmail with Mozilla Thunderbird

Martin — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:58:59 +0000

I received an email after publishing the article about YPOPS that made it possible with all email clients to retrieve and send Yahoo Mail emails. If you are a Thunderbird user you might find the Webmail extension for Thunderbird a better choice. It adds support for more than just one webmailer. You get support for Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Lycos, Mail.com, Aol and Libero. By default the webmail extension and at least one additional component has to be installed to add webmailer support.

A component is a plugin for one of the mentioned email services which means that if you use AOL and Yahoo Mail you would download and install those two. The main advantage of webmail is that you can configure all settings in Thunderbird without having to run an external software that listens on the mail port.

Setup involves three steps. First you make sure that webmail is up and running. You do that by opening the options of webmail. It should display a graphic that looks similar to the one below.

If everything is up and running select domains from the tab bar and make sure that the webmail providers that you use are in the list. If that is the case exit the options.It’s time to create a new account to retrieve and check email from those webmail accounts.

POP3:

Server Type : POP
Incoming Server : localhost
username: your email address which has to include the domain, e.g. @yahoo.com

SMTP:

Server Name : localhost
User Name : your email address which has to include the domain, e.g. @yahoo.com

Check out the setup guide if you are unsure about this, it explains every step with pictures. My thanks to Si Howard for pointing this out. Another option would be Freepops that I wrote about as well.

Tags: aol, pop3, smtp, thunderbird, webmail, yahoo mail

AIM Ad Hack

Martin — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:40:04 +0000

AIM, which is short for AOL Instant Messenger, is one of the popular Instant Messengers with more than 53 million active users. Only Jabber comes close to this numbers while other popular clients such as MSN have only half of that active user base. One big problem with AIM is the integration of advertisements and bundled software which is not needed to run AIM at all.

AIM Ad Hack is a free software that interacts with AIM during installation making it possible to remove unneeded or obtrusive features and advertisements from AIM while keeping all the necessary features in place. It removes for instance the advertisements from the main window and the buddy list, blocks and removes AOL Toolbar and Loader and disables the AOL Host Manager from starting up with Windows.

Each option can be checked or unchecked before installation. It is furthermore possible to install several widely known plugins for AIM during installation, to name some: Facebook, Buddy Icon Maker and Text Colors plugins.

You only need to download AIM Ad Hack which downloads AIM during the installation. You can uncheck that as well but this is only advisable if you already have the latest version of AIM installed and want to remove features and tools only. Make sure you download the right version of AIM Ad Hack though because there are several available for download at the developers website.

Tags: aim, aim ad hack, aol, aol instant messenger

Pricing for AOL Movie Downloads

Martin — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:17:47 +0000

Aol will offer movie and tv show downloads from Paramount Pictures in their new video portal. Downloads will be sold for prices ranging from $9.99 to $19.99 which suggests that most users will be quite unhappy with the pricing. Amazon Unbox and Apple’s iTunes is offering downloads in the same price category and every other portal will most likely follow their pricing schemes.

The question that arises for me is the following: Why would anyone buy a movie for $19.99 online and face additional restrictions like drm, copy protection and limited use if he could also buy the same movie at the same time in a normal store and receive a case, a DVD and a booklet. You may also take the DVD, visit a friend and watch the movie on his DVD player. You might face troubles with services like Unbox who make it impossible to burn the files on DVD to play in a DVD player.

I have another question: Why are they pricing the items that high ? Is it because of the entertainment companies that produces the movies who want a large share of the earnings or are the portals themselves responsible for this irrational pricing ?

Why would someone pay more than a few dollars for a crippled movie that you probably can’t play in your dvd player ? Isn’t it kinda strange that some people still buy those items even though they face those restrictions ?

I decided to ignore any movie portal for the moment. If one would emerge that would offer movie downloads in dvd quality for half the price of the DVD I would consider it; if they do not cripple the functionality to burn the file on dvd and watch it on my dvd player.

Did you buy a movie from such a service ? What is your experience ?

Tags: aol, movie-downloads, movies, unbox

Updates on the AOL Scandal

Martin — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 08:27:24 +0000

Aol released private search queries of 500.000 AOL users to the public. Analysts and Journalists alike are having a busy time analysing the data for various reasons. I was able to identify three different motivations: 1. How big is the privacy breach, 2. Is it possible to identify someone from the queries and 3. analysing the queries from a marketing point of view.

Eliott Back searched the data for credit card numbers, social security numbers and email addresses and found disturbing numbers. He found an undisclosed amount of credit card numbers, about 200 social security numbers and nearly 60 email addresses. The danger that someone will misuse the given data is present and likely.

The first AOL user has been identified by the New York Times. AOL user 4417749, known as Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., was identified by analyzing the searches she conducted. I suppose she will not be the last one that will be identified and there surely will be some sort of backlash for AOL.

Webmasters began to import the data into databases and offer ways to search the data here or here on the web for free.

The first response from AOL was that the data was released by mistake and that the intention was to reach the academic world. Unfortunately for them they came up with the idea to make this publicly available instead of giving it out only to people who request the data for research. They really should have know that this could have happened.

Tags: aol, aol logs, aol scandal

Anonymized Logs of 500000 AOL users on the net

Martin — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:39:01 +0000

AOL surely did not think about the immense backlash they would receive from the internet community when they released anonymized logs of 500,000 AOL users at the AOL research website. The file consisted of about 20 million web queries from about 500.000 AOL users in the course of three months (march to may 2006). The AOL username was replaced by a unique ID, everything else was kept unchanged in the logs.

AOL quickly took down the website but there is still google cache copy available. The big compressed logfile (over 400 megabytes) can be obtained from Greg Sadetskys website as a web or torrent download. Pulling the information from the AOL website surely looks like they are admitting a wrong doing and are now in full damage control mode. The uncompress logfile consists of text files with a combined size of over two gigabytes.

Some questions naturally arise: Why did AOL release the data ? Why is there such a big outcry in the web community ? I think that AOL released the data for research and marketing purposes. This is a goldmine for every researcher on search engines and user interaction and marketers will surely analyse the keywords and search phrases extensively. A question remains: Why did they make the file available for download to the public ? Would not it be better to offer the file dvd for researchers only ?

Google will be offering six DVDs with search data soon as well, so it is not only evil AOL who is “sharing” user searches with others. There are two clear differences between the AOL and the Google approach: AOL released customer data, that is data of people who are paying AOL for internet access, while Google has not that customer relationship. The second difference is that AOL released the data to the public while Google will be offering the data on DVD supposedly for researchers only.

I took a look at the first text file with a size of more than 200 megabytes. Each line begins with the unique Id that replaced the username, the search queries, the time of the search and the possible destination (url) the user went to. Everything is unfiltered, you could surely create some pretty accurate profiles from the user queries. User 205405 is searching for rape, child abuse and the like while user 2603120 is looking for spanish language courses in chicago.

It will be interesting to see if some of the 500k users will sue AOL over this privacy infringement. Others will most likely demand that AOL reports some of its users to the authorities because of their searches.

Maybe it is even possible to uncover a real name by analyising the searches. I did not take a closer look at them but I saw searches for real names and others are reporting that “searches for names of specific people, addresses, telephone numbers, illegal drugs, and more can be found in the logs as well.“

Tags: aol, aol anonymized logs, aol logs

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