Internet
Things about and on the Internet
LastPass Overload after Security Notification
May 5th
LastPass (www.lastpass.com) announced via Twitter (LastPass Twitter feed) that their servers are overloaded, so you may have trouble logging in to the service, and their Security Notification (read Security Notification) tells you how to access your passwords in the mean time.
For now here are what I feel are the most important parts of their Security Notification – how to stay safe while they are working and access your logins:
1. OVERLOADED – DON’T CHANGE PASSWORDS YET
We’re overloaded handling support and the sheer load of password changes is slowing us down. We’ve implemented a way for you to verify your email and then not be immediately forced to change your password for that IP, access from any other IP would bring you back to email verification. You can now wait a few days if you know you’ll be on the same IP without loss of security, and due to this overloading we think that’s prudent to wait.
We’re asking if you’re not being asked to change your password then hold off — we’re protecting everyone.
2. ACCESS YOUR LOGINS NOW – OFFLINE
You can access your data via LastPass in offline mode (pull the cable out of the wall then login) or by downloading LastPass Pocket : https://lastpass.com/misc_download.php (choose your OS)
A note about the LastPass Pocket link, you may have to click the “full list of downloads for your platform” link to download LastPass Pocket.
Micropost: Google Marks GCalendar’s 5th Bday with Favicon
Apr 13th
The Google Calendar team has given GCalendar a birthday gift of sort by making the Favicon functional in GCalendar. Now, if its the 15th, your Favicon in GCal will have a 15 on it. See the oriignal post for caveats, details and team photo.
MediaLoot Giveaway! Free Stuff
Mar 16th
Great Freebies to be had for web designers over at MediaLoot, announced on their sister-site FreelanceFolder.com:
[MediaLoot] has just turned one year old! In celebration of this first birthday they are giving out tons of free design resources and other valuables.
If you’re feeling lucky, you might be one of the few who win a one-year premium membership. If not, they are plenty of freebies that are available for anyone without the need to enter a contest or anything
- FreelanceFolder.com’s MediaLoot Turns One post
Check it out before the offer ends and freebies are gone! CLICK => MediaLoot Birthday
Google Updates to Tasks and Makes Labs Searchable
Jan 23rd
New Features for Tasks
Google Tasks is taking on the top 5 requests. Google announced they will be addressing those top 5 in no specific order:
- Reminders and notifications
- Ability to create repeating tasks
- Visual distinction for overdue tasks
- Sharable task lists
- Tasks API and synchronization
The list above is in the order I’d like to see these changes to tasks occur.
Labs Now Searchable
With the many Gmail labs projects its inconvenient to find the one you want to turn on or off. Google has added a search feature to labs so you can easily find that lab project you want to active or deactivate. It seems in retrospect like an expected move that a search engine giant like Google would make – it just makes sense.
This new feature stacks enabled labs on top, and the disabled ones below. The search bar works like Google now, as you type you see only matching labs displayed (also listed with the enabled labs above the disabled labs).
Google Calendar Adds Optional Attendees
Nov 29th
With today’s Optional attendees in Google Calendar, good old GCal now lets you make invitees to your events optional. Maybe you have a group of people that need to come to an event (like an office meeting) and others who are not required to attend, but can opt to show up if they have time and interest. Or maybe your get-together has differing levels of interest or involvement like a project planning meeting or Xmas party.
No need to turn this feature on, you will see the new link for “Make some attendees optional” as soon as you begin adding invitees.
Ratchet Up Security On Your Google Account
Oct 15th
As part of National Cyber Security Awareness month (October) Google posted:
[Now is ] a good time for a reminder about why hijackers do what they do and how you can protect your account. Check out the Online Security blog to learn about common hijacking techniques and security practices that will help you stay one step ahead of the bad guys. To help ensure your Gmail account is safe, take a minute to visit the Gmail help center and complete our new security checklist.
- Google Post: Help keep your account safe with the Gmail security checklist
The checklist will run you through obvious and not-so-obvious checks to run on your Google account to tighten up security to protect your data.
Google URL Shortener
Oct 6th
Did you know there was a Google URL shortening service (www.googl.com)? I didn’t but on December 14, 2009 they blogged Making URLs shorter for Google Toolbar and FeedBurner announcing the URL shortener through those services, and on September 30, 2010 the launched a website for the Shortener.
Other URL Shortening Services
These services were online as of today (10-6-2010). Some URL shorteners have specific features and purposes, so you might try several of these to see which works best for you.
http://bit.ly/
http://budurl.com
http://cli.gs
http://is.gd
http://moourl.com
http://ow.ly
http://r.im
http://sn.im
http://snipurl.com (same as sn.im ??)
http://tiny.cc
http://tinyurl.com
http://yourls.org
WordPress Permalinks
Sep 15th
WordPress lets you choose the link structure for your URL’s for posts, which is really cool and handy. Here’s a permalink structure I use on a lot of blogs:
/%year%%monthnum%%post_id%/%postname%/
That lets me see at-a-glance the year and month of the post, then the post id, then the post title. The URL would look something like this:
http://example.com/201010/123/post-title-here/
The most important part for SEO is the post title, and the rest helps male a URL that is unique without getting URLs like:
http://example.com/tips-for-gmail
and…
http://example.com/tips-for-gmail-2
Imagine you have a post titled Tips for Gmail and you do 2 of them, and your permalinks do not insure unique URLs, then you end up with something like the 2 above.
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