Hasta La Gadget!

Mozilla might be scaling back its official support of Thunderbird, but it still has love left for those who yearn for more in their e-mail clients than OS developers can give. The newly-released Thunderbird 15 update’s most conspicuous change is a deliberate visual harmony with its Firefox cousin: the company wants its apps to have more in common than just a shared name on the About screen. Under the hood, there’s now a live chat feature to skip the wait for e-mail, a Do Not Track option for web searches and the choice of using Ubuntu One cloud storage for large attachments. It’s hard to know if future Thunderbird releases will be as substantial once the community takes the reins. For now, though, Thunderbird aficionados can relax.

[Thanks, Keith]

Filed under: Internet, Software

Mozilla releases Thunderbird 15 with Firefox-like UI, live chat originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 02:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eons after it appeared in the US, Amazon’s Cloud Drive is at last available in the UK. Brits can manage the service from within their Amazon account online, or get the free standalone Mac or PC app for desktop dragging and dropping. It slipped in with nary a peep from Amazon, sporting the same US dollar pricing as the American site: roughly $10 per year (£6) for every 20GB. So, despite the delay, UK-ers won’t have to pay more than their US counterparts, as is often the case — at least, not yet.

Filed under: Internet, Software

Amazon Cloud Drive and app arrive in UK at last, sans fanfare originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The cloud can be very useful, but we’ve been reminded lately that it may not be the most secure way to store data. Last month, cloud storage service Dropbox revealed that it had been hacked, and a “small number” of account email addresses and passwords were taken during the incident. At the time, the folks at Dropbox said that new security features would be coming soon, including two-step verification. That day has arrived, as Dropbox has rolled out two-step verification to give users an extra layer of protection against the more unsavory people of the world.

Setting up feature is quite simple, as all you need to do is head to your Dropbox security page and enable the two-step verification option. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be guided through a setup wizard that will allow you to associate your phone number with your Dropbox account. Dropbox will then text you a six digit verification code anytime you attempt to log in to your account. Alternatively, you can download the service’s mobile authenticatior app on Android, iOS, Windows Phone or BlackBerry and generate log in codes using it.

After setting up two-step verification, Dropbox will will give you an emergency code that you can use if you ever lose access to your phone, which will come in handy if your phone ever gets stolen. If your phone turns up missing, you’ll need the emergency code to gain access to your account, so it’s pretty important that you write it down and keep it in a safe place. Digital Inspiration suggests that you un-link and re-link any phones or tablets you have using Dropbox, as doing so will activate two-step verification on those devices. Another nice thing? You’ll get an email notification every time you attempt to log in from an unrecognized device, so you’ll know almost instantly if someone is trying to access your account.

Though this two-step verification process would have been an appreciated Dropbox feature from the start, it’s good that the service has it available now. It will certainly do something to ease the minds of Dropbox users after last month’s hack, and hopefully means that we won’t be experiencing more security breaches moving forward. Be sure to check out our story timeline below for more posts on Dropbox!

Dropbox beefs up security with two-step verification is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s time to get serious about a solid state drive upgrade with Drobo’s brand new B1200i SSD, complete with what the manufacturer says will be a performance boost of up to 300 percent over previous product iterations. This hardware will bring on a hybrid of solid state technology and traditional hard disk drives like SAS or SATA. And what’s fabulous for current owners of the B1200i is this: a software update is all you’ll need to gain new performance and functionality from Drobo, and it’s free!

This software update for you ol’ B1200i owners will be listed at http://www.drobo.com/support/updates.php where you’ll be able to download and load it all for free. The new new B1200i SSD release announced this week has the ability to make use of a small number of SSDs alongside hard disk drives to make one single economically sound storage system. This system has also attained VMware Ready status with vSphere 5.0 certification.

Microsoft, VMware and Citrix environments will be able to make good use of the Drobo B1200i SSD, as will data protection solutions supporting Veeam, Acronis and Symantec backup and replication. Essentially you’re getting a product that works essentially anywhere you need it to – and with its ability to combine the many bits of storage and backup hardware you’ve already got on hand, you’ll be saving a ton of potential dollars you’d otherwise be spending in the future.

Have a peek at the lovely selection of Drobo content we’ve got in our Drobo portal and make sure you check out our Drobo timeline below as well to see which products appeared over the past few weeks and months that landed us here with the new and improved Drobo B1200i SSD!

Drobo B1200i SSD announced with 300x performance is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft is talking about updates to SkyDrive. SkyDrive is a personal cloud file storage system that Microsoft says can scale up to 1 billion users. The website for the service has been updated with the new design suitable for desktop and tablet browsers. It features instant search, contextual toolbar, thumbnail multi-select, drag-and-drop organization, and HTML 5 sorting.

Microsoft says that SkyDrive for Windows and Mac users now has faster uploads with performance improvements and bug fixes. Users of the service can soon download an app for Android devices allowing users to access, upload, and share content from their Android tablet or smartphone. Developers can build apps using the SkyDrive API and allow users to store access any type of file in SkyDrive.

The Skydrive.com update brings a tile-based layout for folders and files. However, users can opt to use a details view showing folders instead of tiles. The new instant search feature allows users to search for files from anywhere in the SkyDrive, including searching of content in Office documents. Another of the new improvements to the service is with sorting. Sorting now defaults to newest to oldest for folders so you can find the newest content easily.

Microsoft says that the official app for Android users will be available in “just a few weeks.” The Android app will be similar to the apps for Windows Phone and iOS users allowing Android fans to upload files and share them via send a link. Another interesting tidbit Microsoft offered up along with the talk about the updates to SkyDrive has to do with the new Outlook.com. Microsoft says that as of yesterday, the service had 10 million users.

Microsoft talks updated Skydrive.com is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.