Amid all of the updates Twitter has been rolling out to its service, such as its iOS app being able to send photos through direct messages, Twitter made a controversial decision yesterday to allow blocked users to continue to be able to interact with users that initiated the block. (more…)
Twitter Reverts Changes To Its Blocking Policy After User Feedback original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Over the past few days quite a lot of Yahoo Mail users have been complaining about issues with the service. The company confirmed that due to a hardware problem on one of its mail data servers, users were facing issues in accessing Yahoo Mail. While the company has teams working continuously to resolve the issue, which it says has proven harder to fix than originally anticipated, Flickr experienced partial outages earlier today as well.
The popular image hosting service, which is owned by Yahoo, currently seems to be back up once again but it is unclear what caused the issue in the first place. In a statement provided to CNET, Yahoo confirmed that Flickr did experience an outage and that the company was working quickly to fix the issue. It also apologized to users that might have been affected by the outage. The company is already dealing with a major service problem, it would certainly not want another crisis on its hands. While support teams are working around the clock to get Yahoo Mail up and running again, partial disruption is still being experienced. Most users are able to gain access to their inbox, though the company says that some users will still have trouble in accessing in their accounts. Up to 30 percent of all emails sent during the outage have now been delivered, the company hasn’t offered a timeframe in which it expects to have Mail up a 100 percent.
Flickr Goes Down As Yahoo Struggles To Get Mail Up And Running original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Those of us who use Gmail are familiar with the “display images below” link that pops up whenever we open an emails from unknown senders that has images inside. Gmail did this to protect users from unknown senders who might have tried to use images to compromise the security of a user’s computer. If that has ever irked you, fret not, Google has made some changes to how Gmail handles images in such situations which means that you will never have to click on the link again.
Soon users will see all email images being displayed automatically across iOS, Android and the desktop. Outside risk has been mitigated as Google will now serve all images through its secure proxy servers. Previously, when it required users to click a link to display images, the images were served directly from their original external servers. This change results in much for safe and secure emails, images will be checked for known viruses or malware and users won’t have to click on the link. Those users who want to retain the old way of authorizing image display can go to Settings and choose the “Ask before displaying external images” option under the General tab. The change is rolling out today on desktop, whereas Gmail mobile apps will be updated in early 2014.
Gmail To Display Email Images By Default original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Google’s attempt at a social network of their own resulted in Google+. While there is nothing inherently wrong with Google+, safe to say many are already comfortable with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter where they might have already a loyal following and a page/account all setup the way they like it. This however has not stopped Google from trying to get everyone to hop on board their social network. We saw Google’s attempts at trying to encourage more Google+ signups by integrating the service with YouTube, where all YouTube comments made require the person to have a Google+ account. Recently we have also seen how Google removed the Gallery apps from its Google Play edition handsets in a bid to encourage users to use the Photos app, which unsurprisingly has better Google+ integration.
To that extent College Humor has created a video in which it makes fun of Google’s efforts at trying to shove Google+ down our throats, by offering a free service called “Blackmail” where if one does not sign up for a Google+ account, Google will release all the information that they have on us to friends and family. The video points out how Chrome’s “Incognito Mode” is actually not incognito, and that our embarrassing searches will be posted online for everyone to see. It’s a pretty hilarious video and if you have a few minutes to spare, it’s definitely worth your time if you’re looking for a chuckle or two.
Hilarious Video Pokes Fun At Google’s Attempt To Force Google+ Onto Everyone original content from Ubergizmo. 
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We’re sure some of you guys have come across the term “DDoS” before, which basically stands for distributed denial-of-service and is an attack on a particular machine or network in an attempt to shut it down or interrupt its service. There are many ways one can go about doing that, although a pretty popular way would be to flood the website with requests or large bits of data until its servers are unable to handle the load, thus crashing and taking the website(s) offline for a period of time. This is obviously illegal and if you’re wondering just how much trouble you could land yourself in for participating in a DDoS? Well a certain Eric J. Rosol has found out by being slapped with an $183,000 fine.
Rosol recently plead guilty to taking part in Anonymous’ OpWisconsin where he admitted to participating in a DDoS attack on the Koch Industries’ website that lasted for only a minute. The attack managed to take the website down for about 15 minutes and according to estimates, the loss sustained by Koch Industries was less than $5,000, a good deal less than the fine Rosol is facing. The reason behind the huge fine? Apparently this is to cover the expenses that Koch Industries had to pay to a consulting firm to better secure its servers. The fine is currently being appealed and while performing a DDoS is illegal, a fine of $183,000 seems excessive compared to the loss of $5,000. What do you guys think?
Man Slapped With $183,000 Fine For Participating In A DDoS Attack For 1 Minute original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Microsoft and Google both run two of the most widely used email services, Outlook.com and Gmail. It obviously won’t come as a surprise to see one try to poach users from the other. Redmond has developed a new tool to entice existing Gmail users to make the switch over to its email service. Thanks to the recent addition of IMAP support to Outlook.com, the tool is much better than previous import features. Not only will it import all email from the Gmail account, it will also import labels with their proper structures and let users access existing Gmail contacts and even Google Talk from inside Outlook.com.
Only the most recent emails are imported first, with the rest being imported shortly after that. The import procedure is significantly better than before, the POP3 based feature often failed to import emails with their labels and read status, which meant that users had to sort things out manually after they had imported all emails. Users will also be able to set their Gmail address as a “send-only” account, so they will have the option to send emails through their @gmail addresses from within Outlook.com. If you’re willing to make the switch now, keep in mind that the tool’s roll out is going to take a couple of weeks, so its possible that you might not have access at this very moment.
Microsoft Entices Gmail Users To Join Outlook.com Through New Tool original content from Ubergizmo. 
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If you are a devout user of the Google Drive productivity suite, you might have found yourself wondering why it is not possible to edit Google Sheets without an internet connection. For those who do not know, Google Sheets is the spreadsheet app in the company’s productivity suite. The company has finally listened to user requests for the feature, Google Sheets offline editing is finally possible thanks to the update that has been rolled out today. The update also improves speed and filter views.
Offline editing has already been supported by other apps in the suite, like Google Docs and Slide. Those who have already been using offline editing feature in those apps will be able to use it on Sheets right away, those who haven’t used the offline editing feature in the past at all will have to follow a set of instructions first. Spreadsheets can then be edited even if there’s no internet connection, all changes will be synced back to Google Drive once the user connects to the internet. The filter views feature lets users create custom views that don’t affect how other people who have access to the spreadsheet view it, this lets them filter the data in a variety of ways even when multiple contributors are working on the same spreadsheet. Last but not the least, Google Sheets also receives performance tweaks, users should notice that it is now more snappy and fast. [Image via ATD]
Google Sheets Offline Editing Is Finally Possible original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Back in March Facebook summoned media outfits to its offices to show off its redesigned News Feed, which is without a doubt one of the most critical elements of the world’s largest social network. Much of the user’s time is spent on the News Feed, where they catch up with their friends’ activities, see posts from pages and groups as well as see advertisements. For a redesigned version to work the company needs it to perform equal to, if not better, than the existing design. Rumor has it that user engagement isn’t picking up on the redesigned News Feed, which is why Facebook has reportedly decided to shelve plans of a global roll out of the new design.
At this point in time, only a small fraction of Facebook’s over 1 billion users have access to the redesigned News Feed. For almost nine months this select group of users has been using the new design, and apparently it hasn’t driven up engagements, which would have been one of the primary reasons behind implementing a new design in the first place. If these rumors are true, then its possible that the company might not roll out the redesigned News Feed to all of its users. Facebook has previously said that its decision depended upon what it observed after the select group of users had used the new design, as per the rumors, Facebook has observed that its probably better off with the existing News Feed design.
Redesigned Facebook News Feed Might Not Be Released For Everyone original content from Ubergizmo. 
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It’s been quite the year for The Pirate Bay as the site’s organizers have fought to keep the site up and running, although apparently the site recently had its domain name seized. Fortunately for those who enjoy The Pirate Bay’s torrenting services, the site’s operators have already temporarily relocated to a new .AC domain that is based on the Ascension Island, which just so happens to be a volcanic island located in the mid-Atlantic with ties to the U.K. (more…)
The Pirate Bay Moves Domain To A Volcanic Island After .SX Seizure original content from Ubergizmo. 
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After finally adding two factor authentication to Microsoft accounts back in April, the company today announced that over the next couple of days it is going to add additional security features to accounts that are designed to give users more control and visibility of their Microsoft accounts. One of the features being added is the ability to see recent activity. Users will now be able to see recent sign-ins as well as other account activity, such as recent password changes. The recent activity screen will display information such as successful and unsuccessful sign-in attempts, addition and deletion of security information and more. For each type of activity, a Bing map will be shown that will reveal the location from where the request came from as well as what device and browser was used to make the request.
The recovery codes feature is basically a fail-safe designed to safeguard users in the rare event that they lose security information provided as part of two factor authentication. It usually includes phone number and email address, and if for some reason the user loses access to both of them, recovery code has been designed to regain access to the Microsoft account. Users can only add one recovery code per account, adding a new one will cancel the previous one. Last but not the least, Microsoft accounts now provide more control over security notifications. Users now have the ability to choose where they would like to receive them, such as password reset notifications. As previously mentioned, these new security features will be rolled out for all Microsoft account users over the next few days.
Microsoft Accounts Receive New Security Features original content from Ubergizmo. 
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