Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

accounts posts

Filed under: Internet, Photo, Social Software, web 2.0

"Baby, please don't go!" Facebook laying it on thick when you deactivate


Like a desperate boyfriend who's just been given a one-way ticket to Splitsville by his girfriend, Facebook is going to do its best to win you back. Before you push the big red button and vaporize your account (but not your content, since Facebook can keep it locked up in the basement 'till the sun doesn't shine) they're giving your heartstrings a good, hard tug.

Yes, they've found another great way to put your friend's photos to good (and acceptable) use. They're going to guilt you into staying a member of the social networking goliath when you visit the deletion page. I enjoy the zinger Facebook includes, which reads: "Your [number] friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you." [sad trombone] Yet further down the page, there's a great big list of opt-outs for you to peruse.

Why? "Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups." So wait...They can't keep in touch, but they can invite me to parties, post and tag pictures of those parties, and ask me to join groups that plan upcoming parties?

Read more →

Filed under: Internet, Security, Web services, Open Source

phpMyID: roll your own OpenID provider

phpMyIDWith more and more web sites and services offering OpenID for authentication, you may want to use your own domain name as an OpenID provider instead of selecting from the wide array of other providers (like Blogger, AOL, Wordpress.com).

phpMyID is a pair of PHP files that allow you to easily use your domain name for authentication to OpenID-supporting sites like Sourceforge, Skitch, and Technorati.

To use phpMyID (substitute "yourwebsite" with your domain name or website address):

Read more →

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Twitter to kill spammy accounts

Twitter may seem nice and innocent to a nonchalant user, but they may soon start killing spammy accounts with one stone. According to a recent News.com article, accounts flagged as spam will be removed. Employees of Twitter have been chirping up a storm about the new policy in their Google group forum.

Previously, blacklisted accounts were simply frozen to adding new followers, but as the amount of users on the service has increased, so have the spammers -- therefore, new policies had to be put into place. Users will be notified prior to their accounts being removed and have a chance to plead their case to the big bird in Twitterville.

Filed under: Internet, E-mail, Productivity, Google

All your address are belong to Google

Associate email addresses with your Google account
Google now allows you to associate non-Gmail accounts with your Google account. Why does this matter? Well, by associating other e-mail accounts, invites such as events for your Google Calendar will be automatically added, even when sent to a non-Gmail account. Also, you get the benefit of using your non-Gmail address to log into Google instead of your Google credentials.

So where is this little feat accomplished? If you sign in to "My account" on Google, and hit "edit" by personal information, a dialog that allows you to add additional email addresses should be visible below your usual info. If you try to add other Google addresses you will quickly be denied, convenient as that would otherwise be. Once you add an acceptable address, you'll have to verify your account via a little confirmation email sent to your non-Gmail account. Then you'll be set.

Functionality at this point, in terms of synchronicity, still seems limited to Google Calendar. But hopefully this will be expanded to other Google services that allow sharing and invites. Considering that we can already use Gmail to check and send email from non-Gmail accounts, this brings us just a little closer to having our non-Google accounts behave as if they were.

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services, Yahoo!, Social Software

Upcoming.org Redesigns, Merges With Yahoo Accounts, Gives Stuff Away


Yesterday afternoon, popular social event website and Yahoo! property Upcoming.org surprised users by redesigning and requiring the merging of existing accounts with Yahoo! accounts. The changes came without warning, possibly in an attempt to avoid a user backlash similar to that which erupted after big brother Flickra few months ago. announced the merging of accounts As way of making it up to their users, Upcoming is giving away a bunch of special Upcoming.org t-shirts to 'old skool' users who've been using the site for a while.

On the redesign side of the news, the new look is cleaner, faster to load, and introduces a whole new way of browsing events which centers around more specific metro's and integrated maps. The new interface is overall more media driven, and resembles in a way the recent Facebook redesign.

In addition to the most obvious changes mentioned above, Upcoming.org is no longer actually upcoming.org, but upcoming.yahoo.com.

Update: Apparently the updates were not unannounced; they were posted on the official blog multiple times. They did not, however, send an email notice to users in the same way Flickr did.

Filed under: Business, Internet, E-mail, Web services, Google

Google accidentally disabled Gmail accounts

gmail accounts disabledWhat would you do if you woke up one morning to check your email, and for some reason you can't login? It seems as though Google has recently done the unthinkable, deleted some Gmail accounts.

Google came across spammers who setup accounts at Gmail, and began to actively monitor and investigate them. Through the process, a number of legit Google accounts were accidentally disabled.

Google is working on restoring the accounts, but it looks like several which have been re-enabled do not link properly to email attachments. Some people have even been locked out of important information they had stored in their Gmail accounts, and out of their Google Accounts that control blogs, Docs and even AdSense for seven days so far.

This new development is surely going to make people think twice about the extreme side effects that can come with storing information online. We just rarely assume it could happen with Google.

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio