Have you ever asked yourself, "Is someone else using my email account?" Well, if you're the cautious type, Google just added a few log-in monitoring features to its email service, so such paranoid questions won't feel so pressing anymore.

Wondering if you're Gmail account is open in multiple locations? Just look at the very, very bottom of the main Gmail page. It'll say something to the sound of: "This account is open in one other location." Click on the "details" link next to it to get taken to, well, a details page.

It'll give you the deets on the most recent sessions including the access type and IP address. It's not the end-all for email hijacking, but at the very least it'll help you point-out intruders. And if you don't see the feature yet, sit tight, Google is slowly rolling out the feature to all accounts.

When we heard that AOL (this blog's parent company) was coming out with a new version of Desktop for Mac, we were pretty excited to see what they'd been up to since the last release five years ago. Now that we've had a chance to play with it, we like it but think it's still got a ways to go before there's a compelling reason to leave behind whatever browser / IM / email combo you're using now.

Though this new version of Desktop for Mac is still in beta, it seems stable. We tested Desktop on a new generation iMac and a MacBook Pro and it ran just fine on both. System requirements include a PowerPC G4 or greater, OS X 10.4 or higher, and at least 256 MB RAM. Surprisingly, Desktop only needs 60 MB of hard drive space (Firefox alone needs 52 MB).

Whether you made the switch to using your Yahoo! ID on Flickr ages ago, or you simply stepped into rank with the rest of us on March 15th, you might find yourself at one point or another wishing you could change which Yahoo! ID you have tied to Flickr. You could beg Flickr support for some help, check out the forums to see if you aren't the only indecisive person to pull this stunt, or you could simply visit the recently redesigned account management section. We aren't sure how long it's been there, but a new pref section titled 'Your Yahoo! Account' offers a really simple process for changing the account you log into Flickr with. Easy breezy, and no waiting for customer service.

So it took me about a decade, but I've finally reached the breaking point: I have too many usernames and passwords to remember. This came to a head today as I tried to log into a handful web sites to change some billing information and had to make multiple tries to get into half of them, even having to click on the dreaded "Forgot your password?" link once. Enough! There are dozens and dozens of programs out there designed just to solve this problem, but the trouble is figuring out which ones are crap and which ones are good. And that's where you come in, dear readers:

What's the best password-management app for your money? Here are my criteria: Super easy to use, unobtrusive (keyboard access a big plus), works on Windows, works with Firefox, secure (duh), and fairly configurable. Also, as you know, I'm incredibly cheap, so free or very inexpensive are high on my list.

Can you help me out? Leave your recommendations in the comments below.

Thought phishing was just a problem for banks and PayPal, did you? Well, it's entered a new territory: MySpace. And it's got some new tricks up its sleeve. MySpace's iconic Tom Anderson has made a post describing the new attacks that con users into divulging their MySpace username and password. What's interesting about the attacks is that, unlike most phishing sites that must exist on a site other than the official site and whose fake URLs need a keen eye to be identified), these exploit MySpace's customization features to make an ordinary profile at profile.myspace.com look exactly like the official login page. You can see a screenshot of one such phishing profile here. You'll notice that the URL begins with profile.myspace.com rather than the legitimate login.myspace.com, but the page is otherwise indistinguishable from an ordinary MySpace login prompt.

So what are evil phishers using those passwords it collects for? Spamming, of course. Once a phisher has a user's login info they use them to post spam comments and send spam bulletins to that user's friends. How original.

Anderson's advice to MySpace users is that whenever they see a login form they should go to www.myspace.com instead of entering their username and password, which is, in my opinion, no solution at all. It just compounds MySpace's already-jarring interface problems. By allowing arbitrary CSS in MySpace profiles, MySpace has created a huge problem for itself that's going to take a very creative solution.

Chris Seibold at Apple Matters has written a fun how-to on tweaking the Mac OS X login window to display whatever image you want in place of the Apple logo and whatever text you want below. Sure, it won't really impress your coworkers, but if you'd like to be greeted by a picture of your cat or, say, Bill Gates when you boot up, then why not? It's kind of an involved process, but doesn't look too tough if you follow the instructions.

[Via Digg]

Today we're supposed to see a response from IBM and Novell regarding the Higgins Project, described as "Higgins is a framework that will enable users and enterprises to integrate identity, profile, and relationship information across multiple systems." Essentially it's a way to centralize all your logins, and should eventually encompass your online registrations. The difference between Higgins and InfoCard, which is Microsoft's one-for-all sign-in that will hold your payment data across multiple sites, is the difference between open source and proprietary systems. Neither side appears to be backing down or coming to terms, although the Higgins folks have made overtures to MS for including InfoCard support in the Higgins system. Does anyone remember the spectacular success of the Passport system? I thought so. Let's see what happens, because I'm kinda rooting for Higgins here. If Microsoft did participate, in theory, you'd be able to use InfoCard on Linux. Who doesn't want that? I guess it comes down to who do you trust...

[Via Cnet]