Daily Bits

Arnold Zafra

Pages Creation Feature Graduates from Blogger in Draft

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Since I stopped using Google’s free blog hosting platform, Blogger a long time ago, that doesn’t mean that I also stopped monitoring what’s been happening with the service. So, not so long ago Blogger introduced this feature for creating static pages and put it in their  “Blogger in Draft” beta feature testing site. Guess what? After a long time, that feature has finally graduated from beta and  is now an official Blogger  feature.

If you’re still running a blog hosted on Blogger.com and you’ve  missed this feature, now is the best time to try it out. Basically, what this allows you to do is to create static Pages that you can link to on your Blogger main page. You can create up to 10 static pages which can be for About page, your Biographical details, information about what you are blogging about and many other related information.

The process of creating a page is similar to the way you create a blog post. Once you’ve created a page, you can have it published on your main blog page using the Pages widget. If you’ve created several pages, you can even organize how these will be displayed on your blog’s main page.

This feature works well for blogs that use any of the default blog templates. For those who are using customized template on the Blogger blogs, the process of creating pages and organizing them is a little different and requires some knowledge of HTML and coding. You can check out the procedures for adding Pages tab on blogs with customized template from here.

You know what this mean? Those who want to create an online presence for themselves or for their businesses but do not want to start a blog, can now use Blogger.com to create their websites. And they don’t have to spend anything since the service is free.

E-Reader Owners Are Satisfied with their Device but Want More Features

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The NPD Group has released a new report entitled “e-Reader Owners: Attitudes and Usage” and this could very well be used by Amazon in its drive to develop the Kindle into a more powerful and interesting ebook reading device.

Based on the report 93% of e-reader owners were found to be either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their device. A mere 2% expressed their dissatisfaction.

Additionally, 60% of the respondents said that the wireless feature of their e-Reader device was their favorite feature. The second most favorited feature was touch-capability with 23% of  the respondents saying so. Interestingly, among the many e-readers available in the market today, Amazon seems to be the one with the most stable wireless feature. So, does this mean that most of the respondents have the Kindle as their e-reader? While the 23% may not be Kindle users since only the Kindle DX has the touchscreen feature. Unfortunately, the report did not specify what are the respondents e-readers.

Another interesting finding of the report was that e-Reader owners are still looking for more features for the e-reader. Among those features that they are looking for include longer battery life, more book titles and color screens.

As we all know, Kindle doesn’t have a color screen, so Amazon is probably looking into developing a new Kindle that will support this feature.  And what great timing it is that Amazon was reportedly eyeing to buy a start up called Touchco. This company, as you may have guessed specializes in touch-screen technology. Some analysts say that Amazon is preparing its e-readers  for the entry of the Apple iPad by March.

Skype to Update its Mobile App to Support VoIP 3G

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A couple of days ago, Fring has enabled 3G calling on its iPhone applications. Made us wonder whether Skype will follow them and update their Skype Mobile app for the iPhone.  But apparently, the Skype folks are not rushing into the frenzy created by Apple’s recent ruling on allowing voice calls through 3G on  the iPhone. Before internet voice calls were carried via Wi-Fi only.

So, why is Skype taking its sweet time in updating their mobile Skype app to enable the said feature? According to David Ponsford head of the Skype iPhone Team, Skype will release this update pretty soon.  He also said that Skype wants to make sure that when they allow voice calls through 3G network on their mobile app, the sound quality will not suffer.

Mr. Ponsford also said that the Skype update will allow calls in wideband audio which actually translates to greater clarity and fidelity of voice calls through 3G network.

Interestingly, the Skype folks are also pretty much excited about the recent launch of the iPad. The Skype team is carefully looking into the details of the device and it looks like they might be cooking up something for iPad and Skype. Although I’m not really sure as to how this could be possible considering the fact that the iPad does not have a front-facing camera which is needed for voice chat,  or a mobile phone capability.

Or maybe the Skype team is expecting something else from the iPad that we may not be aware of?

Twitter Asked Some Users to Reset their Passwords

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Right after we posted about Sophos study on the security risk posed by social networks, here comes a buzz regarding some Twitter users getting email from Twitter asking them to reset their passwords.  Thankfully, I’ve not received such email so I’m assuming that my Twitter account is safe, as of the moment.

But for those who received the Twitter email, you should heed Twitter’s call and change your password immediately. Although Twitter has not officially released a statement about it, Digital Inspiration inquired about the issue and received a reply from Twitter that says:

As part of Twitter’s ongoing security efforts, we reset passwords for a small number of accounts that we believe may have been compromised offsite. In one case, a number of accounts posted updates indicative of giving their username and password to untrusted third parties. While we’re still investigating and ensuring that the appropriate parties are notified, we do believe that the steps we’ve taken should ensure user safety. We’ll continue provide updates as warranted at @safety and @spam. We do, as always, encourage our users to read our help pages on what to do if your account is compromised: http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/10713/entries/31796 and how to stay safe on Twitter: http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/10711/entries/76036.

So, there you go folks. That confirms that news of this new Twitter attack. If you didn’t get the email, there’s a slight chance that your account might still be attacked. So the best thing to do is to change you password anyway. I just did. Now, when will this ever stop really?

Google Chrome 4 Supports Greasemonkey Scripts

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If you’ve been using Google Chrome 4 as your web browser, you’ve probably installed several extensions right after it was launched recently. But if you feel like that currently available Google Chrome extensions is not enough, how’s 40,000 more extensions sound to you?

Yes, believe it or not there are around 40,000 new extensions which you can install/activate on your Chrome 4. Well, thanks to Greasemonkey user scripts which has just been supported by Chrome. If you’ve been using Firefox before, you’d know that these scripts lets you customize web pages through simple Javascripts

Actually the 40,000 extensions are basically the converted user scripts available on Greasemonkey before. And with Greasemonkey enabled, you can practically use these user scripts on your Chrome browser after it is converted into Chrome Extension.

Installing these  scripts is just like installing or activating the usual Chrome extensions. That means the process can be done easily.

Of course there’s caveat emptor here. These scripts are very powerful and even has full access to your data, so be cautious of what scripts your are going to activate. In addition, some Greasemonkey may not work with Google Chrome 4 just yet.

So there. To make Google Chrome 4 more fun and useful either you check out the extensions gallery or get more Greasemonkey scripts.

Report, Corporate Security at Risk Due to Attacks on Social Networks

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Hope that this news doesn’t get into your company’s IT administrators as I’m pretty sure their first reaction would be to block off your access to social networking sites, if they haven’t done so yet. A new report by IT security and data protection firm Sophos, showed that there is an alarming rise in cybercriminals attacking corporate staff coming from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

The Social Security report is part of Sophos’s 2010 Security Threat Report which surveyed more than 500 organizations and explored current and emerging computer security trends.

The report found out that 57% of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites. This is an increase of 70% from last year’s data. As for malware, 36% of users reported that they have received malware via social networking sites. This is 69.78% increase from last year’s data.

The report also revealed 60% of the respondents naming  Facebook as the biggest security risk for the company followed by MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. While this is understandable considering that Facebook is the largest social networks in terms of  membership, LinkedIn however could provide the most vital information about corporate individuals since it is more business oriented and information shared by its members can provide a corporate directory which cybercriminals will be more than be happy to exploit.

Another interesting point to note here is that Sophos found out that 49% of the firms surveyed have allowed their staff free access to Facebook. So while companies are loosening their attitude to staff activity on social networks, there goes your friendly malware, spam, phisers and identity theft threatening to spoil the party.