Well before getting into the matter of this post, first of all, I apologize to all sincere VirginTech readers for being away for such a long time and putting no content here on VirginTech. Hopefully from now onwards I will be a bit consistent.

Anyway, lets move on to the main motive of this post that’s about making your Facebook account more secure with Facebook advanced security features which are namely HTTPS secure connection, login notifications and Facebook On time passwords. All these features could be extremely helpful to you if you frequently access facebook over unsecured Wi-Fi networks or on public computers. Lets get to them one by one.

1] Facebook HTTPS Secure Connection:

HTTPS secure connection is basically intended to create a secure connection on a network that’s itself insecure. The main idea of introducing this site wide HTTPS secure connection is to ensure that that the user’s sensitive account information is not intercepted by hackers and phishing attacks are avoided.

To enable sitewide Facebook HTTPS secure connection, simply go to Account Security located in your Facebook Account Settings and Check the box below Secure Browsing (https)

2] Facebook Login Notifications:

Facebook login notifications are meant to warn or notify you whenever there is unauthorized access to your facebook account. When someone logs into your account with a new device or a device which has not been registered by you already then Facebook sends the login notifications corresponding to those unauthorized logins.

We have already written before about how you can enable the login Notifications. Check out this link: How to Avoid Facebook Account Hacks by Enabling Login Notification Feature

3] Facebook On time Passwords:

If you’re reluctant (you should be!) to access your facebook from a public location or accessing facebook over an unsecured Wi-Fi network then making use of the Facebook On Time Passwords would be the best move.

So how do you get a facebook On Time Password?, Well thats pretty straightforward! Simply use your mobile phone to text OTP to 32665 or FBOOK . Once you sent the message you will recieve a unique password, which you can use only once, and it will expire after 20 minutes.

Here is a short video that briefly explains the implementation of all the three advanced security features  we mentioned above.

If you enable or make use of all the above mentioned security features with your facebook account then undoubtedly they will make your facebook experience more secure and hack free. We hope you liked them all. Make sure you drop in your comments in case you have something to say over these security features. We love to hear from you.

3 Facebook Advanced Security Features To Make Your Facebook Account More Secure
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.

Twitter has got more than 100 million active users presently and every twitter user wants to follow users in a specific niche. But finding relevant twitter users was a big problem till now as there was no tool from twitter that could find users with similar interest. To address this problem Twitter has rolled out a nice feature named “Suggestions For You” that greatly helps twitter users in finding users with similar interest.

Twitter wrote the following about this feature on its official blog:

With more than a hundred million users on Twitter, there are sure to be at least dozens of accounts out there that will reflect your interests. The trouble is finding all of them. Today we’re beginning to roll out a simple, but powerful new feature to help address that — “Suggestions for You”. The algorithms in this feature, built by our user relevance team, suggest people you don’t currently follow that you may find interesting. The suggestions are based on several factors, including people you follow and the people they follow. You’ll see these suggestions on Twitter.com and the Find People section. If you like a suggestion, click “follow”; if you don’t, click “hide,” and we’ll try not to suggest that user again

To get started with this suggestion feature click on the Find People link in the top navigation of any twitter page and then click on the Suggestions For You tab which will list all the twitter users suggested by twitter to you . The twitter suggestions also appear on your twitter homepage (See the screenshot on the left). The user suggestions made by this tool are based on people you follow and the people they follow. To me this feature is really a great one as it helped me find more than 20 twitter users, in just one day, that are having quite similar interest as that of mine.

I am sure this is definitely going to help you a lot in finding users with similar interests. Also one more thing that worths a mention is that you can also find the twitter users on the basis of different area of interests like Technology, business, entertainment etc. To browse twitter users on the basis of their interests go to this link. Click on any of the interest and twitter will show you up a long list of users whom you can follow.

Twitter “Suggestions For You” Will Find You Users With Similar Interest
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.

There are many URL Shortening services on the web like tinyURL.com,  bit.ly etc and all of them are for converting the lengthy URL’s into the shorter ones. Shortened URLs not just make the sharing of links easy in fact they come in very handy when it comes to sharing links  on sites which are message length limited like Twitter.

The only problem with shortened URLs is that before visiting the link you can’t predict at all what the shortened link is all about because  shortened URL simply looks like this: http://bit.ly/dgAayN.

These links may contain viruses, malwares or they may even lead you to spam or phishing sites. So its always better to examine or preview such kind of links if they are not from genuine source.

How to Preview/Examine Short URL’s to avoid Phishing, Malwares and viruses:

There are many online services that allows you to preview a shortened link. Among all of them the one we liked the most is longURL.org as it provides  provides the screenshot of the webpage too along with the Webpage title, Meta description and Meta keyword information of the webpage. Depending on how frequently you encounter the shortened links there are two methods to choose from:

Method 1:

If you rarely find shortened URLs and don’t want to install any script or add-on to preview them then this method is for you. To preview any shortened URL,  go to longURL.org , enter the shortened URL in the given space and then hit the expand button.

It will show you the expanded URL (the actual URL), the thumbnail of the webpage that you’re about to visit, Meta description, meta keywords information and the title of the webpage.

Method 2:

This method will suit you if you are a heavy internet user (especially for bloggers) and you come across the shortened links quite frequently. In this case we recommend you to install a longURL tool as either a Firefox extension or Greasemonkey script. Doing this will allow you to preview or examine a short URL without visiting the longURL website.

Once you’re done with the installation you can examine or preview any shortened link by simply hovering the mouse over it.

You can see in the screenshot above that by simply hovering the mouse on the shortened link the title of the webpage and its actual URL can be previewed.

How to Preview Short URL’s To Avoid Short URL Phishing, Malwares and Viruses
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.

Digg, the news aggregation site, is about to undergo a major redesign later this year. We’ve got an email from Digg to try out their upcoming Digg version 4.0 Alpha. The newer version of Digg is available to limited Digg users in the form of Digg version 4.0 Alpha. Though I am not much into Digg, still I decided to check out what’s new there for Digg users.

The newer Digg seems to be much improved than the older one. The Major design changes in Digg are best depicted by screenshot below.

According to new Digg invitation email that we got, here’s what’s new in Digg Version 4.0 Alpha:

• Find and follow your friends, influencers, and news sources you trust! Once you follow these Digg users, we’ll build a custom news homepage for you called “My News.” My News will display news stories to you as dugg by your friends.
• Get more followers! Aside from digging great content, one of the best ways to attract new followers is to update your profile. Add a photo and link to your blog, Twitter account, or Facebook profile.
• Explore the “My News” and “Top News” pages. My News is the custom news page build for you based on the people you follow, Top News is the global zeitgeist showing you the most popular stories on Digg.

How To get New Digg Version 4.0 Alpha Invites:

Well here on VirginTech it is super easy for you to get a new Digg version 4.0 invite. We have 5 New Digg invites to be given away.  Just comment on this post and we will straight away give you an invite. The Digg invites will be given away on first come first serve basis. There is no time limit at all for this. So the first five commenters will get the new Digg invite instantly without any delay.

Get New Digg version 4.0 Alpha Invites Right Now: 5 New Digg Invites Up For Grabs
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.

Just two days back PayPal announced that it will stop its Electronic Withdrawl facility, from july 29th – 2010, for Indian PayPal account holders. But quite surprisingly they have resolved the issue responsible for bringing this service down and made this service live again.

Dickson Seow’s recent post on the paypal blog notified about the continuation of electronic withdrawl service for Indian Paypal users. This is what he wrote in his post:

We’ve received good news – India users can perform electronic withdrawals right now as you did before.

We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you over the past few days. While we have received your appreciation for the advance notice and the refund of the cheque processing fee, we have also heard loud and clear that you highly value the ease-of-use of our electronic withdrawal service. We want you to know that our customers are our #1 priority and we are working non-stop to improve our service to you.

We sincerely thank you for your patience and continued support as we are committed to delivering a world-class service to you in India. To thank you for your loyalty, we will still provide the US$5 processing fee refund for any cheque withdrawals made from July 29 until further notice.

Please note that processing fee refund of  $5 is still available with check withdrawls. So this again a thing to rejoice over for those who prefer withdrawing their funds via check.

PayPal Electronic Withdrawl Service Continues In India
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.

How To Avoid Facebook Fan Page, Group Wall Spamming
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.

If you are a paypal user in India then here is an important update from PayPal for you regarding the funds withdrawl functionality. From 1st August, 2010 there will be a change in PayPal funds withdrawl for Indian users. Earlier Inidan users were allowed to withdraw their funds by two means: Electronic and Cheque withdrawal of funds. But now their withdrawl policy is a bit changed.

Please note that From July 29, 2010 onwards, you will only be able to request for a cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account. At present (before july 29th, 2010) you can request for either an electronic or cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account.

This is what PayPal wrote in their email to us.

In accordance with regulatory instructions, we would like to notify you about a change in our withdrawal functionality in India starting on August 1, 2010. At present you can request for either an electronic or cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account if you are an India user.

From July 29, 2010 onwards, you will only be able to request for a cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account.

While we are working hard to restore the electronic withdrawal service, in the meantime, we are bringing this matter to your attention so that you can plan your future withdrawal activities accordingly.

PayPal Changes Withdrawl of Funds For Indian PayPal Account Users
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.

Facebook seem to have taken some action against facebook profile spying applications. Many of the crap applications reported spam by facebook users have been taken down by facebook. But still the thing to worry about is that the facebook profile spying spam is not spreading through apps only, in fact it is spreading with the help of Facebook Events, Pages and groups too. So facebook needs to filter out those spam pages, groups and events too.

Most of the profile spying groups, pages and apps takes you to a page that’s completely filled with advertisements and affiliate links. Quite often they ask users to complete certain offers or surveys (see screenshot below) after which users end up passing their important information to the spammers or downloading infected files to their PC.

You will find large number of facebook pages, groups and apps that claims to tell users about who checked/viewed their profile. Actually they all are spam. Their sole purpose is to get a large user following by tricking people and then directing them all to pages heavily loaded with advertisements which in turn generates revenue for them.

Facebook itself says that there is no way at all with which you can see/check who is visiting your facebook profile. This is what Facebook’s recent status update states about this rapidly growing spam.

On Facebook, there’s no way to see who has visited your profile. We’ve also prevented others from providing this functionality. We’re working hard to block and remove websites, Pages, and applications that claim to do this. If you see one, don’t be fooled, and report it to us immediately.

Following are some of the Facebook spam apps, events and pages along with their URL’s. If you wish you may report them to facebook as spam (this would take just few seconds) but still that would not make much difference because there are so many apps, pages, groups with same stuff under different names.

Find Who’s checking your facebook profile Working!! New app

www.facebook.com/pages/FIND-OUT-WHOS-CHECKING-YOUR-FACEB00K-PR0FILE-NEW-UPDATED-APP/141870902496388

OMG OMG OMG… I can’t believe this actually works! Now you really can see who views your facebook profile!!!

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=139263852762580&ref=search

Spy see who is viewing Your Profile

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111781085539968&ref=search

In order to get rid of these crappy profile visitor checking stuff Facebook must have a proper screening system to evaluate the content of any facebook app, page , group etc.

To stay away and safe from all these scams/spams please don’t ever join or go to any facebook page, app, group, event that claims to tell you about who visited your profile or similar kind of information. This will certainly help you stay safe on Facebook.

Find Out Who’s Checking/Viewing Your Facebook Profile: Facebook Spam
Originally Published at VirginTech

No related posts.