Secure Your Google Account

Google Accounts Password Recovery

Google Accounts Password Recovery

Almost everyone using Internet these days have atleast one Google Account.many people like me have multiple google accounts. your Google Account is the gateway to lots of services we use daily. to be able to use any google service you need a google account. the popular google services are Gmail – E-mail,Orkut – Social Networking,Blogger – Blogging,Youtube – Video Sharing,Adsense – Advertising etc. these are a few to name but there would many more service you would be using.

Imagine the horror of waking up one day and finding that you cannot access your account, now you cannot check your E-mail or new scraps. Neither you can post to on your dear blogger blog or check how many clicks your blog generated yesterday. Even you Youtube Subscriptions updates are long gone! In Short a Total disaster !!
So our Google Account is very valuable to all of us and we should do everything possible to protect it.
Therefore I am going to list a few preventive & post-attacks measures you should take.

Preventive Action: Some Common Tips to keep your account Secure

  • Update Contact Information: If you have created your account, long time back. there are chances that contact information that you provided at time of signing have been changed. Visit Manage Account and update all the information. Goto “Change Security Question” Option and Update Security Question to something which is uncommon and you would always remember. Also add a secondary E-mail Address if possible.
  • Follow Google advice: Read & Follow some Common tips given By Google. these are very basic tips and you may know it.Keeping your account secure.
  • Dig Deep into the Past: Try to Remember when you first created this account. what all services you are using and since when. Account creation Date can be found via by making educated guesses, like I know my first google service was gmail. so date of welcome mail received from google, is date of google account creation. If you don’t use gmail, then search your providers mailbox for “Google Email Verification” message, provided that you didn’t delete that mail. now make a list of Services you use on your account and since when. Also note down google account creation date  Keep all this information written on a paper and keep it safe. I do realize that finding account creation date is hard, so don’t worry Google also knows this fact. so you are only required to give Month and Year correct. dates can be approximate.
  • Use Common Sense: Always Follow some common tips like keep away from links u get in messenger and other sites,avoid using your account on public computer as it might have keyloggers installed,always type the URL or use bookmarks, never click on Shortcuts you receive in e-mail, change your password at regular intervals etc.

What To Do When Your Google Account is Hacked or you can’t access it for some reason

  • Follow the “I Cannot Access my Account” Link. now google will suggest you to reset your password as first line of defense
  • If resetting password does not work, you need to Contact Support with all information who will manually help you recover your account. Fill the form given here and remember to provide all the information to best of your knowledge. Lastly there is no hurry to fill up the form, so fill it with cool mind. As you only get one chance to appeal

Some Great Man has said ‘Prevention is better than Cure!’, So even if you google is not compromised, please follow all the preventive steps i have listed. so incase if you need to reset your account, you would ready with all the relevant information needed!

[Free Giveway] IN Shopping Gift Voucher

IN.com is a new venture of TV18 Group, IN’s shopping arm which is managed by Storeguru has recently started a contest in which they are giving product for free. I had taken part in such contest to try my luck, but but luck isn’t strong. Hence i didn’t win

I have received a Gift Coupon from IN Shopping worth Rs100/- just for taking part in this contest which i don’t plan to use.  you can use this coupon to get Rs100 off, which the catch is Minimum purchase of Rs.500/- is required.

The reason I am not using this coupon is that items in their store are overpriced comparing to market rates, you can find items cheaper in market.so it does not make sense to buy.  though, I have not explored their product listing fully,  maybe using this GC you can find a good deal.

So, if you looking to buy anything from IN shopping, use this coupon to get discount of Rs.100/-. As the site itself is new, so if you buy something from them using this coupon or directly . Please share your experience with us

GV Code   :  34039958-PO-2958775467
Value       :   Rs.100/- (Minimum purchase: Rs.500/-)
Valid Till  :  19th Feb 2009

Link: IN Shopping

Rapidshare Account Premium Giveaway

There is a Rapidshare Premium account giveaway at Geniushackers.com for all bloggers interested. Beside rapidshare account giveaways, they also provide their visitors with many tips and productivity hacks for virtually any task you might be interested in.

Previously also many bloggers have tried this marketing technique to increase traffic. Anyways, if you are a blogger and looking for a rapidshare premium account, its worth a try

Visit them now! Windows tips and productivity hacks
Rapidshare Giveaway

Airtel screws unlimited plan users

Last night i was following this discussion over at Broadbandforum.in. And it seems Airtel has put download caps on their supposedly unlimited connections. After you are finished with your quota, they throttle your speeds :| This is absolutely ridiculous! And before people try to defend by saying that speed caps are there internationally too, i say first match the kind of speeds they provide at the rates they provide it at, then talk about caps.

The restrictions are as follows
128 kbps = download limit 10 gb
256 kbps = 15 gb
384 kbps = 20 gb
512 kbps = 25 gb

Actually Airtel has withdrawn all their unlimited plans except 256kbps and 384kbps. So, now there is no way to get 512kbps or 1mbps unlimited plan.

That too these 256kbps and 384kbps unlimited plans cost Rs 100 and Rs 200 more than their earlier price respectively..

Earlier 256kbps plan was available at Rs 799 and now the same plan costs Rs 899, whereas the 384kbps plan was available for 999Rs earlier, now costs Rs1199.

let’s get this to the mainstream media and tell them how Airtel is out to screw their own customers. They won’t even flinch till someone starts talking bad about them and till the shareholders take notice.

So here are some suggestions:

* If you have a blog, then blog about this
* Join the Facebook group (there may be some issues for now about the Join link but they’ll get fixed)
* Write to all the India specific tech blogs and sites that you know of about this – Tech 2.0, Chip, TechTree, TechShout, PC World etc
* Log complaints with customer care about this and tell them that the customers were not apprised. If they use the word “TRAI” ask them for the specifics – Article, clause, URL etc of the TRAI ruling if any – just don’t let them use the word TRAI and get away with it

Some points to remember:

* We need “bandwidth huggers” who can get the best from the internet to spurn the economy in India by sharing the ideas that they find on the internet – if you can’t experience the best, how do you spread the word?
* Take the example of Miro HD Video Player | Free internet tv and video podcast player. which promotes free Internet TV with an abundance of useful information for Indian audiences
* Take the example of a household with 2-4 users of broadband on 1 Wifi connection who would use their unlimited connection for completely legitimate purposes and still hit the cap in 10-15 days
* Take the example of people who download various Linux distros via torrents to distribute them to people who don’t want to pirate a Windows and yet get a working operating system like Ubuntu for free
* Take the examples of Indian tech startups like Rajshri.com and In.com who are providing free video content on their sites to increase demand for their products and hence churn the economy

What Airtel is doing goes against all of the above. Yes, we might have alternatives but before that we need to know whether the culprit here is TRAI or Airtel or both. Till then, this needs an open debate before the TRAI implements something without consulting the consumers and sleeping with devils like Airtel.

We we don’t act now, other ISP like BSNL will follow

[Update]
This is a Confirmed news! There is a Official Letter from Airtel
Official Confirmation from Airtel

[Tuesday Tornado] Get Sony Ericsson F305 Mobile Phone for just 8 Rupees!

IN.com has announced a promotional offer under which they are offering a high end products like mobiles,i-pod for less than 1% of its market value. Under this promotional offer, a new product will be offered for sale every tuesday for a nominal monetary value like Rs9. Winner would be decided on first-come-first-serve basis and there would be only one winner.tuesday-tornado-gslive-10feb

This weeks Product is Sony Ericsson F305 Mobile phone which costs around 8,000/- in market, but under this offer you can get this for Rs.8/-.Last Tuesday, they have offered a Appple i-pod whose winner was Mr. Arpith Patil.

To Participate in the Contest you have visit Offer Page and click on Buy Now. Presently the “Buy now” button is grayed but it would be enabled at 11 Feb 3:00 PM IST

To win this contest you need pure luck and nothing else. no participation fees is to be paid nor there are any hidden charges. just  go and click on “Buy Now” button before everyone else!. there is no harm in trying your luck as you got nothing to lose here

Best Of Luck folks!

Link:Tuesday Tornado Offer Page


[Update]
The Offer is now Over!, will notify when new contest starts

[Howto] Understanding HDD’s Model Naming Convention

Ever wondered why Hard drive model carry 10-14digit string, why not simple names. because model number of a hard drive can say lot of information about it e.g storage capacity,cache size & connector interface.storage companies use a set of conventions

Understanding a model no. would help you know about features of it by simply checking it label & you would no longer have to be dependent on not-so-informed salesman in your local shop. many times there are different model no. of exact same capacity but they differ in cache size which has a direct result on performance. more cache means faster performance

Now we will try to understand model number of various hard drives from different manufacturers.

Note: i would discuss only about consumer series internal hard drives from popular manufacturers. discussing others are beyond the scope of this guide.

Where do i find model no?
Its written clearly on faceplate of hard drive with bold characters along the serial no and other information like date of manufacturing etc.


1)Seagate

sample model number:ST3500630AS
we break is as: ST-3-500-6-30-AS

  • ST: Company initials. ST= “Seagate Technology”, STM – Seagate Technology Maxtor(Maxtor Hard drive).
  • 3: Form factor. 3 = Standard 3.5″ inch drives; 9 = 2.5″ inch Laptop drive.
  • 500: Total Capacity in Gigabytes(1000mb = 1GB). this is a 500GB model.
  • 6:Cache Size. 0 = 2MB, 2 = 2MB, 3 = 8MB,4 = 16MB, 6 = 16MB and 8 = 8MB. Note:the cache is the buffer memory between the controller and the mechanical hdd. the more cache it has – the more data it can store to transmit off to the controller. the faster data access on the hdd will be.please don’t confuse it with CPU Cache.
  • AS: Connector Interface type, A= 40pin PATA or IDE and AS=SATA interface.

Link:How to interpret Seagate model numbers

2) Western Digital

sample model number::WD6400AAKS
we break it as: WD-640-0-A-A-K-S

WD:Company initials

640: drive capacity in Gigabytes. its a 640GB drive

A:Form factor.

A:Brand/Series

K:RPM/Buffer Size or Attribute
S:Interface Type

Link: Model Number Format for WD Products