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Weekend Roundup #123

Jaypee Habaradas — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:38:44 +0000

Hi folks! Welcome to the 123rd edition of the Weekend Roundup. Like always, there’s lots of useful and interesting stories and links here from all around the Internet on blogging, WordPress, SEO, social media, technology, gadgets including a recap of last week’s posts here on JaypeeOnline. Hope you enjoy reading and learn something from them. Also, feel to share these articles. Enjoy!

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If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or would want to share your article or any interesting story that you found in the Internet and have it featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Weekend Roundup #119

Jaypee Habaradas — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:05:56 +0000

Hello folks! My apologies for the late edition of the Weekend Roundup. Tried to finish it and have it ready by yesterday but due to some personal business and unavoidable circumstances, I wasn’t able to publish it. Nevertheless, this week’s edition of the Weekend Roundup if full of very interesting and useful links so I hope you enjoy reading and sharing it.

Blogging

WordPress

SEO

Social Media

Technology

Gadgets

Pinoy Blogs

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

Google Adds Email Signing on Google Apps

Jaypee Habaradas — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:47:07 +0000

Since 2004, Gmail has supported e-mail signing standards like DomainKeys and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) to validate mail with digital signatures and help users identify that the emails they receive are from verified senders like eBay and PayPal. Email authentication doesn’t only verify the identity of the sender but also helps in recognizing potential spam messages. With billions of spam and phishing email sent to users each day, Google has added the ability for Google Apps users to sign their outgoing e-mails using the DKIM technology.

Today, we mark another notch in the spam-fighting belt: we’re making it possible for all Google Apps customers to sign their outgoing messages with DKIM, so their sent mail is less likely to get caught up in recipients’ spam filters. Google Apps is the first major email platform – including on-premises providers – to offer simple DKIM signing at no extra cost. Once again, the power of the cloud has made it possible for us to bring this feature to millions of customers quickly and affordably.

Screenshot of the e-mail signing DKIM technology used in Google Apps:

Now, Google Apps users or administrators can enable the DKIM signing via the Advanced Tools tab on the control panel.

Btw, Google has also added an option for Google Apps administrators to specify and put certain restrictions on who users can send/receive emails and create specific policies for different user groups. This is useful for businesses, non-profit organizations and schools who use Google Apps to handle their e-mail accounts and keep users safe from unwanted email interaction from outsiders or malicious users.

Anyone tried or are using the new e-mail signing feature for your Google Apps account? What other features or options should Google add to help prevent or fight spam and phishing? Please share your thoughts.

[image source: Official Gmail Blog]

Beware of WordPress Theme Malware

Jaypee Habaradas — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 04:00:34 +0000

One of the things that make WordPress great and popular is the huge number of available free themes and plugins. Unfortunately, the popularity of free WordPress themes have been used by scammers, spammers and malicious users, as an opportunity to cash in and/or wreak havoc. Many of the free WordPress themes available on the Internet today have already been altered by these users, adding base64 encrypted codes into the theme’s functions.php file which when decrypted, contain spammy links or malware.

Recently, a new type of malware was found on some free WordPress themes that are being distributed by a site called top-themes.com (site no longer available). The malware-ridden theme’s functions.php file contains code that inserts a zip file on a theme’s screenshot file. Once activated, the file unzips itself into a new directory and executes the malware file, adds itself (the malware code) and infects other themes in the user’s wp-content/themes directory. This type of malware is really clever because once it accomplishes it’s goal, the file erases itself so it won’t be traceable.

To learn more about how this type of malware works, check out Otto’s post entitled – Anatomy of a Theme Malware. As an additional resource, please make sure to read Lorelle VanFossen’s article – WordPress Theme Malware Prevention and Protection.

To all WordPress users out there, make sure you only download free WordPress themes from reliable sources/websites like the WordPress.org Theme Repository. If ever you’re gonna download a theme outside the official WordPress theme Repository, make sure you only download from the theme author’s website and to use a plugin like the Theme Authenticity Checker, that checks theme files for any encrypted codes.

There are lot of free WordPress themes out there that are not only spam and malware-free but also beautiful and premium-quality. I try to post as many of these themes here on JaypeeOnline so users can find them easily. You can check out the themes I’ve reviewed from the WordPress themes category. If you can afford it, you can also purchase premium WordPress themes from reliable sources like StudioPress, WooThemes, Elegant Themes, Theme Forest, WP ZOOM and many others.

Where do you guys get or download your WordPress themes from? Have you ever been victimized by a malware-ridden theme? Anyone here ever come across this new type of WordPress theme malware? Please share your thoughts.

Gmail Priority Inbox

Jaypee Habaradas — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:24:26 +0000

I have been using Gmail the past 5 years and for me what makes it better than other webmail services, (aside from it’s very effective spam filter) is that the Gmail team is constantly coming up with new features to improve the total user experience. The newest Gmail feature called Priority Inbox, is an experimental new way of easing up the information overload that most Gmail users like me are experiencing.

Aside from spam, we also get unimportant emails and “bacn” which are subscription emails or newsletters that most of us don’t bother to read or only read after a long period of time. With Priority Inbox, these unimportant emails can be filtered and separated from the important ones which will be displayed on top of the inbox. With this new feature, Gmail users can now easily get to the important emails, the ones that need immediate attention and read them and/or reply to them. No more wasting time sorting through your inbox.

Here’s a video from Google that explains what the Gmail Priority Inbox is and how it works:

Gmail filters the incoming emails and categorizes them according to the

Emails in the Priority Inbox are separated into 3 areas – the top portion being the emails marked Important and Unread, the second portion are the Starred emails and the bottom portion is for the rest of the emails on your Inbox.

Once you’ve activated the Priority Inbox, you can easily switch between the regular Inbox and the Priority Inbox via the links on the side panel of your Gmail interface.

Although I love this new feature, I won’t be using it that much because I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my email client and barely use the web version of Gmail. For those of you who do use the web version of Gmail, I’m sure you’ll find this new feature very useful in sorting, organizing your emails and will save you a lot of time.

Anyone tried using the Gmail Priority Inbox? How do you like it so far? Are you gonna continue using the Priority Inbox or would you rather use the regular Inbox? Please share your thoughts.