How to Protect Your Gmail & Google Accounts

Log-in to your Gmail / Google Account and associate a phone number. You’ll then receive an SMS text message whenever someone tries to recover your Google password.

Create a new email address (on say Yahoo! Mail or Gmail itself) and set this as the secondary email address for your existing Gmail and Google Accounts. Check for emails on this new account manually or through a desktop client via POP3 / IMAP but do not enable auto-forward for the new email address as the original purpose will be defeated.

Take a paper and write down the following information about your Google Account. You will need this to verify your identify to Google in case someone else takes over your Google Account and the secondary email address associated with your account.

• The month and year when your created your Gmail / Google Account. You can look at the last page of your Gmail Inbox (or go to Sent Items) to get an approximate idea of the date when you created the account.
• If you created a Gmail account by invitation, write the email address of the person who first sent you that invite for Gmail. Use a search query like “in:all has invited you to open a free Gmail account” to find that invitation email.
• The email addresses of your most frequently emailed contacts (the top 5).
• The names of any custom labels that you may have created in your Gmail account.
• The day/month/year when you started using various other Google services (like AdSense, Orkut, Blogger, etc.) that are associated with the Google account that you are trying to recover. If you’re not certain about some of the dates, provide your closest estimate.

Do a test run. Log-out of all your Gmail / Google Accounts and initiate the password recovery process for each one of them using this form. This will help you make sure that your SMS settings and secondary email addresses are configured correctly.

Once in a while, do refer to that little line in the footer section of your Gmail Inbox that shows the different IP addresses from where your account is being accessed. If you find an unknown IP address, change your Google password immediately.

- Thanks Amit ,very useful. I'm glad that you got your account back.

How to Try Out Google Real-time Search

Today, Google launched real-time search integrated into search results pages. It updates as stuff is happening around the web, live tweets, news articles and blog posts, it works on mobile,too (at least iPhone and Android for now). That’s not all, they’ve inked partnerships with both Facebook and MySpace to pull in data in real-time.

The new features will be rolling out in the next few days and will be available globally in English. You can try them out today by visiting Google Trends and clicking on a "hot topic," which in most cases will bring you to a search results page with the new real-time feature.

Google says the features aren’t available to everyone yet. But, all users can see it now via a "Hot Topics", the most popular 10 keywords are available at Google Trends and they trigger a real-time search OneBox.

Well, it won’t yet show up by default when you search. However, this trick will help you trigger it easily: If you add &esrch=RTSearch to your the URL after you've done a google search, you get the feature.

Example: http://www.google.com/search?q=copenhagen&hl=en&sa=G&esrch=RTSearch&tbo=1&output=search&tbs=rltm:1

Pretty cool, huh?

How to Test Out Google's New Search Look

Google is testing it's new look, but you can't see it directly. Here's a JavaScript tweak that gets anyone into Google's new look test.

Copy the code, paste it into the address bar of your browser when on google.com and hit return, If things work out and reload Google, you should find yourself as new participant of Google's latest and more all-encompassing prototype test. a new look to Google’s Search Options feature with a new logo, buttons, and always-visible left-hand pane in results.

The search options appear in the left-hand column. The former “All results” area that allowed you to switch between different types of searches (images, news, maps and so on) has been replaced with new tabs for these services. How do you like this? go Leave a comment on Blogoscoped.

If all goes well, the cleaner display may be launched across Google after the New Year.

How to Embed Facebook Videos in Your Website

Everybody know, we can upload video clips to the Facebook site. But, Facebook doesn’t (officially) provide an embed code for their videos. When you found a very interesting video on Facebook but how you do share it with your blog readers since there’s no code to embed that video into your site. The other problem is you can watch video clips on Facebook only if you are logged into your Facebook account. But how do you share these video clips with people who aren’t members of Facebook?

Here’s a way that will let you embed any Facebook video into your web pages, a simple trick.

Every video uploaded on Facebook has a unique ID that you can find in the browser’s address bar (look for the value of parameter "v").

Copy that number(ID) and replace it with "xxx" in the code below.

<object width="400" height="224" >
  <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />
  <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
  <param name="movie" value="http://www.facebook.com/v/xxx" />
  <embed src="http://www.facebook.com/v/xxx" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="224">
  </embed>
</object>

Now you can put that code on any web pages and the video will play just fine, and watch it here itself without having to become a Facebook member.

Thanks, Amit!

Update: OK, since December 5, 2008 Facebook has placed "Embed this Video" links on video pages of videos, with the same code, I'm really out.

How to Make a Mojito

The mojito is a traditional Cuban cocktail which became popular in the United States during the late 1980s, and has recently seen a resurgence in popularity. A mojito is traditionally made of five ingredients: spearmint, rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime, and carbonated water. Its combination of sweetness and refreshing citrus and spearmint flavors are intended to mask the potent kick of the rum, and have made this clear cocktail a popular summer drink.

Ingredients

• 3 sprigs of fresh mint
• 2 tsp of sugar
• a hefty squeeze of lime juice
• 1 1/2 oz of light rum, add to taste
• chilled club soda or seltzer ( I prefer the club soda)

First take a tall glass and crush the mint inside thoroughly making sure that the insides of the glass are also being rubbed with the mint. Add in your sugar and lime juice (fresh is the best). Next make sure that you fill your glass with crushed ice. Pour in your rum and your club soda. Mix well by using a drink shaker and transferring the liquid back and forth a few times before you leave it in the final resting place of the tall glass. For decoration you can add a slice of lime and another mint leaf on top. Use a straw to consume and enjoy your fabulous new creation.

If you are a person that enjoys a little fruity flavor with your drink then you can add a flavored vodka to the mix and create Raspberry Mojitos, Blackberry Mojitos, Coconut Mojitos, etc. You can also add additional pieces of fruit to accommodate the flavor with added colorful decorations.

This type of drink is very versatile for adding ingredients to. Even men find the Mojitos an irresistible treat. So why spend a fortune on a great summer drink? Make your own and save the extra money for something like dinner and a movie.

Tips: The fresh mint and the lime are the two most important ingredients of the mojito. Don't try to skimp on either of these things.

Cheers!