40Tech

Last week we wrote of an important step that you should take to secure your Gmail account – associating a cell phone number with your Gmail account, so that you can receive a recovery code via text message.  As we pointed out, that’s not foolproof – a savvy hacker could change the cell phone number associated with your account.  Then what?  Google does offer an account recovery process, but it requires you to know the answer to several questions.  Here’s here to find out the answers to those questions, BEFORE your account gets hacked.

TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook will be unveiling a full-fledged webmail client tomorrow, to take on the likes of Gmail.  If the story turns out to be true, Facebook could have a formidable email service, given the size of Facebook’s user base.  Technology publications seem to be overlooking an Achilles’ heel that could make Facebook mail a no-go for many users.

In the spirit of yesterday’s security-focused post, I wanted to share with you some tips on how to protect your email account from getting hacked. This list was originally put together by the folks at MakeTechEasier and was focused on Gmail, but many of the items are relevant to any web email client, and many other services besides. I’ve reworked the concepts for general use – if you want the just-for-Gmail step by step details, please visit the original post. Hit the jump for the goods.

Several months ago, we wrote about how to use Gmail to check your various email accounts from across the web, so that you have one single inbox to check. That post contained handy tips on how to get other mail into Gmail, how to organize it, and how to send messages from within Gmail as if you were using the external account. To get other mail into Gmail, that procedure used POP3 to periodically pull mail from those accounts.

One flaw in Gmail is that you can’t specify how frequently your account will pull down that mail. Gmail determines this frequency based on how often it discovers mail in those accounts when it checks. Lifehacker recently had a tip on how to increase that frequency. But what if you want to eliminate the delay entirely? Here are a few tricks to keep in mind.

You might remember our post on Threadsy Beta way back in January. Threadsy is a great web app that pulls all of your email, Facebook and Twitter info into one neat little interactive package, and even gives you some detailed multiple social network info on your contacts. In May, Threadsy went live to the public with a slew of new features, and has added even more in the last week. It’s safe to say that Threadsy is growing fast and doing well, so if you tried it and dropped it, you might want to look again — and if you haven’t played with Threadsy yet, we recommend you check it out!

Here’s the shortlist of Threadsy’s new features, some detail on their latest updates, and a few things we would still like to see:

One of the great features of Google’s Gmail is the ability it gives you to customize your Gmail experience using Google Labs. Labs features can be accessed by clicking on the green beaker symbol at the top right of the Gmail screen. Some Google Labs features fall into the “cute” category, but several of them are useful, and can make you more efficient. Here are the top 5 Labs features that can make you life easier.

Remember, back in the day, when email was one-dimensional? The good ol’ days when all you had to do was remember one contact list and deal with one inbox? Well, those days are long gone, buddy. Today, we are in a world of social media: connecting and sharing with the planet at large in as [...]

This tip will be so unnecessary for many of you that I almost hesitate to write it.  I am always amazed, though, at how freely some people give out their email addresses, and the email addresses of others.  My wife knows that this is a pet peeve of mine.  When I see an item show [...]