Google - Part 8

Gmail feature, to track login sessions and some more details

Want to know, the timeings of your last login(like in your AdSense account) ?

Are you afraid or have doubt that, somebody else at office is accessing your Gmail ?

Want to know the Browser, mobile, POP3, etc and the timings and the Ip address of your previous logins ?

Gmail has all these features in one click….Most of us have surly missed to notice this very important security feature of Gmail.

Many of you have seen all the options present in Gmail Settings tab. And you might be thinking, where the hell could this option be present?

You might have missed this because, this option is at the end of the Gmail page(footer).

Here are the screen shots…
last-login-gmail-detail

When you click on the “Detail” link…you can see the details of the last 5 login sessions. And you can also see, if the same email account is being used at the same time in some other places. And importantly, you can “Signout all other login sessions”.
Sessiona-gmail-Ip-log-login

How to use this data

If you’re concerned about unauthorized access to your mail, you’ll be able to use this data to find out if and when someone gained access. Does the Access Type column show any unusual access? If you don’t use POP to collect your mail, but your Recent activity table is showing some POP access, it may be a sign that your account has been compromised.

The IP address column is also useful. If you always or most often sign in to Gmail using a single computer, your IP address should be the same, or start with the same two sets of numbers (for example, 172.16.xx.xx). If you’re seeing an IP address that differs greatly from your usual IP address, it could either mean that you’ve recently accessed your mail from a different location, or that someone has accessed your mail. Your current IP address is displayed below the Recent activity table.

Concurrent sessions

If your mail is currently being accessed from another location, it would be listed in the Concurrent session information table. This could mean that you simply have another browser window open with Gmail loaded, or that your home computer is logged in to Gmail while you’re accessing your mail from work. If you’re concerned about any concurrent access, you can sign out all sessions other than your current session by clicking Sign out all other sessions.

If you think your account has been accessed by someone illegally
You’ll need to change your password and your security question. The first step is to read our suggestions on choosing a good password to make sure that your new password is secure. Then, follow the instructions in How do I change my password? to update your password.
disable-gmail-chat
In the first screen shot, you can also spot another small link “Gmail view: standard | turn off chat | “. You can click on the “turn off chat” link to sign out of chat inside your Gmail. But this can be done at the chat box window itself(so, its not an important, must have option).

Google Ad Manager BETA, with some improvements

Google Ad Manager Release Notes

Google Ad Manager is a Service, using which we can handle our private advertisers..
Ad Manager offers a wealth of features to help you with:

Google Ad Manager Release Notes

Google Ad Manager is a Service, using which we can handle our private advertisers..

Ad Manager offers a wealth of features to help you with:

Google-Ad-Manager-infographic

Inventory management

Yield optimization
Ad targeting
Trafficking, ad delivery, and order booking
Creatives and rich media management
Reporting
User interface navigation
Account administration
Google Ad Manager delivers all of your directly-sold and network-based inventory

On August 1st 2008, Google Added some features into its AdManager…Here is a small list:

Creative preview on your site – You can now preview a creative on your site to test the creative before the campaign starts. Learn more here.
New look and feel – Google has changed the style and overall appearance of the product. While most things remain in the same place, it may take a few moments to adjust to the new look.
Additional languages – Ad Manager is now available in three new languages: French, Italian, and Ukrainian.
Unlimited flight dates – Originally you could only set unlimited flight dates for ad network orders. Now you can set unlimited flight dates on any Exclusive, Remnant, or House order that has an unlimited impression goal.

If you have any additional questions about this release, Google encourage you to visit the Ad Manager Help Center, and for complete resource for all Ad Manager topics. Also, feel free to join the Ad Manager Help Forum to share any questions, comments, and best practices you have with other Ad Manager users.

Remember, Google Ad Manager is still in BETA and if your website is designed to have direct ad sales, then you can apply for it here. But Google only selects certain websites for its BETA testing. We are happy that, our blog ( Technotip.org) has been approved for this BETA testing long before, and its been nice to use the Free service to get maximum benefit from each ad spot.

Google Page Creator is no longer accepting new sign-ups

Today Google has officially closed the new sign-ups for Google Page Creator. They say that, they have shifted their focus to developing Google Sites, which offers many of the capabilities of Page Creator along with new features like site-level navigation, site-level headers, control over who can see and edit your site, and rich embeddings like calendars, videos, and Google docs.

If you are currently a Page Creator user, you can continue to use Page Creator and your pages will automatically be transitioned to Google Sites later this year. More information about the transition will be posted as we get closer to the transition time.

And thanks to Google, for allowing us to use Google Sites to create websites. You can use Google Sites to create websites, wikis, intranets, projects sites, club sites, and more. See http://sites.google.com. You can signup for Google Site Creator at any time. Google-Site-Creator

Anyway, Googlepages did not have many features, which is the main reason why it was not a buzz like blogspot or wordpress. So its a welcome sign to see some thing more creative, which has more features and under our(users) control.

But I am worried about one thing, that is the URL structure. Previously it was http://sitename.googlepages.com. What will happen after the transition? Because in Google site creator the URL structure is http://sites.google.com/site/site-name-choosen/ .

As many people have a googlepages account and they simply upload things to their googlepages account and link it to thier blog, to save bandwidth. If the URL structure changes means, all those links has to be searched and modified manually, which is a tedious job. Anyway, lets hope for the best and what we can do now is, to wait and see what Google thinks about this!

Gmail, small security option

This is just a small security enhancement found in Gmail. Anyway, many times these small things help us a lot, so lets not ignore it.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer or HTTPS is a URL scheme used to indicate a secure HTTP connection.

Https keeps your mail encrypted as it travels between your web browser and the servers, so someone sharing your favorite coffee shop’s public wifi can’t read it. Your bank and credit card websites use this same protocol to protect your financial data.

Gmail use https to protect our password every time we log into Gmail, but it does not use https once we are inside Gmail, unless you ask for it (by visiting https://mail.google.com rather than http://mail.google.com).

And the downside is that https can make your mail slower. Your computer has to do extra work to decrypt all that data, and encrypted data doesn’t travel across the internet as efficiently as unencrypted data. That’s why Google leave the choice up to the users.

There are two options to select from. One is to bookmark https://mail.google.com and then use it everytime we login to Gmail. Orelse we can set it inside our Gmail Settings. Below are the screen shots….

First click on settings. And then search for the option, in the General tab.

general-tab-gmail

Select whichever option you are convenient with.

It is good to see that, Gmail supports https scheme. But we can see that, some other Google services like Google Toolbar doesn’t support https scheme. Lets hope that Google is hard at work, to implement https protocol scheme to all its services.