We’ve all heard or seen horror stories about peoples (and even companies) accounts being stolen or hacked on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and everywhere else.

What you probably haven’t heard is that most services (even Twitter from today) have a system called Two Factor Authentification.

What is it anyways?

As LifeHacker puts it, Two Factor Authentification is the combination of two different elements to grant access to an account. This is usually split between “Something you know” and “Something you own”.

The first being your password or PIN, and the second is usually a device (your phone, a usb key, or a swipe card).

So let’s run through a quick example of how DropBox uses two factor logins when you try to login from a new location or computer for the first time. As soon as you’ve logged in, a pop up appears asking for a 4-digit PIN number, whilst an SMS is delivered to your phone containing the code you need.

This makes it exponentially more difficult for anyone to a) have both codes and b) get in without you noticing from across the world.

So, how do I turn it on?

Twitter

Go to Settings, and browse down to Account Security and turn it on.

Facebook

Go to your Security Settings and Turn on Login Notifications and Login Approvals

Google

They explain it pretty clearly here.

Microsoft 

Go to your account’s Security Section and turn it on. You can also use Google Authenticator app if you don’t have a Microsoft-powered phone.

DropBox

Visit the Dropbox website, click on your name in the top right corner, and select Settings. Then click on the Security tab. Enable Two-step verification.

If you would like the instructions for another network, drop us a comment and we’ll get the info for you.

(Cover Photo via LifeHacker)

We’ve seen many many many, well too damn many, messages and complaints about the way MyBizCard.co spams people’s contacts on LinkedIn.

Whilst I haven’t used the service, and cannot vouch for it’s usefulness, I can provide the information you may need to get rid of it, you know, if you want to:

1) Click ‘Settings‘
2) Click ‘Groups, Companies, & Applications‘
3) Click ‘View your Applications‘
4) Check ‘myBizCard‘
5) Click ‘Remove‘

So there you have it, 5 steps, no more spammy messages to groups of your contacts. All done.

Keep the passion,

Hector Kolonas

Those sneaky little scammers are at it again, with hundreds of young ladies falling for the trick.

They first bait them in with a shared comment along the lines of:

Once clicked you are met with what appears to be a faded out ‘Youtube’ Page.

In order to continue you must ‘prove you are a human’ by completing a ‘task or two’. (This is where they make their money, as they are getting paid for these mini games it appears).

And then the viral bit pops in on the last ‘validation check’:

Which is actually a sneakily hidden Facebook Comments box, which shares what you type in with your friends, tricking them into clicking on the link too.

Don’t believe us? This is what happens when you try it on a session without being logged in:

So… moral of the story, be careful what you click on. When in doubt, open in a private session (incognito on Chrome) and try and see if there’s any unexpected Facebook login screens.

Also, never ever type your login details into one of these articles, Facebook connect will ALWAYS ask you to connect with the session you’re already logged in with.

Stay safe out there!

We’ve been long time advocates of abiding to Facebook’s guidelines for promotion through their platform, and you can ask many of our clients, friends, partners and team just how much. Many wondered why we were worrying about such things, “afterall everyone else is doing it”.

It appears that once again Facebook has begun purging the pages that have gone against it’s terms of use, promotion guidelines or warnings. We’ve seen reports from as far as New Zealand, from privately run fan pages, to agency-run pages… the one clear picture is that…

Pages of ALL sizes have been unpublished by Facebook, and they cannot be published again.

Although there are MANY reasons why a page may be unpublished  we’d like to take this moment to once again remind you of the promotion guidelines for Facebook pages. Especially relating to promotions, competitions and interactive campaigns.

i.    Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App.

ii.    Promotions on Facebook must include the following:

a.    A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.

b.    Acknowledgment that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

c.    Disclosure that the participant is providing information to [disclose recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook.

iii.    You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.

iv.    You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant.

v.    You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.

vi.    You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.

CAN: Request alternative contact methods
CANT: Contact winners, participants directly via Facebook’s communication channels
How NOT to do it: “Congratulations Charlie Brooker, you won our free parker pen. Please send us a message to find out how to claim your prize.”

There are many ways to launch promotions on Facebook without ever risking your page being unpublished. We’re one of them, like a friendly face in the wild wild west. Let’s chat!

According to TechCrunch, sources at both HostGator and CloudFlare have been seeing a spike in bot attempts to bruteforce the login details for administrator accounts on WordPress sites across their networks.

Although they’ve advised admins to use long-difficult passwords and various preventative plugins, the number of bots at this groups disposal is thought to be over 100,000. This should make any administrator a bit weary, and we advise you all to keep an eye on your sites and lock down your login process as much as possible.

According the the article, the attack may be in order to eventually control the hosting server, in preparation for a larger DDoS attack in the future.

The guys at BetaNews, simply locked down access to their wp-login.php file for the duration of an attack on their site, whilst Peter from CallADeveloper recommends updating .htaccess files to check if a login request is being made directly or referred from your site.

Keep in touch with your hosts, web developers and web security team.

Having a look at the new Facebook Timeline layout, it’s growing on me, and this is why.

1) Separation between Information and Interactions 

Finally, it’s easy to see the difference between Information (the things one does, likes, watches, goes, listens to, pins, follows and acts on) and their Interactions (status updates, wall posts, shared links, comments etc)

I found the split-screen approach pretty confusing for perusing information and getting a great feel for the personality behind the timeline. The new layout is must more efficient in this aspect.

2) It just looks cleaner, much much cleaner

Ahead of the new newsfeed design coming shortly, they’ve also put alot of effort into tidying up the layout of the timelines. Subtle title differentiation and blocked elements make navigation a breeze.

3) Movies, TV Shows, and Books

I’ve also been given more ‘actions’ with regards to the information we would like to share. I can select which we’ve watched, want to watch, have read or even would like to read. Filling out even more information about who I am as an individual.

4) The About page actually gives a better picture of what a person is all about. (See what I did there?)

With larger, full-width category blocks (friends, places, movies, books, likes, events, notes, etc.)  and off-FB generated content (pinterest, quora, etc), I’m given the opportunity to display and share more and more about what makes me tick. Ofcourse there are also category specific privacy settings that let me control who gets to see what on my profile.

So all in all, I really like the changes made. Some people will hate them though, and that’s unavoidable, but do feel free to sound off in the comments below.

One of the many changes Facebook has made to their events system (they are also about to begin linking directly to ticket purchasing systems) is finally updating the aesthetics of each event.

Event promoters can now upload a cover photo, allowing them to showcase more of the event and give a taste of the atmosphere they wish to generate.

With cover photos everywhere else, we don’t know what took them so long.

We can assure you though, this is only the beginning of changes to their events system. Expect a major flow of updates in the coming months.

(Thanks to Peter Malheiro for the Reminder)

We love the bookmarklet released by Moovweb that lets you make ANY site on ze internet do the Harlem Shake! (See their blog post about this awesome valentines day present to us all)

1) Drag this link to your bookmarks bar -> Make It Shake! (Or Click it for a quick demo)

2) Click it, watch it, shake it on any site you like.

3) shake shake shake

Once again thank you to Moovweb dev team, this is so totally awesome!

Now if that isn’t cheek-in-mouth we don’t know what is…

Companies, our clients included, are paying for campaigns that bring their customers and followers to their fan pages. But once they click the all-important “Like” button, they are now greeted with other suggestions of pages they could Like too.

Although, it’s pretty and slick, it’s a subtle punch in the cheek to companies who continue to invest money into promoting their Facebook pages.

What do you think? Is this going too far or a logical and unavoidable phase of transition?

We’ve been continuously refreshing Ubuntu’s website hoping for a glimpse of when we’ll be able to get our hands on their Android offering. And this is why…

They’re basically stating the obvious. We continuously find ourselves working via our phones. Duplicating apps, settings, files and shifting conversations across our devices as we move around. Now as the processing power of mobile phones is ever increasing, they’ve given us the ability to run our desktops from our phone.

We love the idea and this is why:

1) It lets us carry all our apps and docs in one device
Ofcourse we’d still use Dropbox and other syncing apps for remote backups. Wouldn’t want to drop the entire computer in the urinals now would we?

2) We can access mobile apps from the desktop environment.
This should include mobile only apps like instagram and whatsapp
(Don’t even get us started on whatsapp, no desktop offering, really… REALLY!?)

3) Answer phone calls and reach phone contacts via desktop
Answering calls and skype from the same device as we work. Sounds awesome to us.

4) Flexible offices for work-groups
If you find yourself working in different teams every few months, offices can be quickly shifted around by just changing which dock you plug into. Win!

5) It’s one device. One set of settings.
One wifi login, one bluetooth sync, etc

So now we wait… as patiently as possible. In the meantime, click here for find out more about Ubuntu for Android or watch the video below:

What do you think? Will you want to carry your computer in your pocket?