Gmail is already far and away the best web-mail client out there, but there are still ways to make it even better.  Here are 5 free ways to tweak Gmail to suit your needs, and to save you time.

1. How to set extra flexible filters in Gmail

Gmail already comes with a good set of filter options by default.  Syphir (Free) however is a free plugin which takes it to the next level.  The level of flexibility on display is quite remarkable.  For example

• You can selectively auto-delay personal email so you can focus on your work. 
• You can have older email automatically archive themselves to keep your inbox clean.
• It can understand the level of importance of each incoming email, and labels it accordingly.

Syphir comes into its own when coupled with it’s SmartPush iPhone app which selectively pushes you email notifications for only your most important email.  Simply indispensible.

2. How to understand and remember more about your email contacts

Rapportive is a free plugin which helps to retrieve information about your contacts when you’re dealing with them on Gmail.  It will go and pull contextual data about the person from other services for instance Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and Twitter, and unobtrusively display them on the sidebar. 

You can also make private notes about any contact within Rapportive so you can remember little important details about the person in the future. 

3. How to be on the cutting edge of Google’s latest email innovations

We’ve covered some amazingly cool features found in Gmail Labs before, and true to their word, they’ve continued to roll out experimental tweaks.  Here are some of my favorite new ones aside from those I covered previously. 

4. How to fully customize your Gmail in Firefox

Better Gmail 2 is a plugin which was revolutionary when it launched.  Many people (including myself) give this plug-in credit for giving Google direction on how to improve Gmail.  Many of the features originally found in the original Firefox extension has since made their way to the Gmail product or labs. 

This Firefox extension still has some excellent features like the hierarchical labels, and highlighting active rows.  Worth a download if you’re on Firefox.

5. The Best Google Mail Extension for Chrome

Ever since Chrome introduced extensions, it’s certainly given Firefox a run for it’s money.  Gmail already features some pretty neat ‘Chrome-Only’ features such as the ability to drag and drop attachments from your desktop to your browser.  Google Mail Checker Plus is a Chrome extension which acts as an email-notifier within your browser, saving you the trouble of keeping a tab open for your mail. 

What’s also great is that you’ll be able interact with the message (star/delete/archive/mark as spam) directly from the extension without even having to open the mailbox.

How do you tweak your Gmail?  Let us know in the comments :)

Put your email address online and you’ll be at the mercy of spam bots and email harvesters.  These are automated robots which troll the internet looking to add to their ever growing spam mailing list.  So how do you share your email without getting hit? 

Scr.im is a free service which helps put a layer of security around a short URL so that spambots will not be able to find your email address easily.

Sharing your email

Simply just type in your email and pick your short URL for easy reference

…Then share it easily across various mediums.

Reading a scr.im email address

When someone clicks on your link, they just have to click on the correct captcha answer…

…and bingo, the email address is displayed.

There you go, simple one click steps to ensure your email is not abused when you put it online.

If you’re researching a topic or trying to collaborate with another person, you may be using more than one website as reference.  Here are the best free web services that will help you share multiple URLs at once and save you time.

1. How to share multiple URLs and have them display as tabs

Sharetabs is a multiple URL shortener which allows you to combine multiple links- and have them display the results in neat tabs and shortcut icons.  This makes for perfect previews for quick viewing.

2. How to share and password protect multiple URLs

1link.in is an elegant way of sharing mutiple links but still be able to password protect them.  When you open the short-URL, it also shows you a list of all your links you’ve combined.

3. How to share multiple web pages and track stats

Fur.ly not only allows you to shorten multiple links but also track stats, so you know how many people visited your links and when exactly they did it.  

4. How to share multiple web pages and have them display side by side

NiceSharing lets you combine multiple URLs and have them display together as well.  Useful for comparisons between two pages, and it also supports an interesting feature whereby your second link can be a music file.  With this, rather than having two websites display side by side, you’ll be able to listen to the music file as background music while you browse another website.

5. How to share all your Firefox tabs at once

Send Tab URLs is a Firefox extension which creates a list of URLs from all browser tabs in the current Firefox window. This list can be emailed using your favorite email application, or copied to the clipboard for pasting into another application.  It works with most email applications, and supports up to 30 tabs at once.

If you’re an online publisher, then Google is king.  Whatever content you’re pushing to the web, you’re going to want Google to index it properly, and serve it up in its search results.  There are lots of guides on basic text and blogpost optimization out there, but what about other types of media like images, video, and audio?  Here’s a simple guide to follow so you can make the most of your multimedia content.

First things first, the general rule of optimization is to ensure a descriptive file name and URL which match what people may be searching for.  This is crucial when it comes to Google deciding if your content is relevant to search terms.  If you want to refine it, you can try using the Google keywords tool to determine search volume. 

Tip 1. How to Optimize SEO for images

Tagging of images is essential for Google’s understanding of what your image actually is.  Pay close attention to your ALT and TITLE tags when you upload an image to the web.

1. ALT attribute is an important part of search engine optimization. It describes your image to search engine and when a user searches for a certain image this is a key determining factor for a match. 
2. TITLE attribute plays a lesser role but is important for visitors as this text will automatically appear in the tooltip when mouse is over the image.

If you’re using WordPress, you can try SEO Friendly Images, which is a free optimization plugin that automatically updates all images on your website with proper ALT and TITLE attributes.  What this plugin does is, it changes these tags based on your image file name and your post URL.  This is a quick one click solution helps optimize all your images at once.

Tip 2. How to Optimize SEO for videos

Sitemaps are Google’s way of understanding and indexing your videos.  Check out this video for a bit more detail on this.

To get more tips on submission of setting up an mRSS feed so you can automatically submit sitemaps of your videos in the correct format, you should visit Google’s Video sitemaps page.

Tip 3: How to Optimize SEO for Audio

1. Text Transcripts: There are several ways to optimize for audio, but the best way is to have actual transcripts of your audio on your web page.   No matter how much you optimize, having plain text is always more Google friendly.  Consider recording in conjunction with speech to text software if it’s more efficient.
2. Descriptive Metadata: Changing your ID3 tags to give really descriptive titles and comments which are embedded within the file.  If you’re changing a few files you can simply right click the file in Windows, then go to properties, then summary.  From there you can edit all the attributes of the file.  If you’re handling this for multiple files you may want to use freeware like ID3 Tagit to help you along.

Do you optimize your content on your website of blog?  Tell us about it in the comments :)

There can be many reasons why you’d want to send a Facebook, Twitter or Email message later.  Maybe you’re in another part of the world and you want your Facebook to be updated at a different time.  Maybe you want to send a tweet to all your friends so you want to space it out across the day.  Maybe you just want to say something – but not right now.  Here’s a useful guide on how to do just that.

1. How to Schedule Your Facebook Status to Be Automatically Updated Later

LaterBro is a free service which helps you update your Facebook status on any chosen time and date.  It even lets you schedule Facebook updates to be recurring so you can share the same thing daily, weekly, or however often you so desire.  Perfect for updating Facebook when you’re not at your computer.

2. How to Schedule Your Twitter Status to Be Automatically Updated Later

Future Tweets allows you to also schedule your twitter to be updated later.  It’s got an extremely slick user interface which also allows you to set recurrences and buffer up your tweets along the way.  Perfect for wishing someone on Twitter ‘Happy Birthday’ in advance so you never forget.

3. How to Schedule Your Email to Be Automatically Sent Later

DeferredSender has got to be the most elegant email scheduler I’ve ever used.  Once you sign up, you just need to send your email to deferred@deferredsender.com, and then inside the email body, just state your recipients email address and time, and it will deliver it accordingly.  The really cool part is that it will understand what you mean in regards to timing. 

For example you COULD say 4pm, or you could say in 3 hours, or you could just say tomorrow or next month, and it will understand and process the timing of your email delivery.  Also, the email will look like it’s coming from your actual email address, so everything’s pretty seamless.  Perfect for sending important email reminders.

When do you schedule messages for later?  Tell us in the comments :)

As the Internet progressively moves towards real-time information, the need to know what’s popular right now is becoming increasingly important.  Here are the best ways to track trends of all types, so you’ll always be in the know about what’s hot on the Internet.

1. How to track popular Internet video trends

Mag.ma is the definitive source when it comes to tracking what’s hot for Internet videos.  It aggregates all the hot videos from sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Daily Motion, takes into account social media buzz, links, positive reviews, how fast views are growing, then and shows you a selection of videos which are up and coming. 

Because it tracks chatter from around the web and links to the video as well, using Mag.ma, you’ll usually be able to watch viral videos very early on rather than waiting for it to hit the masses.

2. How to track hot Twitter trends

Trendistic is one of the most visual ways to track Twitter trends out there.  What I really like about it is that it helps you understand popular trends, and the tweets that were happening at that particular point in time when the topic became hot.  Many other services just show you what’s hot and the current tweets about that topic (you can also get that here), so there is little retrospective understanding about what actually happened when the topic was trending and became viral.

It also offers up some great tools like hourly/weekly/monthly charts, and the ability to embed these charts into your own website. 

3. How to track popular search trends

Google Trends Hot List shows you the hottest searches on the web right now.  Close to real time, this is probably the single greatest indicator as to what people are searching for now.  Google trends of course also allows you to track buzz of any given keyword across time. 

Trendy Bing uses Google Trends hot list, but the results are published in Bing instead of Google.  The result is a slightly richer experience with videos and photos to complement the search results.

4. How to track popular image trends

Digg Images is my favorite location when I want to find out what images are taking the Internet by storm.  While Digg showcases all the most popular content of every genre be it videos/news/tech, the image section is particularly unique as there are few sources online which really capture what images/photos are really popular now.

5. How to track popular news trends

Newsmap is a fantastic visualization tool when it comes to determining what news is hot right now.  It aggregates Google News and makes the more popular (the more written about) stories larger and more prominent, so in one glance, you’ll be able to see what’s hot.  You can also customize it by topic and location to give you an even more focused look.

6. How to track popular feed subscription trends

Website subscription can be considered the ultimate gauge of reader loyalty.  These are people who have signed up and subscribed to your news/blog feed, and want to be notified every time something new comes out.  In terms of measuring loyal readers, this measure makes more sense than raw traffic.

Feed Compare is a free way to compare and chart RSS subscription of most websites (if they use feedburner).  Just type in the websites you want to compare, choose the timeframe, and just compare away!

7. How to track your email trends

No, there isn’t a service which allows you to track what people are saying on email :)  There is however, one called ‘Mail Trends’ which allows you to track what you are saying on Gmail.  It allows you to get more insight on key email stats for example:

• Distribution of messages by year, month, day, day of week and time of day
• The top senders, recipients and mailing lists you’re on.
• The distribution of thread lengths and the lists and people that result in the longest threads

Try it, the results may surprise you.

Do you track any other popular trends?  Or do you have different ways of tracking them?  Tell us in the comments :)

A good decision making service understands and celebrates the fact that everyone is different.  Whether it’s to deciding what to eat, what gadget to buy, or even what to wear, the individual’s tastes usually matter much more than what any critic or reviewer thinks.  Here are 3 really intelligent free web services which cut through the clutter of choices and help you make decisions based on who you are, and what you’re looking for.

1. How to make a decision about what’s important to you

‘Let Simon Decide’ is a web service which allows you to quickly compute decisions based on

• alternatives (for example, a list of schools to join)
• decision making factors (for example, students per class)
• and how important and how well you rate those factors to be

This is by far the most open ended of the services described here as everything is decided by you.  ‘Let Simon Decide’ is just helping you do the calculations and tell you what the best decision is.  While this would result in probably the most tailored solution for you, it also relies on you to know your facts before making a decision. 

‘Let Simon Decide’ will also recommend you factors picked by other people so you can consider them, but when you’re going to score factors on how good they are, you may need to have some base knowledge on the topic first.  For example how good the flash on a camera is.  In the end though, once you do your homework, this is the perfect way to tabulate and affirm any complex decision you make.

2. How to make a decision based on who you are

‘Hunch’ takes a completely different spin from ‘Let Simon Decide’.  Rather than rely mainly on your own input, Hunch takes into consideration who you are, and recommends a solution based on what worked for members in the Hunch community who are ‘like you’.  To make the most of Hunch, you start by answering a whole slew of seemingly random questions, but don’t let that put you off as you don’t NEED to answer the questions, it just helps Hunch know more about you, and these questions are well known to be quirky and fun.

When it comes to solving specific problems, Hunch will ask you a guided set of question based on your topic, and then compute the best decision for you based on your input and what it knows about you.  Hunch is less flexible when it comes to topics compared to ‘Let Simon Decide’, but it is growing everyday, and because it guides you through a customized set of questions based on the decision you’re trying to make, AND it takes into account what other people like you have chosen, it is one of the most powerful and accurate tools out there for decision making.

3. How to decide on a product based on the attributes you’re looking for

‘Measy’ is by far the most elegant and powerful tool I’ve ever seen for deciding on gadget purchases (arguably one of the most complex of all purchases).  While it’s currently limited to helping you choose a Digital Camera, HDTV, E-Reader, Netbook and Smartphone (with new segments added gradually), the way it steps you through the decision making process is brilliant.

You take very specialized and customized quizzes, and they take great pains in explaining all the fuzzy gadget jargon into plain English, and reassures you about the mini-decisions you make during the quiz so that once your final decision is tabulated, it’s incredibly transparent and you can feel very assured with your purchase. 

Measy also takes into account reviews online, and matches your input to what each product is good at, so it does all the product homework for you as well when it shows you it’s recommendations.  This should definitely be your first stop before making any gadget purchase.

So there you have it, 3 excellent web services which help you make intelligent decisions quickly.  Do you use any other tools to make decisions?  Tell us in the comments :)

If you’re stuck on a public machine and you can’t install a file zipping utility, ezyZip is the free and easy way to make the most of the situation – so bookmark this page, because you will need it one day :)

ezyZip allows you to zip files, add zipped files to an existing archive, and unzip files all from within the browser, and it even comes with a nifty drag and drop interface.

Here is the most important thing you should know about ezyZip.  Unlike most online file zipping utilities, ezyZip does NOT require you to upload the file to process it.  This is very important because it is simply not feasible to upload large files, process them on a remote server and download them again.  This can take ages and in many cases, the length of time involved, defeated the purpose of zipping it up to be smaller.  With ezyZip, everything runs locally via java on the browser, and it works as if it was an installed app.

Highly recommended.

Foursquare is a mobile application that is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide, and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things. Foursquare lets you "check in" to a place when you’re there, tell friends where you are, and track the history of where you’ve been–and who you’ve been there with. Foursquare challenges you to explore your city in new and fun ways by earning points, winning mayorships, and unlocking badges and specials for trying new places and revisiting old favoritesvia Foursquare help page

In Foursquare, Mayorships are special titles given to people who visit that place more than anyone else.  Here’s how to pick and plan your mayorship battles efficiently.

Why bother with mayorships?

• Makes it easier to grab the Super Mayor badge which requires 10 simultaneous mayorships.  (Trust me, you’ve got to play the game to appreciate collecting virtual badges)
• Bragging rights and points (As with any gaming network)
• Special mayor offers. Businesses are increasingly becoming foursquare aware, and as a result checkins and mayorships are becoming more and more incentivized in order to drive outlet loyalty (Some outlets give free coffee to mayors for example)

So how do you do well here?

WhenWillIBeMayor is free service which tracks where you’ve been on foursquare, and shows you how many checkins you have left to take over the mayorship of any particular venue.  This allows you to at least grab low handing fruit, or a least get a view on how difficult it is to grab the mayorship of your favorite hangout. 

This website also allows you to check stats on what type of places you visit, and to even monitor selected venues if you want to keep an eye on them.

There you have it, an easy way to do well, and pick your mayorship battles. If you’re never tried Foursquare, give it a go – it’s LOADS of fun :)

Bonus tip: if you aren’t the outgoing mayor grabbing type, you may want to try gomiso, the foursquare-like site for people who stay at home and watch TV (but still want to connect).

It’s that special time again.  Once every four years, the world is gripped by football fever and this time it’s centered around South Africa.  Depending on where you live, this may or may not result in suitable viewing times for live matches, or you may not even have access to these matches without paying exorbitant cable subscription fees.  So to help you out, here are some useful resources to help you watch the World Cup online.

How do download full length World Cup matches online

If you wish to keep a copy of your favorite world cup game, mysoccerplace.net gives you the chance to download the entire game from several curate sources within popular download sites like Rapidshare.

How to watch live streaming World Cup matches

Live streaming of World Cup matches are a difficult proposition.  If you don’t get them via official sources, they can be notoriously unreliable.  Time Soccer offers a useful guide and links to live matches.  However, due to the underground and official nature of these streams, some matches will work, and some may not depending on the source.  My advice would be to use this resource as the very last resort.

How to watch World Cup videos online

There are several easy ways to .  First of all there’s the official FIFA website.  It’s pretty good, and well organized, but the long advertisements within video is irritating.  Also, because this is supposed to be an international site, the videos do not have commentary on them, which can be a bit of a let down when it comes to watching goal highlights.

101 Great Goals is another excellent resource for videos.  Each video stems for a well written football blog entry which gives you an excellent preamble of the video you can then click through to watch.

Other football sites like FootyTube, SoccerClips, and Mighty Football are great video resources as well, providing highlights, goals and other interesting World Cup related videos.

Do you know any other good World Cup video sites?  Share them with us in the comments :)

Hi there,

We’ve decided to take a leap into the Facebook space, and we’re hoping you’ll join us :)

So what’s this Facebook page all about? 

• We’re going to be having lots of cool giveaways as often as we can
• We’re going to be sharing where to get cool freebies and tech deals with you
• and we’ll also help you keep up to speed with the latest posts on this blog

Also, I really hope this will lead to greater and easier engagement between you, me, and the rest of the Friedbeef’s Tech readers.

So please visit the page and click ‘like’ it, suggest this page to your friends (The more ‘likes’ the page has the more stuff sponsors are willing to give away on the page)

…and do drop your feedback, thoughts, and ideas on our wall.  We really appreciate your support, and hope we’ll be able to build an awesome online community together.

Thank you & warm regards

James from Friedbeef’s Tech

It really doesn’t matter what your website or blog is about, nothing makes it look nicer than really good, professional quality photographs.  Unfortunately, professional level photographs can sometimes be downright expensive. Luckily, like most everything else, beautiful looking stock photos can be found for free on the internet. You just need to know where to look.  So, that being said, let’s take a look at 8 places to get free stock photos for your website.

1. Stock.XCHNG

The self-proclaimed leader in free stock photos online. They may, however, be right about that. With around 400,000 photos available they do have one of the larger databases of free stock photos. If you wish to download something you need to have an account, but signup is free. There are minimal restrictions on the use of their photos and they only request that you leave a comment thanking the photographer and letting them know where it was used.

2. Unprofound

Started in 2001 by a guy named Jim as a way to share his excess photos online with people who may be interested, unprofound.com has grown to a database of several thousand. Although not one of the larger places, it is one of the more interesting. Totally free to use – no signup is required, nothing required for download. Searchable database by both tag and color. Yes, you can search by color.

3. Morgue File

Slang for a file of old newspaper clippings or photos in journalism circles, ‘morguefile’ has a large database of free photos. While accounts can be created, they are not necessary. An interesting feature at Morgue File is the ability to crop a photo, reduce the size, and create a code to insert on your website that would display the photo, yet allow it to remain hosted at Morgue File. Of course, this creates a link for them, but such is the price to pay.

4. Photo Rogue

Although one of the smaller databases with just over 600 images at this time, Photo Rogue is unique in that it allows visitors to request specific photos. Need a picture of a dew-covered spider web? Check. Photo of a house at a specific address in Santa Cruz, CA? Got it. Although there is no guarantee of your particular request being fulfilled, no other free stock photo site on the Internet is offering this.

5. Open Photo

Searchable by category and individual tags, openphoto.net offers numerous photos for free. Most follow the Creative Commons model of distribution which is fairly wide open but should be read and checked out for every photo. Offers ready-made code for crediting the photographer and the ability to link directly to the image.

6. Free Media Goo

Offering completely free images, freemediagoo.com has a lot of images but not an overwhelming amount. A little difficult to determine what links were to their images and what links were to advertisements. Main benefit is the images don’t even require a credit or acknowledgement. Also offering free audio, free flash media, free textures and free video footage.

7. Free Range Stock

With several thousand images of their own and more on top of that submitted from users, Free Rang Stock has a fair selection of searchable photos and textures. An account is required, but it is free as well.

8. Every Stock Photo

A different take on the free stock photo site, everystockphoto.com is a searchable database made up of several other companies listing stock photos, some of which are listed above. Aiming to be a stock photo search engine as opposed to a stock photo site in and of itself, you will still need to sign into the different websites where the picture is found.

This post was guest-written by Melissa Tamura who blogs at Zen College Life.

What if one day, Facebook accidently deleted or banned your account for some reason or another?  What if a new social network comes along, and Facebook got shut down?  What if you decided to close your Facebook account, but don’t want to lose all the data you’ve placed there?  These scenarios may be highly unlikely, but they are very possible indeed. 

Everything you put on Facebook resides there.  All your status updates, links, photos, notes – everything.  So, just like it’s good practice to backup your hard disk, it’s also good practice to have a plan ready to backup Facebook in case something bad goes down.  Here are 3 free tools you can take a look at to ensure your data stays safe.

1. How to backup Facebook to your hard disk

Fancy recreating Facebook on your laotop?  ArchiveFacebook is a Firefox addon which allows you to save content from Facebook directly to your hard drive and view them exactly the same way you currently view them on Facebook.  It does take some time to process though, because it will try to do a full-backup everytime – but it’s still very comprehensive, and extremely useful.

2. How to backup Facebook photo albums

Whether you’re trying to backup your own albums, or trying to easily grab a friend’s album for offline viewing, FacePAD is a Firefox addon which allows you to download entire Facebook albums with a click of a button.  You can also do this for fan pages and event pages as well.

3. How to backup Facebook to the cloud

Backupify is an amazing service which caters to backing up multiple services – Facebook being one of them.  Using Facebook connect, Backupify will regularly save all your photos, friends lists, events, links, notes, and statuses to the cloud.  The free version of Backupify can handle up to 2GB of storage.

Everything is stored on an S3 Amazon server and their privacy policy clearly states that any data you store on Backupify is yours, and they claim no right to it, nor do they look, sell, nor analyze it.  Also, if you’re extra paranoid conscious about safety, it can allow you to hook up your own S3 Amazon server instead of using theirs.  

Would you backup Facebook?  Tell us in the comments :)

Security should always be a major concern when using the Internet or posting content online. If someone gets a hold of your personal information or breaks in to one of your online accounts, whether it is your email or a WordPress blog, then you are at risk of identity theft and hijacking of your accounts. Anyone who breaks in to your account could steal your private content, post spam, steal your WordPress account or use it to gather email addresses to send spam to.

Thankfully, there are ways of protecting yourself and your Internet accounts from malicious threats to your privacy and it is important that you take all of the necessary precautions to keep yourself safe online. You can secure your WordPress blog from unauthorized access by installing some of the plugins that are available for download at the WordPress plugin directory.

Most of these are easy to install and do not require any attention from you once they have been set up. They will prevent anyone who should not have access to your WordPress blog account from getting past the very basic password protection that is provided when you set up your account.

1. How to hide your login screen : Stealth Login

A simple, but effective way of preventing people from breaking in to your WordPress blog is to hide the login screen. You can do this by installing a plugin such as Stealth Login, which will create a specific URL or web address that you will use when logging in to your blog, or performing admin on your account. This means that there will be no link to login from the public pages of the blog. When you want to login, you will simply go to the custom URL that you have chosen and sign in as normal.

This plugin also protects your login page by preventing anyone from going directly to wp-login.php, which is the default setting for WordPress. This plugin can prevent anyone from gaining unauthorized access to your site, even if they are able to guess your password, by hiding the login page from them. This can also prevent programs called bots from getting in to the blog through the wp-login.php file.The new login URL and options can be controlled through the settings panel.

2. How to ban selected users : User Locker

The User Locker plugin can help to prevent anyone from making multiple attempts to access your blog. This can prevent them from cracking your password by trying hundreds and thousands of different guesses. When you sign up for a WordPress account there is no limit on the number of attempts that can be made to login to your blog.

This is a major security flaw as it opens the way for unauthorized access through what are known as dictionary and brute force attacks. These simply try every possible password until they gain access. The user locker plugin places a limit on the number of attempts at logging in which can be made. If this is exceeded, then the account will be locked and it will be necessary to request a new password or contact the WordPress Admin in order to get back into the blog. This means that only you can get into the account.

This plugin also allows you to block specific user accounts from accessing the blog, even with the right password. This means that you can ban anyone who should not be accessing the blog from getting into it.

3. How to prevent brute force hacking : Limit Login Attempts

A similar plugin is the Limit User Attempts login. This has the same effect as the User Locker plugin, placing a limit on the number of tries to login that are allowed. The Limit User Attempts Login can limit login attempts through both the normal login process and the use of special cookies. It blocks any Internet address from making further login attempts after a certain number of failed tries to access the blog.

4. How to prevent unauthorized automated access : SpiderSquash

The SpiderSquash plugin is designed to prevent automated computer programs such as spiders and bots from gaining access to your WordPress blog. It works using complicated statistical methods in order to recognize bots and automated access attempts. The SpiderSquash plugin has access to a global database which is built up by all SpiderSquash plugins around the world, and to which yours will contribute if it detects any new bots.

Your account will be protected against any bot that is listed in the database. Whenever a new bot is discovered by SpiderSquash, it is added to the database and you will become protected against it. This plugin needs to be uploaded and activated on WordPress.

5. How to Encrypt Your Logins : Login Encrypt

The Login Encrypt plugin prevents anyone from stealing your access details by hiding or encrypting your password when you enter it and send it to the WordPress site in order to login.

This is a similar idea to the one that protects your credit card details when they are sent as you shop online. The information is sent in a way that can only be read by someone who knows the encryption code that was used by the sender. If it is intercepted by someone who is trying to find out what your password is, they will be unable to read it.

6. How to make your login process more secure: Chap Secure Login

Another option for encrypting your password and making the process of logging in to WordPress more secure is the Chap Secure Login plugin. This plugin also encrypts your password, but it uses a different method of encryption, known as the chap protocol. It is an alternative to the Login Encrypt plugin. 

7. How to ensure stolen passwords only work with a single session: One-Type Password

As well as keeping transmission of your password secure, it is possible to protect your WordPress account by using the One-Time Password plugin to generate a new password every time you login. You may be familiar with this idea if you use a certain type of secure wireless network. Some people have a system that uses unique, automatically generated passwords to get access through their Wi-Fi network, rather than a set phrase.

The One-Time Password plugin prevents anyone from accessing your account if they manage to intercept or steal the password you are using since each password will only work for a single session. The minimum requirements for this plugin are WordPress 2.8 and PHP 5.0.0. IT should work with both Internet Explorer and Firefox, but there is no guarantee that it will be compatible with other browsers. This plugin is ideal for anyone who accesses their WordPress account through shared computers, particularly in insecure environments such as internet cafes, where there could be viruses that might record keystrokes and so be able to steal passwords. It conforms to the Internet Engineering Task Force RFC 2289, which means that it is reliable and well designed.

8. How to tell if your WordPress account has been hacked: WordPress Last Login

Protecting your WordPress account from unauthorized access is very important, but there is also a plugin that can tell you when your account has been compromised. The WordPress Last Login plugin will tell you who was the last person to sign in to your account and when they logged in. If the last log in was at a time when you do not remember logging in and if the IP address is different from the usual one, then it’s likely that someone else has been accessing your account. An IP address is like a phone number for your computer.

You can find out what your IP address is from various websites or by looking for it manually on your computer, but you can also just keep an eye on the IP addresses that have been used to access your WordPress account. You will soon begin to recognize the IP address or addresses that you use, and therefore you will be able to tell if there is any unusual activity. If there is unauthorized access, you should quickly change your password and add some new plugins to enhance your security. You should also check your computer for viruses.

What do you do to secure your WordPress experience?  Tell us in the comments :)

This post was guest-written by Christopher Shepard from who writes webs hosting tips and reviews at Webhost Gear

If you’re worried about email security, here is a step by step guide to help you check and determine if your Gmail account has been hacked or compromised in any way.

Step 1: Find the ‘Last Account Activity’ Section Your Inbox

At the bottom of your Gmail inbox there is a ‘Last Account Activity’ section.  Click on ‘details’ to launch the full blown monitor.

Step 2: See who has accessed your Gmail account recently

Next, what you’ll see is a table of the most recent activity from your Gmail account.  It shows you

• How it was accessed (Browser/mobile etc)
• Where exactly the IP address is (So you can do some further digging)
• When it was accessed

Step 3: Understand the IP addresses – Has your Gmail really been hacked?

If you see IP addresses from different countries, don’t be too quick to panic.  If you use any 3rd party services which hook-up to your Gmail account, they will almost certainly show up in your activity log.  To do you own investigation, you can use DomainTools to identify the IP address. This will help you differentiate normal activity and your Gmail account being hacked.

Step 4: Understand the alerts – Google’s way of highlighting suspicious activity

Google will also do it’s fair share of monitoring, and will also alert you if it sees suspicious activity both in your inbox, as well as your recent activity log.  When this happens, and the IP addresses look suspicious, it is advisable to play it safe, assume your Gmail account has been hacked, and change your passwords immediately. 

Step 5: Sign Out All Other Sessions – If you forgot to sign out on a public computer

If you are worried you did not not sign out of a public computer, you can ‘sign out all other sessions’.  This won’t fix any hacked Gmail accounts, but it will resolve any careless mistakes. This is also useful if you happen to lose your mobile phone and you want to ensure your email is not read by others.

Step 6: What to do if your Gmail account has really been hacked

The first thing you do is change both your password and security question right away.  Then make sure your new choices are very secure.  Google themselves have some really good tips .  For example in the case of security questions:

• Choose a question only you know the answer to – make sure the question isn’t associated with your password.
• Pick a question that can’t be answered through research (for example, avoid your mother’s maiden name, your birth date, your first or last name, your social security number, your phone number, your pet’s name, etc.).
• Make sure your answer is memorable, but not easy to guess. Use an answer that is a complete sentence for even more security.

So there you have it.  A step-by-step guide on fully understanding Gmail’s account activity log, and how to check if your Gmail account has been hacked :)