keithtom.com

I blogged about how email is becoming a standard for identity on the web and I think i’ve seen more trends that agree. in short, when you want a password reset for another account, they use your email. anyway, here are two quick security tips for gmail users:

1) if you click the settings link on the top right, then scroll to the bottom, you’ll see this:

Https roughly means use a secure, encrypted connection. so it’s always good to use it.

2) this one requires a little more manual involvement. at the bottom of your inbox page, you’ll see this:

If you click on the details link, you can see a popup with a table of all the account activity by time and IP address (which for simplicity, is just a number that identifies a computer). At the bottom of the pop, it’ll tell you the IP address of the computer you are using. So if there are other IP address on this table, you might want to click on “sign out all other sessions”, and then change your password, if you think someone has access to your account.

I have two IP addresses in my table, but i just verified the other is my itouch. this is also useful if you aren’t sure if you left yourself logged in on someone elses computer.