The current spam attack message is similar to the one we all have already seen, its about a girl getting expelled from school after her teacher read her Facebook status update. Here is a screenshot:

If you click on the link, you will land upon a page which asks you to login on the site using Facebook and then the app’s permission will show up.

One can clearly tell that they are trying to steal your email and asking for permission to post on wall for further spreading this spam so that more and more people fall for it. I have written about how Facebook Apps steal user data. Report such apps to Facebook by clicking on the Report App link.

So when you see someone you know posting this on your wall, make sure you report it as spam. This will remove it from your wall to and less people will fall for it.

This one will be harder to control as I noticed that the same spam message was posted using different apps.

Spread awareness and don’t let others fool you by falling for this spam. Let your friends know about it, click on this link – Share with friends on Facebook.

Happy and Safe Facebook’ing!

• Facebook Spam Message Attack
• Facebook Apps are stealing users data
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• We are on Facebook
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• Users can’t receive more than US$500 as payments for export related goods and services.
  • In effect from March 1, 2011, you can’t receive payments for an amount exceeding US$500 per transaction. If you need to receive a bigger amount than US$500, then break it into multiples and do so.
• Users will have to withdraw the money within 7 days of receiving it.
  • You can’t keep your money in Paypal account for more than 7 days. You will have to initiate a withdrawal before 7 days. There is no news on what will happen if you don’t, as of now.
• Users can’t use their Paypal funds for making payments through Paypal.
  • You can’t use your available Paypal balance in paying for something. Any payments from the account will require a Credit Card attached to it which will be the only funding source. So if you want to use the money you already have in your account, you can’t. You will have to withdraw them on a horrible exchange rate (you lose money here) and then pay from your Credit Card which charges you a horrible exchange rate again (you again lose money here).

Link: Paypal Blog Notice

Who is to blame? Paypal or RBI?

I have seen several people, several news portal including reputed newspaper sites of India blaming RBI for their move but the truth is that RBI did the right thing and Paypal is playing their game here. I will explain.

According to Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA Regulations), a business like Paypal is breaking the FEMA Act by operating like how it has been since its existence in Indian economy. And to keep things right and tight, RBI forced Paypal to abide by the rules or they won’t be able to operate here in India.

This helps RBI monitor payments which could be used for illegal activities like terrorism.

The catch here is that RBI didn’t force Paypal to put those restrictions on Indian users. Paypal put restrictions on user to make an escape out by limiting itself so that it will still comply with the RBI regulations.

According to RBI, Paypal can’t hold users money for more than 7 days as they will need to pay users interest on the money they have in their account. this means Paypal will have to pay interests to users which they are eating up by themselves. For every transaction of above US$500, Paypal will have to report RBI about it. Paypal could have agreed to RBI regulations so that they can still continue like they have been in the past but they want to keep their monopoly and let the users suffer. They can’t give away their freedom of working as an independent service and would do anything so as not to work as a Bank with regulations and guidelines laid down by RBI for every bank in India.

So, Paypal is the real culprit here. Blame them, boycott them and look for alternatives.

Thanks to Keith for his post on Techie Buzz for explaining the issue in detail & giving a real insight in the matter.

Ugly Truth

It may seem that this is the death of Paypal in India but certainly it won’t die. Here is why:

Lets break down the Paypal Indian users in 3 categories:

• Small Diet (Users who deal with smaller payments like 40 USD or 50 USD and even less totalling a thousand dollar or much less than that)
• Medium Diet (Users who deal with good payments like 500 USD or 700 USD totalling a few thousand dollars)
• Large Diet (Users who deal with large payments totalling of several thousand dollars)

How does Paypal RBI Issue affect Users?

For Small Diet users, they will have less money which they need to withdraw by paying withdrawal fees. Right now they charge ? 50 (INR) for withdrawals less than ? 7000 (INR). They will have to pay this fees again and again for smaller transactions which can account for a large share in their actual profit. 500 USD transaction limit doesn’t both them as that’s a rare situation for them. Paypal can wave off the fees for withdrawals and then this group of users won’t have any problems in operating with Paypal accounts.

For Medium Diet users, they withdrawals would always be more than ? 7000 (INR) so they don’t have to pay any withdrawal fees but a 500 USD transaction can bother them to such extent but it can be workaround by breaking the payments into multiples of 500 USD. So this group of users don’t have any serious issues with Paypal but they would have to bear somewhat.

For Large Diet users it can only be a problem with breaking down the payment into multiples of 500 USD but since large projects are often done in several phases with payment after each phase, breaking down the payments into multiple is not that of a big issue as what it seems but yes it is annoying.

But users still can’t make direct payments

Yes, this will remain as an issue and something which everyone has to bear for now and don’t know till when.

But if you still look into details, then most of the transactions are for receiving payments. So this still leaves a large portion of users unaffected by it. To avoid any disagreements, I would like to quote myself as a user who uses Paypal largely for only receiving payments. Buying domains and paying hosting bills, they are something I can bear with extra costs. I agree that it can be a problem for small diet users but medium and large diets don’t care about it much. They will blast for a day or two and then get back to work. Like I was shocked when I got the email from Paypal but then I calm myself down and thought it just adds a little cost on my pocket and I can continue my work like how I have been.

So the ugly truth is Paypal won’t die in India. They would get a hit by their move but they are not brainless people, they will keep their service running somehow and I am sure I would have partially convinced on this fact if you understood what I tried to explain above.

What should you do?

Business should keep running. Extra costs should not stop worrying you. Try to avoid Paypal (I wish I could say to boycott Paypal) but that’s hard since its accepted worldwide but chose alternatives whenever wherever possible.

Accept Paypal when there is no other choice or what is best for your business. Who the hell cares for Paypal? Care for your business and how you can make the most out of it.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section and I will be glad to help.

• Paypal Indian Users can now resume Electronic Funds Transfer
• Paypal Indian Users can only withdraw money by cheque from August 1,2010
• How to Create a PayPal Invoice

Apps like Who will murder you? and Know when will you die? are stupid from the logical sense and anyone can tell that they are fooling around, yet people try them. Apps like Chinese Zodiac also fool around but I must say, one was genuine and another one I found was just scrapping off your data.

What it is about?

Facebook has privacy options which means you give permission to other people or apps to get access to your data. It all happens with your consent. In lieu of fun, people try apps which are malicious and were built with the intention of stealing your personal details. They then sell your details to companies and yes, there is a good market for that.

What you can do to save yourself?

First of all, stop fooling around with useless apps. Even if you are trying an app, pay attention to what permissions you are granting them while allowing access. Use some brain if they really need that much access to my details, if its suspicious, then it probably is. Let us go by a couple of examples.

Example #1

I tried this app named Status Analyzer 3D (link), which shows you a 3D cloud for the most common words found in your status updates. Alright! This is a worth one to try. Lets see the permissions it asks for.

Access my basic information – Don’t worry about this one. It’s the information you already have shared with everyone. If you have right default privacy settings in Facebook then this is not a thing to worry about.

Access posts in my News Feed – It needs to grab the status updates so that it can make out the most used words, makes sense. So trying such an app is fine.

Example #2

Lets try out a different app named Chinese Zodiac (link), which tells you about your Chinese Zodiac sign. I found a genuine one too, but in this context I will talking about the malicious one. Again lets see the permission it asks for.

Access my basic information – Its okay!

Post to my Wall – All the apps would like to share the result of what they do on your wall so that even your friends can see it and try them. Irritating and offending is the one which doesn’t confirm with you before actually posting the result or anything on your wall.

Access my data any time – Seriously? Anyone can sense something suspicious here. If not, fix yourself up before anything else. I can only imagine the use of it when the app needs to continuously access your date when it is doing some repetitive tasks for you. Most of the time, this is not needed.

For such apps, don’t allow them access and report them. I have already reported this app. Actually I even emailed the developer sometime back but never heard back from him.

With over 500 million users around the world, the users are targeted for stealing their data and then selling this data to marketing companies and like. Stand up and save yourself. I will also write on how you can kill applications that have already access to your data. I only keep apps that I trust very much and if I even try out some app for fun, I remove that right away.

Were you trying all those stupid apps? Or have you tried such apps in the past? Have your say in the comments.

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Facebook tweeted that some internal prototypes were exposed to people due to which they had to disable the site briefly and then put it back on the previous state.

People were quick enough to take screenshots of the new features. Most of the screenshots credit goes to Mashable but their update to the post which indicates lightbox UI for photos and comment box without “Comment” button wasn’t revealed last night, they were being given to certain users for quite some time now.

New Facebook Pages

Facebook Fanpages got a new tab-free design which creates question on what will happen to the marketing aspect of the pages as there will be no landing pages to improve conversion of visitors.

When pressed for clarification specifically around Pages, a Facebook spokesperson shared the following statement: “While we are always experimenting with new features internally we are not making changes to Pages right now. Organizations invest a lot of time on their Facebook Pages because millions of people find them useful everyday. We remain committed to providing ways for Page owners to customize and control the experience on their Page. If we do make changes, we will provide partners with advance notice.”

The navigation were put under the display picture just like the member profiles.

Switch Accounts and Login as Page

Users can now login as Pages and use them as they had a different account with the name of their fanpage. Interesting!

Memories

Credit goes to Mashable for reporting this as I didn’t notice it myself. They say several people has reported having access to a new “Memories” option listed below photos in the left hand menu on their profile pages. It looks like it gives an option for user to browse in facebook activities grouped by years. It allowed you to look back at status updates, photos, and new friends, giving a snapshot of each year one have been on Facebook. Pretty cool indeed!

Outside World News Feed Filter

A new filter named “Outside World” has been seen in filtering out the stories in your “Most Recent” stream. Not sure what exactly it is supposed to do.

Photos Lighbox UI

Mashable has added this to their post too on the basis of comments by the visitors, that they saw the “Lightbox UI” but I can assure you that it was available for certain users for quite some time now. I saw that this was available to one of my friends, when I happen to visit his place a few days back. It was also reported that they see some errors too.

Comment Box without Comment button

Again Mashable readers reported that they saw comment box without comment button, in which the user can just submit the content by hitting enter instead of clicking any button. Well, I am using this on several places for several days now. no new thing in this feature. May be it is being made available to a small set of users for testing things out, just like how Google do it.

Well, that’s all for the last night accidental push of certain new features, out of which two were there and probably are available for certain users for testing purposes and was certainly not a part of leaked features.

Did you notice to see any of the changes too? Please tell us in the comments.

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How to recognize and save yourself from attack?

Here is how it look like :

People are reporting that it asks you to do a security check as shown in the next screenshot

After that it asks you to press some keyboard shortcuts which actually work like copy pasting the malicious javascript code in your address bar. This grants them the permission and the spam attack successfully messages all your friends.

It is spreading at a very fast rate. Beware that it can be something different but it should look like similar, so take care of such things in future too. If your friend sends you something, then ask them before trying it out if they have actually sent it or not. And when you know it is spam, delete the message and inform your friend that a spam message has been sent out from his/her account and he should warn his/her friends not to click on the message link.

How to stop it from spreading?

Go to the infected page and click on Report Page in the lower left side as shown in the screenshot. Don’t “Like” the page.

Let your friends know about this attack, click on this link -> share this post on facebook.

Happy and Safe Facebook’ing!

No related posts.

Unlike the previous upgrade WordPress 3.0.2 released recently, its severity is higher, so its highly recommended that you upgrade to WordPress 3.0.3 even if you are using any previous version of WordPress.

Remote publishing is disabled by default, but you may have enabled it to use a remote publishing client such as one of the WordPress mobile apps. You can check these settings on the “Settings > Writing” screen.

Download 3.0.3 or update automatically from the “Dashboard > Updates” screen in your site’s admin area.

Official WordPress Announcement

• Upgrade existing integrated installations of WordPress & bbPress
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• Update Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 offline
• Download Kaspersky Antivirus & Kaspersky Internet Security Updates 2010 Offline
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Rumors finally came into life when today Google officially announce the Google Nexus S phone running Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread. Its the first mobile phone running on Android 2.3 and is a whole lot better than any android phone you will currently find in the market.

It runs faster than the Nexus one. Its unlocked by default which means you can switch over to any network without any hassle, which means more freedom without putting your precious device to risk by unlocking it and voiding the warranty. There is always a risk that you may brick your phone in attempt and it may become useless.

Before we go on with any technical specifications, watch this cool video (if you like)

Technical Specifications

Connectivity

• Quad-band GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900
• Tri-band HSPA: 900, 2100, 1700
• HSPA type: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (5.76Mbps)
• Wi-Fi 802.11 n/b/g
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• Near Field Communication (NFC)
• Assisted GPS (A-GPS)
• microUSB 2.0

Display

• 4.0″ WVGA (480×800)
• Contour Display with curved glass screen
• Super AMOLED
• 235 ppi
• Capacitive touch sensor
• Anti-fingerprint display coating

Size and weight

• 63mm x 123.9mm x 10.88mm
• 129g

Hardware

• Haptic feedback vibration
• Three-axis gyroscope
• Accelerometer
• Digital compass
• Proximity sensor
• Light sensor

Processor and memory

• 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) processor
• 16GB iNAND flash memory

Cameras and multimedia

• Back-facing: 5 megapixels (2560×1920)
• 720 x 480 video resolution
• H.264, H.263 MPEG4 video recording
• Auto focus
• Flash
• Front-facing: VGA (640×480)
• 3.5mm, 4-conductor headset jack (stereo audio plus microphone)
• Earpiece and microphone
• Software noise-cancellation

Battery

• Talk time up to 6.7 hours on 3G (14 hours on 2G)
• Standby time up to 17.8 days on 3G (29.7 days on 2G)
• 1500 mAH Lithum Ion

Software

• Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
• Android Market
• Calendar
• Gmail
• Google Earth
• Google Maps with Navigation
• Google Search
• Google Talk
• Google Voice
• Voice Actions
• YouTube

Nexus S has a dedicated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). Playing mobile games, browsing the web, and watching videos are fast, fluid, and smooth. It’s like having a pocket-sized multimedia and game console. In between if you want to check out your email or get a call or message that needs your attention, you can just pause your game and switch to another application and back to the game in a snap.

Take Nexus S outside, there’s 75% less glare than on other smartphone displays. Your videos, pictures and games look their best and the sun won’t wash them out.

Gingerbread builds on some of the most popular Android features like multi-tasking and Wi-Fi hotspot and adds a refreshed user interface, an improved keyboard, near field communication (NFC) support, and more. NFC will be used in the coming years, so its a future proofing feature.

The interface hasn’t seen a ground-up redesign (that’s coming in Honeycomb), but is a lot better than what it used to be earlier in Nexus one.

Gingerbread also supports VoIP/SIP calling.

Best of all, of course, is the fact that the Nexus S is a clean install of Android, and a pure Google experience. There is no messy third-party software to muck things up.

Google will not be retailing it directly. Samsung will be selling it worldwide. We will be waiting for it to start shipping starting December 16, although pre-orders might be taken earlier.

Update: Best Buy has confirmed pricing for the incoming Google Nexus S, with the Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone to be $529 unlocked and contract free. Alternatively, if bought with a new, two-year T-Mobile USA agreement, the Nexus S will be $199.

More details are on Official Google Nexus page.

Subscribe to our feeds to receive the latest Nexus S and Gingerbread (Android 2.3) news.

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Good things is that the user doesn’t need to wait to try it own. No invitations needed, no waiting for availability for your account or nothing. Just head over and grab it.

You will not be able to switch back to the old design after upgrading. They will be rolling it out to everyone eventually, so just grab it and get used to it. You might even find it better. Check out the screenshots if you would like to see it before hand.

Screenshots

My Facebook Profile

The layout shows a quick summary about you and recent pictures in which you were tagged.

Share your experiences

New Facebook Layout give a more complete picture of how you spend your time, including your projects at work, the classes you take and other activities you enjoy (like hiking or reading). You can even include the friends who share your experiences.

Discover common interests

Showcase the things you care about most and connect with friends who share the same interests, including sports teams, the people who inspire you and more. Your top interests now appear as a row of images — just drag and drop to put your favorites first.

Highlights meaningful relationships

Relationships with close friends can be just as important as family. Now you can highlight family members and the other key people in your life, like your best friends or coworkers — all right on your profile.

See how you connect with friends

Visit a friend’s profile and see all the things you share in common:

• Mutual friends
• Events you’re both planning to attend
• Shared groups, photos, Wall posts and more

You can upgrade to the new profile layout immediately – Activate FB new profile layout. Click on the green button on the top right and you are done.

And in case if you have any question about the new layout, you can head over to the help center.

Lastly, I would like to hear your thoughts on the new layout. Comment section is all yours!

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Today its just a quick note that you can connect with us on Facebook as we have got our own Facebook Fan Page – http://www.facebook.com/AshfameBlog

Just for the record, I would like to tell you that withing 60 hours of being live, we reached our first milestone of 100 Fans

So, incase if you want the latest of the blog on facebook, you can join us there where we will be sharing small tips n tricks which makes computing easier and of course a fun activity.

Please show us your love, care and support by like’ing our Facebook Fan page – AshfameBlog on Facebook.

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Its available for both Freedom Plan & Buddy Plan. The catch here is that they are offering a package lot bundled up with options every professional webmaster is looking for and bang the price down with a huge discount. Now, isn’t that great? Read on to check out the deal yourself.

Freedom Plan

Buddy Plan

WpWebHost is a really good webhost if you intend to run your WordPress based sites or blogs, their support is great (yeah technical too ) and provides overall good service at a competitive rate.

I totally recommend every one to take advantage of the Power Saver plans, so don’t just think over and over, go ahead and buy awesome webhosting from them now.

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This news is a great sign of relief for Indian users whose business transactions rely heavily on Paypal, like me working as a freelancer web developer, Paypal is my transaction hub.

• Paypal Indian Users can only withdraw money by cheque from August 1,2010
• Typewith.me let multiple users work on a single document simultaneously
• How to Create a PayPal Invoice
• How to transfer files between computer and mobile device using bluetooth
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Its very disappointing news for Indian Paypal users who used to carry out wireless fund transfer directly to their bank account and now will have to wait for a cheque and will have to deal with the hassles of cheque reaching late, lost cheques, depositing cheques in bank accounts etc.

Anyways, what has to happened, have already happened. The good thing is that the paypal will refund the 5$ charge for issuing a cheque till it is the only option available for withdrawal.

To request a cheque for withdrawal

Step 1: Log into your PayPal account, click on ‘Withdraw’.

Step 2: Click on the ‘Request a cheque from PayPal’ link. It usually takes 4 to 6 working days
to process the cheque, excluding the delivery time.

Step 3: Enter the withdrawal amount and select your mailing address, then click ‘Continue’.
Please note that a monthly withdrawal limit of $2,500 USD applies.

Step 4: Click ‘Submit’ to confirm your request.

So, what are you going to do now? Are you going to use Cheque withdrawals or transfer to another service and then carry out a wireless fund transfer?

UPDATE : Paypal has resumed the Wireless Funds Transfer service.

• Paypal Indian Users can now resume Electronic Funds Transfer
• How to Create a PayPal Invoice
• Paypal and RBI Issues – Whole Story
• Typewith.me let multiple users work on a single document simultaneously
• How to activate Kaspersky Antivirus 2010 or Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 by a key

• PHP 4.3 or greater
• MySQL 4.1.2 or greater

But WordPress developers has decided to end support for PHP 4 & MySQL 4 and move on to newer versions of PHP & MySQL in WordPress 3.2 so as to take advantage of the newer versions of code available which will yield better performance.

The new requirement for running WordPress from version 3.2 will be the following:

• PHP 5.2 or greater
• MySQL 5.0.15 or greater

The change comes as a no surprise as sooner or later they would have to move on taking their code to a level where it is more secured and yields performance gain dealing with the issues that will arise and testing needed for the new version. I think it will be one of those releases which will require a lot of testing.

The WordPress team is confident that the change in requirements will be relatively inconsequential. According to Mark Jaquith, “Only around 11 percent of WordPress installs are running on a PHP version below 5.2 [and] fewer than 6 percent of WordPress users are running MySQL 4.” Mr. Jaquith adds that most users running a PHP version less than 5.2 belong to hosting providers which actually support PHP 5.2 or higher. These users may have the ability to enabled PHP 5 via their hosting provider’s control panel or request to be moved to a server with PHP 5.2 or higher and MySQL 5.0.15 or higher.

And now WordPress can also be listed on GoPHP5.org.

A new plugin Health Check plugin will take care of checking your hosting compatibility with WordPress 3.2 upon activation.

In summary: WordPress 3.1, due in late 2010, will be the last version of WordPress to support PHP 4 and MySQL 4. WordPress 3.2, due in the first half of 2011, will require PHP 5.2 or higher, and MySQL 5.0.15 or higher. Install the Health Check plugin to see if you’re ready!

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Here is the table for the affected plans and the new speed being offered :

Earlier they double up the speed some time back till April 26,2010. I guess they were testing that if they can really provide that much bandwidth to the whole country without charging more than the existing tariff. MTNL users were promoted to a similar plan a little time back (512 Kbps for ~750 INR) and no BSNL has moved forward too. They definitely provide the best in terms of broadband in India.

Here is the link to official announcement – http://bsnl.in/newsdetailed.php?news_id=535

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