accounts

For a company with more than $2.3 billion in annual earnings and $9.1 billion in revenue, it has been shockingly fashionable to write off eBay. The common refrain: eBay is losing marketplace share. It's so Web 1.0. And eBay can't hang with Amazon.

However, eBay has quietly been turning around a few analysts on Wall Street and its powwow Wednesday won a few over. Simply put, eBay has some heady goals between now and 2013. Here's the bottom line outlook:

How will eBay get to that revenue goal? PayPal will carry the company.

Read … Read more

Now all Google users can take advantage of the two-step log-in procedure previously available to Google Apps customers.

The company started rolling out the option to use two-step verification to Google Account holders today, according to a blog post. The idea comes from a classic security tactic, the notion that accounts are more secure when you log in using two factors: something you know, such as a password, and something that only you have, such as your phone.

Google Apps users started using this feature in September. Account holders log in to Google as usual, but the first time they … Read more

Though the App Store has several methods for keeping track of the newest and most noteworthy Apps, Apple has decided that a dedicated Twitter account would further promote some of its favorite applications for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

The @AppStore account has just been verified by Twitter as officially as the first post, "Welcome to App Store on Twitter! Follow us to discover new apps, get exclusive offers, and share with friends. #appstore" was retweeted by the verified @iTunesTV account (and several other accounts).

The second tweet from @AppStore promotes the Nike Training Club App, "Motivation. … Read more

Cybercriminals buy and sell stolen information using a vast network of online stores, forums, and even social-networking accounts, according to a report released yesterday by PandaLabs.

Posing as a cybercriminal to gain access to this online black market, PandaLabs researchers uncovered a world where the bad guys work together to buy and sell stolen bank account information, credit card numbers, passwords, and other products. Much of this illegal enterprise is done through online stores and forums, but PandaLabs found criminals using Facebook and Twitter accounts to set up shop as well.

Though this black market is relatively open, the security … Read more

The name Express Accounts Free Accounting Software pretty much sums up this freeware from NCH: it's a basic but flexible accounting package suitable for small businesses and organizations, and even some that are not so small. It integrates with other NCH business software, and it's also available, at a cost, in a Pro version that offers extra features. However, Express Accounts Free does what most users need most often, such as create and manage invoices, payments, and receipts; report income and earnings; create balance sheets; track orders and supplies; and manage customer contacts.

During installation, a wizard walked … Read more

New York City, the nation's largest city and its true media capital, is telling citizens that "piracy doesn't work" as part of a new publicly funded antipiracy ad campaign.

The message to New Yorkers is that downloading music and movies without paying for them "kills jobs" in the city. The ads will appear at bus shelters, movie theaters, on the Web and on the video screens found in taxicabs, according to Katherine Oliver, commissioner of media and entertainment for the city of New York.

The costs of running the campaign are minimal because the … Read more

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

A new augmented-reality app lets you see what around you is for sale on eBay as you walk down the street

Google lets you manage multiple Gmail accounts from one Gmail login

Microsoft's Kin gets canned by Verizon, finally

Google purchases a company called Zetawire that allows mobile phone payments using near field communication technology

Google Voice will learn your speech patterns better using personalized recognition on Android phones

Google Voice also comes to the iPad

POS stands for point of sale, but small-business owners who have struggled to implement PC-based POS systems sometimes use a more colorful phrase. Retail Man POS from Ezisolutions aims to answer the many shortcomings of other POS suites, chief among them the confusion they cause in the owner who sets them up and the employees who use them. Retail Main POS features descriptive icon images and pop-up labels that help clarify just what each icon does, be it sales, inventory, payments, or contacts. It's a full-featured POS system, too, with invoices, inventories, balance sheets, reporting, and even barcode printing.… Read more

Windows Live Hotmail has a new trick up its sleeve--one that's aimed directly at getting users with e-mail accounts on other services to use it exclusively, even if they keep that address.

That trick, which begins rolling out to Hotmail users today, lets them add accounts from other Web mail services that can be read and sent from within the Hotmail Web client.

As Hotmail's group program manager Dick Craddock writes on the Inside Windows Live blog, this functionality is something that's long been available in the Outlook software client, but not on the Web. Craddock also … Read more