e-mail

Facebook changed its 900+ million users' primary e-mail address a week ago, setting in motion a continually cascading series of failures.

Users have lost unknown amounts of e-mail, and address books were unknowingly overwritten. Facebook's first official response yesterday was that everyone was just confused about how to look in their Facebook inboxes.

Now they've changed their tune. But their admission of intercepted and lost e-mail, questions about privacy ethics, and new issues around Apple iOS 6 show that Facebook's Apple app is also adding secondary, undeletable contacts into users' address books.

Facebook responded to our first … Read more

You might remember a while back when you picked your custom Facebook username. This username appears in your Facebook (vanity) URL, Facebook e-mail address, and it can even be used as your log in to save keystrokes. At the time, Facebook led you to believe that the username couldn't be changed once you picked it. Well, surprise, that wasn't actually the case.

It seems there is a one-time switch allowed, and as long as you haven't exercised this privilege yet, you're able to pick something new. If you never picked a username to begin … Read more

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Today, Facebook was kind enough to replace the e-mail account listed on your profile with the @Facebook.com e-mail address it provided you with awhile back. Wait, you didn't give Facebook permission to make the change? No one did. Not cool, Facebook.

Changing the e-mail account listed on your Facebook profile will only take a few minutes out of your day, but is well worth the time if you want people to know the best way to get in touch with you.

Here's how:

View your Facebook Timeline.

Click on your About section.

Click on Edit in the … Read more

Themes in Gmail are a good way to quickly differentiate between multiple Gmail accounts, as well as adding a little flair to your account. Until now, you were limited to the selection of themes provided by Google. Within the next few days, Google will have completed rolling out the capability to create custom Gmail themes, using your own background photos.

To check if the new themes have been pushed out to your account, go to your Gmail settings and select themes. If the feature's been pushed to your account, you'll see the Light and Dark themes in a … Read more

After years of being forced to use "@googlemail.com" addresses, Google's users in Germany can now join the rest of the world and embrace "@gmail.com."

"As a German working on the Gmail team, my friends and family back home often ask why they have a @googlemail address instead of @gmail.com," Google engineering director Mark Striebeck wrote today in a company blog post. "Today, I'm happy to announce that is no longer the case: Google Mail is becoming Gmail in Germany."

Google's e-mail troubles in Germany date back … Read more

Pets have proven problematic for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He has been widely (and rightfully) pilloried for putting the family pooch on the top of the car during a long vacation roadtrip. And now someone is claiming to have hacked into his personal Web-based e-mail account by guessing the name of his favorite pet.

It remains unclear if "Seamus," the Irish Setter whose kennel he tied to the top of the car, was his favored pet. If so, I'd hate to see how he treated less preferential pets. Whatever the word was, someone is claiming to … Read more

Many of the files I receive attached to Gmail messages end up in my Google Drive account. Previously this required downloading or viewing the file, saving it to a drive of the PC I'm using, signing into and opening Google Drive (formerly Google Docs), and uploading the file.

That's a lot of mileage for a file to travel just to get from one Google service to another.

Last month, Jason Cipriani of CNET's Blog Network described a technique developed by Amit Agarwal that automatically adds Gmail attachments to Google Drive.

As Jason explains, the process entails copying … Read more

Apple Insider is reporting on a few Apple discussion postings in which users have claimed their iCloud accounts were compromised. Some have complained they have found spam being sent to secondary e-mail addresses from their personal iCloud accounts, which have included links to spam services claiming to make money online, and also containing random text strings -- classic components to automatically generated spam messages.

Others have echoed that in recent hours they have experienced similar spam messages being sent from their iCloud accounts to alternative e-mail accounts and other entries in their contacts lists that were stored with iCloud.

These … Read more