usernames

Customize your username with an alias in OS X

OS X is an account-based system, in which individual users have their own accounts storing their own settings and data. When you set up a user account, the system will ask you for your name and then based on that will create a short username the system will use to identify your user account.

This short username is the true username of the account, but you can use the short name or your full name at the log-in window. Since the system initially generates it for you, it's easy to overlook the fact that you have the chance to … Read more

E-mail bill raises privacy concerns

Tuesday's CNET Update is checking privacy settings:

There's an update to today's top story. Hours after CNET reported on a bill rewrite that would give warrantless access to American's e-mail, the senator behind the legislation has abandoned his controversial proposal.

Quickly add usernames to comments in Instagram 3.0

Instagram comments and I have a love-hate relationship. On one hand, I love comments because they lead to some funny conversations and feedback regarding photos. On the other, I hate them because hardly anyone who uses Instagram realizes that in order to get alerted of a new comment on a photo other than your own, you have to be mentioned in the comment.

With a subtle tweak in the latest version of Instagram, on the iPhone at least, you can now quickly mention a username in a comment and ensure that they will see your comment or reply. (The Android … Read more

The 404 1,000: Where we enter the 2K (podcast)

Welcome to our 1,000th episode of The 404 Podcast! It's an exciting mile marker for the show, so we commemorate it with Wilson Tang--remember that guy?

This episode is packed with stories guaranteed to induce Wilson's chuckle that we miss so dearly.

And since we all know how much Wilson worships Apple, we're talking about a bunch of Idiots paying for a $0.99 service that adds a "Sent From My iPhone" signature to the end of every going message, YouPorn getting caught with their collective pants down, Google adding concert listings to their search results, and an ugly YouTube trend that takes advantage of self-conscious teenagers.… Read more

Microsoft online customer accounts hacked in India

Microsoft's online store in India was hacked on Sunday, resulting in the theft of usernames and passwords of the site's customers.

A Chinese group of hackers calling itself Evil Shadow Team took credit for the hack, posting screenshots of obscured usernames and passwords that it found unencrypted on the site, according to Reuters. The group touted the attack on its own blog (here's an English translation). posting a screenshot of the hacked Web site with the message: "Unsafe system will be baptized."

Microsoft has since taken down the hacked site and replaced it with a … Read more

Twitter rolls out real-time activity, username streams

When Twitter tweaks itself, most users don't see much.

That's because when the social-networking and microblogging service tests or rolls out new features, it often does so incrementally and with a limited number of users.

That seems to be the case with Twitter's new activity and username streams that the company announced back on August 10 and that TechCrunch started to see cropping up over the past day or so.

So while Sean Parker, the digital impresario behind Facebook, Spotify, Plaxo, and Causes, was one of the lucky Twitterati (@sparker) to see the latest changes today, user … Read more

LastPass CEO reveals details on security breach

Following yesterday's revelation of a likely security breach at password management company LastPass, the company's CEO is revealing more details about the incident and trying to offer some comfort and advice to his users.

Speaking yesterday with PC World, LastPass CEO Joe Siegrist admits he may have been too "alarmist" in sounding the alarm bell over the potential security breach. But the anomalies the company found when looking over its logs raised too much of a red flag.

Siegrist explained that he doesn't think a lot of data would've been hacked, but just enough … Read more

Tackling account access problems after an OS X update

While rare, sometimes after updating OS X either with an upgrade or with an intermediate patch users have found that an account on the system may no longer be accessible. This may be because the system refuses to accept an account password, or because the account no longer appears. While such problems may have you initially consider reinstalling OS X and restoring from a backup, you may be able to fix the problem without doing this.

Missing accounts after an update Local account information is stored in the system's directory database (located in the hidden /var/db/local/ folder), … Read more

MobileMe not recognizing your username and password?

Sometimes users are faced with a situation where MobileMe sends an error message regarding usernames and account passwords being invalid. This may even happen to users who do not have MobileMe accounts.… Read more

Default username for network resources changing

When you connect to a computer on the network, by default it will try to connect using the "Guest" account which, if enabled on the remote computer, will allow you to view public resources such as the Public folder in users' home folders. Sometimes, and especially after running certain programs, you may see the computer try to connect using a bizarre username besides "Guest".… Read more