Security is one of the biggest concern for business owners when deciding to use an online service like Google Apps . So what are the best ways to protect yourself when using it? Amit Agarwal is a professional blogger and technology columnist. He writes digital inspiration , a world-class technology blog. But Amit got hacked this week. He wrote about it on his blog, providing some excellent advice for how to protect yourself from a similar kind of attack. Sponsor Amit writes that he often receives false requests to change his password. He received a similar message this week. He ignored it. A few minutes later he started getting error messages. He could not get to his accounts. Amit had been hacked. He thinks that a hacker accessed a backup email that he had set up for his accounts. Amit had his service restored in about three hours after some calls to his colleagues at Google. He felt obviously relieved but also had that feeling of emptiness when you suddenly realize you have no control over your accounts. To help us avoid this kind of calamity, Amit summarized in five points how to make sure something like this does not happen to you: 1. Log-in to your Gmail / Google Account and associate it with a phone number: It’s a simple set up. You will get confirmation via SMS. If you do get attacked, a notification will go to you that someone is trying to get to your password. 2. Create a new email address: Set up the email to act as a backup and as a secondary email for your Google Apps account. Good advice by Amit: Do not auto-forward your email as the whole purpose of setting it up will be defeated. 3. Write it Down: Get out that old-fashioned pen and paper. Write down the following information so you can verify your identity just in case you do get hacked and your secondary email gets compromised, too. From Amit: The month and year when your created your Gmail / Google Account. If you created a Gmail account by invitation, write the email address of the person who first sent you that invite for Gmail. The email addresses of your most frequently emailed contacts (the top 5). The names of any custom labels that you may have created in your Gmail account. The day/month/year when you started using various other Google services (like AdSense, Orkut, Blogger, etc.) that are associated with the Google account that you are trying to recover. If you’re not certain about some of the dates, provide your closest estimate. 4. Run a Test! Log-out of all your Gmail / Google Accounts. Start the password recovery process. This guarantees that what you set up actually works. You want to be absolutely certain your SMS settings and secondary email addresses are configured correctly. 5. Check your IP Address: From time to time check out the IP address in the footer of your Gmail Inbox. If you see an odd one, change your Google password immediately. Knowing IP addresses may seem too technical to some but it’s good information to know. You should not have to be overly concerned about Google Apps security. If people take these kinds of basic steps, the chances of getting hacked decrease considerably. Discuss

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Using Google Apps? 5 Ways to Avoid Getting Hacked

Roambi announced a pro version of its iPhone application this week that syncs with Salesforce.com and other cloud-based services or on-premsie sales environments. It’s a visualization application, providing mobile workers with a pretty cool way to see sales information. Integration is by far one of the most significant trends we are seeing in the enterprise space. It’s a wave, really, marked this week by Salesforce.com and its move to turn the Force.com development platform into a service that makes all of its applications social. Sponsor A good example of this trend are small companies like Roambi that can now reach into the enterprise by integrating with Salesforce.com and other cloud platforms like Google Apps. We caught up with the founders of Roambi for a quick demo of their new pro product and how it syncs with both on-premse applications and SaaS services. Discuss

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An iPhone Visualization App That Syncs with the Cloud

Writing a book will never be easy, but FastPencil’ s mission is to make things easier for authors by bringing this process online and to collaborate with others. FastPencil takes writers from idea to published book. The service offers features for collaboration, editing and design, as well as professional consulting services for authors. One cool feature of FastPencil is that it can import blog posts and turn them into books and e-books that bloggers can then sell through all the major book distribution channels. Sponsor Features The areas where FastPencil exceeds are online editing, collaboration and distribution. Fast Pencil offers a surprisingly comprehensive online editing suite. While this editor isn’t quite as fully-featured as Microsoft Word, OpenOffice or Apple’s Pages – there is no feature to create headlines or tables of content, for example – it’s more than enough to power the service’s online collaboration tools. In it’s latest update, which launched earlier this week, FastPencil introduced a number of interesting new features. These include new templates, new roles for collaborators (co-authors, project managers) and forums for prospective authors to meet and discuss their work. Turn Your Blog Into a Book If you import your blog feed, FastPencil will turn every blog post into a chapter. The service also imports images from these posts. These images have to be inserted at the beginning or end of a post, however. You can’t have your text flow around an image. Publishing: Hardcover, Paperback, E-Book Once you have finished your book, you can publish it as an e-book and printed book. These services, however, do cost . These paid services include printing, obtaining ISBN numbers, and organizing the distribution of your book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram Digital and other retail partners. FastPencil also offers a number of editing services like design, illustration and editing services. Besides printing hardcover and paperback books, FastPencil can format books for virtually any digital platform, including DRM-free ePub e-books and the Kindle. Don’t Need All These Services? Try SmashWords If you don’t need all of these services from Fast Pencil – or if you have already finished your book – another service worth looking at is SmashWords . Smashwords specializes in e-books. Thanks to deals with Barnes & Noble and Sony in the US and Indigo Books & Music’s Shortcovers in Canada, self-published authors can get their e-books into traditional distribution channels, or sell their books directly on SmashWords. Smashwords acquired the New Zealand-based e-book self-publishing service BookHabit earlier this week. Discuss

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FastPencil: Turn Your Blog Posts into a Published Book