Security Fear

           Technology has changed our life style rapidly if we compare to our grandparents era. If we have a look on technology changes, the most priceless gift is Internet. It has become the best medium to gain knowledge, entertainment and communication tools to connect with people all around the world. Therefore, we can said that Internet become a part of in human life nowadays. In order to that, the most outstanding advantages in use of Internet are online communication. Internet allows users to communicate with others through Instant Messaging (IM) such as Yahoo Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, Gtalk and many.

           These types of IM especially Yahoo Messenger (YM) is not only used for social and entertainment purposes but also used in business field. According to the IDC report in 2008 by Nortel about “Instant Messaging and Security” stated that the usage of IM such as YM can help to improve the productivity of employee. According to the author, about 74% of businesses identify that YM improve employee’s teamwork but 72% business band its use due to security problems. So, we can make point that even though IM help to improve the employee’s relationships but the organizations more concern about the security problems that occur in IM.

           This report stated about the risks of using IM by employees. The first risk that stated in the report is the attack from viruses, worms and trogen. When the employees use the IM, they may receive an unsolicited email inviting them to the on a link. This link may contain worm and viruses that can damage the computer programs. The second risk is the loss of intellectual property such as the employee’s confidential information about organization can loss when the viruses and worms damage the computer systems. The author also noted that provider of IM services such as YM, Facebook chat, Window Live Messenger failed to offer full protection to their users.

           The third risk is theft of passwords and user identities. He stated that IM accounts of users are also in risk because their passwords and user ID’s stolen by hackers. He also mentioned that many users of YM and Gmail have major attack by the hackers on their IM accounts in February 2009. The fourth risk is the lack of corporate control in IM accounts. The organizations are not able to monitor the business transactions and communications between the employees through the public IM services. Besides that, the author also suggested some ways to overcome the security problems in IM account. The suggestions are the organizations need to take control on employee’s activities in IM, minimize the risk by monitoring the employee’s context and also try to educate the employees whom are the IM users.

          In conclusion, I personally feel that the author has addressed the accurate risks that faced by the IM users and I also agree with his suggestion on how to overcome this security problems. Therefore, I want to say that every problem has a good solution and we need to find out that and should try to solve it. We should not feel fear and do not quit easily because usage of IM services can give more advantages rather than the disadvantages. Last but not least, the providers of IM also should give more important to the security problems in IM accounts and try to minimize the risks by giving more protection to the user’s accounts.

Learn through Instant Messaging

   Dear friends, we have gone through lot information regarding yahoo messenger (YM) services in the previous posts. By the way, in very beginning YM only used for social entertainment purposes but now YM also used for academic purposes in order to support student’s learning. Few days ago, I have read a case study regarding instant messenger which supports student learning process. The title of the study is ‘Using Instant Messaging for Collaborative Learning: A Case Study’ by Susana M. Sotillo.

     This study stress on implicit and explicit correlative feedback in communication tasks used in English as Second Language (ESL) classrooms. The objective of this study is to examine the specific occurrences of error correction episodes and to determine the types of negative correlative feedback such as implicit or explicit provided to second language (L2) learners during instant messaging (IM). This study carry out a small scale exploratory study of negotiate interaction and error correction episodes in Computer Mediated communication (CMC) environments. There are 14 respondents whom are age 24 to 32 have participate in this study. In order to guide the respondents, the researcher has selected five tutors whom are the fluent English speaker. The researcher used YM webcam video chat as a medium for the respondents and the tutor for the language learning activities. They are asked to work collaboratively on activities using YM, chat log and audio-recorded data to gather information regarding to the study.

       The result of the findings shows that ESL learners received more indirect or implicit feedback than direct or explicit feedbacks. Besides that, the result also indicate that non-native speaker (NNSs) provide more direct or explicit corrective feedback such as grammatical explanation or correct linguistic forms to ESL learners if compare to native speakers (NSs). Overall in findings, the author stated that IM such as YM have the potential in bringing benefits for the language learning purpose.

        In my opinion, I think the use of YM in learning purpose is bringing benefits to the students. If we refer to the author’s statement, YM being as a medium to the students for improve their language through the learning activities in YM. So, we can make point that YM is not only for social and entertainment purpose but now it also plays an important role to make the learning process become more effective and easy.

Feel It Good

Dear valuable viewers, you should watch this video clip if you are a Yahoo Messenger (YM) user. Why there is a need for us to use the YM? What are the benefits that we gained from the usage of YM? If you are interested to know the answers, please spend just two minutes from your precious time to watch this video clip. Sure, you will get some information regarding to the YM... 

Please watch it now and enjoy the clip.

Image source: Google Image, Retrieved  June 10, 2012, from http://www.google.com.my

My Password Is Strong. How About Yours??

People nowadays are used many sites and have many accounts. I have getting know that many of them are using the same password for each and every accounts. As such, this my friendly advice that do not use the same password to all accounts and also do not use same alphabets. this can make your password very weak and people can easily hack your accounts. So, here I have uploaded a video on how to make your password be strong. Hope you will watch it and try to emphasis on your daily life as it can avoid your accounts to be hacked. Be an intelligent user!

Facebook and Yahoo Messenger Friends Meet Together

Friends, do you chat with your Facebook friends and Yahoo Messenger friends differently and using different sites??? Doesn't you feel that makes yourself so burden? Here a easiest way to put them all together into one site (Yahoo Messenger). You can now import your Facebook friends into Yahoo Messenger contacts. For more details, you can have a look on the video above and try to apply it if you are interested.

Beware of Strangers in YM!!

Why you SHOULD NOT use Yahoo Messenger?

Dear viewers, this video clip show the problems that arise through the chatting with unknown people. So, beware when chatting with the strangers. Please try to use YM services efficiently.

Every Problems Have A Solution

Remove YM ID from someone friends list

"Although I delete that person, my name still will be appearing in that person’s friends list. When I’m being online, the person can still send message to me and its make me feel irritating" (Lindha Arokiasamy, 2012).

Do you feel the same?? Here a short video clip on how to remove your YM ID from your other friends list. Your problems will disappear after this, I'm sure... :) 

Reference:

Lindha Arokiasamy. (2012, May 15). Cyber Entertainer. [blog] Retrieved Jun 9, 2012, from Critical of YM: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3074668043875350714#editor/target=post;postID=5775665326607229096

No More Facebook message into your Email

Are you very upset and tired in deleting Facebook notifications in your e-mail box?? Here a video to guide you on how to

Disable Email Notification Facebook

How to detect invisible users on Yahoo! Messenger

Another video for our beloved viewers. Some people put their status in offline or busy mode while using Yahoo! Messenger. Maybe for some purposes. But today, we will learn about how to detect invisible users on Yahoo! Messenger. I will upload the video below. For those who want to chat with their friends but found out that their status was in offline mode, you guys can check this out. I was a simple step. A very simple step and u can only do this by following the instruction given. Good Luck guys.. ;)

How to detect invisible users on Yahoo! Messenger

How To Open Two Yahoo! Messenger ?

Today, i will share something different to everyone. Once you install the YM, you only can open one ID for your YM. But i found something different on Youtube today where u can open two YM in one time. I will upload the video below. You can follow the step given to open two YM. Check it out guys. Good Luck.. ;)

How To Open Two Yahoo! Messenger

Friend or enemy?

I am one of Yahoo Messenger(YM) user. One of the benefits of YM that I love is I can chat with anyone that in my contact list no matter where they are. Whenever I knew someone new from a social network site such as Facebook or Myspace, I’ll add them to my YM contact list and wait for them to approve me. This is an advantage of YM that I like. It’s connect me to my new friends without cost me an arm. However, recently I read an article about scam using YM.

Brandon De Hoyos’s article Falling In Love with a Scam Artist are basically about how scammers use fake identity on YM and try to scam for money from the victims. Most of the YM users thought YM are a safe site. Little that they know, not all the new friends they have approved on the contact list are real. Alison Boyer says that 60 percent of the identity thieves are people that you don’t know. That means, around 40 percent are people that you know (2008). It can be your family members, you co-worker or even you friends.

The scammers will use fake name and put up a fake picture for the account. they will try to have the victim to believe in them and trust them. After that, they will try to ask for money and offer you thousand of sweet promises. They will try to look for potential victim at online dating side. It is because they try to make the victim believe that both of them are after the same thing; a relationship.

YM is a great tool to connect with friends and meet new people. But, we have to always be careful and take pre-conscious step. Why wait until we are one of the victim to be aware of the crime? Why give chance of others to take advantage of us? What can we do to stop the crime?

Never trust any conversation you have online. It might say your friends’ friend, but how sure are you? Never give out personal information online. No mather how good it might sound or how honest the conversation looks like, it is not! The recipients are not the only one that will know. Anyone with the skills of hacking can get the information.

It’s good to have new friends, but always becareful in what you sharing. A little awareness won’t do any harm. In fact, it do us good!

Teenagers and Instant Messenger.

I was a teenager before...and I also one of those who get excited learning about the new technology such as e-mail and instant messenger . I must admit, back in my teen years, instant messenger was my second choice of communication medium after the cell phone. Why you may ask? It’s faster connectivity, less cost, friendly user and many more benefits. One of the popular instant messenger is Yahoo Messenger (YM).

Lindy Keffer in her article Right Now: Teens and Instant Messenger, highlight about teenagers and instant messenger nowadays. In the article, Lindy mentioned that percentage of teens using the technology is 20% more than adults did. According to her, instant messenger are the communication using two free software that allow two internet users to exchanged typed messages in factually. We can say that YM are more alike texting. The difference is YM using computer and internet as the technology and texting or SMS using cell phone as the technology.

Social interaction has changed its way. Teens have more option in communicating with others. The instant messenging has been the better alternative to e-mail as it faster connectivity with others. Teenagers are tend to treat cyberspace as a social place for meeting others and interacting with people (O’Brien, 2010). Why would teenagers prefer to interacting through cyberspace, you may ask. I did a little reading on Jodi O’Brien 2010 book and find the reason.

The first one would be that teenagers are the category that full of curiosity. They are at their transaction from childhood to adulthood. They are eager to find out more about new things. Cyberspace offer them the need to feed the curiosity. They are tend to find the needs somewhere outside their home. However, due to some obstacle such as parent permission, they cannot leave home. Therefore, cyberspace would be the choice to learn about the new things.

Second, teenagers perceive the cyberspace as a safer place to find and meet new friend. They have the curiosity to meet new people and learn new things from them. However, the insecurity lead them to fear. They are insecure on how they looks like and how others will judge them. They are also feel embarrassed meeting a stranger face to face. In Lindy Keffer’s article, 43% of the teenagers use instant messenger to avoid awkward face to face conversation.

The third reason are the teenagers are looking for’ soulmate’. Having conversation online can make them easily related. We often hear that someone describe their new online friend as their best friend, even better than friends they have know quite sometimes.

The instant messenging make the teenagers easily ‘connect’ to the world. Without leaving home, they are able to feed their curiosity and learn new things and meet new people. Parents should aware of how their teenagers child use the technology. Keffer try to emphasis on how the teenagers can relate to the instant messengers nowadays.

references:
O'Brien, J. (2010). The Production of Reality: Essay and Readings on Social Interaction. United States: Pine Forge Press.

"Chat Translator" untuk Yahoo Messenger

"Chat Translator"

    "Chat Translator" untuk Yahoo Messenger ini merupakan satu alat yang dapat membantu kita untuk menterjemahkan mesej yahoo kepada lebih 20 jenis bahasa, antaranya English, Cina, Jepun, Korea, Rusia, French, Dutch dan lain-lain semasa berchatting. 

      Apabila kita menghantar mesej, mesej tersebut akan terus diterjemahkan kepada bahasa orang yang menerima mesej tersebut, pada masa yang sama juga, mesej yang akan dibalas akan diterjemahkan terus kepada bahasa kita. Kita boleh memilih "original atau terjemahan" untuk mengelakkan salah faham. Atau kita juga boleh memilih "terjemahan" untuk menghantar terjemahan kepada sahabat/rakan kongsi perniagaan jika kita boleh berbahasa Cina dengan baik.

     Dengan menggunakan "Chat Translator" juga, kita boleh perbincangan serta-merta dengan rakan perniagaan dari seluruh dunia. Hal ini dapat meningkatkan peluang perniagaan dengan pemahaman yang lebih baik.

     Pada pendapat saya, dengan adanya "Chat Translator" ini kita bukan sahaja dapat memahami, tetapi kita akan dapat mempelajari bahasa lain melalui penterjemahan tersebut. Hal ini demikian kerana kita akan mengingati serba sedikit maksud bahasa yang diterjemahkan. 

Sumber: 

http://www.messengertown.com/2011/01/15/chat-translator-for-yahoo-messenger.html

Issues with Yahoo! Messenger Voice Features

Calling-related issues with Yahoo! Messenger such as:

 

• Poor sound quality for Voice Calls
• Poor video quality for Video Calls
• Error when trying to place Video Call

 Resolution

Below are some troubleshooting steps that have resolved this issue for other customers experiencing similar problems:

First, try running the "Call Setup Assistant."

If running Call Setup Assistant doesn't resolve the issue, try the following steps to determine whether your audio hardware is working properly with Windows.

On Windows XP:

1. Click the Start menu and select Run.
2. Type in mmsys.cpl and press Enter. This opens "Sounds and Audio Devices Properties."
3. Select the Voice tab.
4. Click the Test hardware button. This opens the "Sound Hardware Test Wizard."
5. Follow the instructions to test your audio hardware to make sure it can properly play sounds and capture your voice.

On Windows Vista/Windows 7:

1. Click the Start menu and select Run. If you do not see the Run command, then select Start > All Programs > Accessories > Run.
2. Type in mmsys.cpl and press Enter. This opens Sound.
3. On the Playback tab, select your speakers and click Configure.
4. A "Speaker Setup" window should appear. Follow the instructions to test your audio hardware to make sure it can properly play sounds.
5. Click OK to close the Sound utility.
6. Click the Start menu and select Run again.
7. Type in the following command and then press Enter: %WinDir%\Speech\Common\sapisvr.exe -SpeechUX
8. This will open "Set up Speech Recognition".  Follow the instructions to test your audio hardware to make sure it can properly capture your voice.

If your audio hardware still isn't working properly after these tests, please contact the company that made your computer.

 References: 

http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?locale=en_US&page=content&y=PROD_MSNG&id=SLN16&impressions=true

MSN vs YM

         

MSN vs YM

         A few days ago, I have read an article with title ‘Comparing MSN and Yahoo Messenger’ by Telesphore. In this article, the author makes a relevant point and noted that there are advantage and disadvantage of MSN and Yahoo Messenger (YM). Nowadays, instant messaging becomes as one of the popular social activities among the Internet users. In order to this, MSN and YM become one of the top providers of instant messages. As the author stated MSN and YM have some advantage and disadvantage in the ways of providing their services to the users.

         The author discovered that MSN remain the most friendly instant messenger provider which is mostly used by user as a social communication tool. This makes the population of the MSN users become huge and this create problem to the MSN. According to the author of this article, people create many viruses such as Webcam032 and Picture.exe to corrupt MSN network (Leavitt, 2005). Other than that, MSN also provide winks features that allow chatters to send message which compressed with video sounds, latest video sounds and more entertaining features via IMing. Besides that, MSN also allow chatters to send videos without using voice server (Chiang et al., 2006).       

     

            On the other hand, the author also described about YM where YM remain small number of user and is more specific to business communication. Moreover, YM also did not found any virus in their network if compare to MSN network. Furthermore, YM also offer the chatters to use voice conferencing to many friends by one call (Stotts et al., 2003). However, MSN do not have voice conference call and the user only voice communication to one person only. Finally, the author concluded that users are the decision makers either to use MSN or YM, depends on their interest.

           As an instant messenger user, I will go for YM which is the smarter choice. From my experience of using YM from the past six years, I have not faced much problem when using YM. I’m not condemned MSN but I’m more comfortable to use YM because as long as I use YM, I did not face any virus problems. Moreover, I’m also very convenient to use YM and I love to use it. The most interesting part in YM is I can send instant messages to other networks such as MSN. This is why I’m not interested to use other network’s instant messenger and I think there is no necessary to have MSN.

     However, as an Instant Messenger user I would like to recommend that MSN should take concern on this matter and try to reduce the virus spreading activities as it will help their user not meet with this kind of problem anymore. Hence, YM can also make changes in user perception that YM is based Business sector. So, the YM can be more popular and it can increase the number of YM user.

References

Chiang, W.-H., Xiao, W.-C., & Chou, C.-F. (2006). A Performance Study of VoIP Applications:       MSN vs. Skype. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License,13-18.

Leavitt, N. (2005). Instant Messaging: A New Target for Hackers. IEEE Computer Society           Journal , 20-23.

Stotts, D., Williams, L., Nagappan, N., Baheti, P., Jen, D., & Jackson, A. (2003). Virtual   Teaming: Experiments and Experiences with Distributed Pair Programming . Journal of Computer Sciences, 1-12.

It's make me hard to trust my YM friends

IT'S MAKE ME HARD TO TRUST MY YM FRIENDS!!

      

     An article written by Bogdan Popa attracts my attention to do review on it. The article title is ‘I Simply Love Yahoo Messenger, Especially When It Makes Me Vulnerable’. This article discussing on the problem might faced by yahoo messenger (YM) users. It was because; the author defined a problem on YM, when the users install YM in their computer, and their computer might be affected by virus if the computer system is vulnerability.

           However, McAfee, the giant of security system advised YM users those are frequently use live chatting should be aware because is now affected by the vulnerability is 8.1.0.413. This can affect the user’s webcam support as such McAfee suggest users to avoid unknown webcam invitation. To overcome this problem, Yahoo have taken many step to solve the problem that faced by the users and the author also stated that new version of YM will be introduced. Thus, the author suspected that there is a sign of vulnerability in other instant messenger networks.

           After I read the article by Popa, I realize that the vulnerability in YM is one of the hot issues in 2007. I think vulnerability create a security problem among YM users where the spammers use this chance to hack users account and post bad information in their status messages (Rahul Mohandas, 2006). Because of spamming, the reputation of the YM users was spoiled. Other than that, the low security system in user’s computer is also one of the reasons which allow the hackers to spread viruses (Gu, 2007) when downloading or making live chat in YM. However, I’m very happy after getting know that this problem has been solved but I still worried that the author reveal that there is other vulnerability in other network.

            In order to that, I recommend all user not only Yahoo user but then other users also should be aware and install latest anti-virus or always updating their anti-virus in their computer as a security protection. Users also should not accept any unsecure application as the author said in that article because ‘prevent is better than cure’. Moreover, Yahoo, Google, MSN and other network should also increase their security system in order to avoid this problem occur again and again. For the hackers, I feel that doing such things it represent immorality and this can cause many problems to users and internet networks in term of financial, reputation, trust. So, I request them to be concern to others and use the technology which can bring benefits to others but not to harm others.

References

Gu, H. (2007). Security of Instant Message. Journal of Informational Technology , 1-4.

Rahul Mohandas (2006). Hacking the Malware- A reverse- engineer’s analysis. Journal of Information     Technology , 1-26.

Is Yahoo Messenger is the best choice??

         

Is Yahoo Messenger the best choice??

       The article with the title ‘Disadvantages of Yahoo Messengers’ by Chris Pine was attracted my attention to do review about the article. The author Pine noted that nowadays yahoo messengers have many competitors instant of offering chat messenger such as Facebook, MSN Messenger, Gtalk and more. In order to that, the author makes point that Yahoo Messenger (YM) should take initiative to define their problems and try to solve it as it will help them to continue survive in this world of business.

            Furthermore, the author also coined several scenario that can make the users feel regret to have an YM. The scenario that the author stated in this article is the YM should have a yahoo account before sign in to YM. Even this is reasonable but the author felt that not everyone have yahoo account because they are very familiar with Google account. As a result, this will affect the chances to getting new YM users. Other than that, the author also reveals that many people not interested to having yahoo accounts because of the presents of Facebook. Moreover, the SMS service in YM also limited where users can only send limited words by using hand phones.   Finally, she also stated that there is no customer support to YM in order to upgrade YM services.

           I’m agreeing with the author’s opinion, by making my friend’s experience which is related to these issues. According to her perspective, she personally feel that having a Google account is better than yahoo account because of the popularity of Google among people. People feel having Google account make them feel class (Sat & Wah, 2007).  By having Google account, its easy for her to have Gtalk either than YM because YM will require a yahoo account. Besides that, I also experienced problems in sending messages through YM to hand phones. When I’m sending long messages, the message will not deliver and it shows error on sending. According to Fabri & Moore (2005) Yahoo Messenger sms quato is on 40 character per sms. Moreover, I also cannot send more than three messages continuously to hand phones by using YM.

           To solve these problems, I think the YM should abolish their basic condition to signing up for YM which requires the users to have yahoo mail account before signing up the YM (Tyson, 2004). So that, it will increase the number of YM users. The YM service also should extend the limitations of sending messages to hand phones by using YM in order to make the chatters enjoy sending messages to their beloved.

References

Fabri, M., & Moore, D. (2005). Is Empathy the Key? Effective Communication via Instant Messaging. Proceedings of 11th EATA International Conference on Networking Entities , 1-14.

Sat, B., & Wah, B. W. (2007). Evaluation Of Conversational Voice Communication Quality Of The Skype, Google-Talk, Windows Live, And Yahoo Messenger Voip Systems. Ieee Workshop On Multimedia Signal Processing , 1-4.

Tyson, J. ( 2004). How Instant Messaging Works. HowStuffWorks, Inc. , 1-6.

OLD IS GOLD

                                             

OLD IS GOLD    

        This article deal with the chatters who missing yahoo messenger’s old sounds. The title of this article is ‘Addicted to Yahoo Messenger’s Old Sounds? Here’s Howto Install Them!’ by Bogdan Popa. In this article, the author stated that yahoo has introduced the new version of Yahoo Messenger 8.1 with the additional features such as new sounds (Dickson, 2006). He also stated that introduce of new sounds have attracted some chatters. At the same time, there are also some chatter those are not very satisfied with the new sounds and them still pretending for old sounds.

           In order to that, many chatter has require to bring back the old sounds in yahoo messenger (YM). Many chatter are addicted and started to install the old sounds manually in their YM. This scenario make the author feel very down and he try to solve this problems by providing simple way to install the YM old sounds easily. The further content of this article is discussing about the ways to install YM old sounds. By following the simple ways given by the author, the chatters who love old sounds in YM can easily install it at the same time they also can enjoying using YM old sounds.

            From this article, we can get know that chatters are more likely to use old sounds in YM more than new sounds. What is the special about these old sounds in YM? In my point of view, I’m more prefer to use old sounds rather than new sounds in YM because the old sounds such as it will say “Yahoo mail” can attract my attention when there is mail in my inbox (Gunn, 2005). I also missing the door bell sound when I get ‘buzzed’. But, after YM changed to new version, I started to realize that the new version did not give any alert sounds when receiving new mails. Other than that, the new version message also did not give any alert sounds when my friends are being online in YM. Unfortunately, this makes me did not realize about the appear of my online friends in YM and sometimes my online friends tend to misunderstand about me when I’m reply to them lately. This is the reason why I’m missing the old sounds of YM. Therefore, I really agree and appreciate the author initiative to help the chatters to enjoy back the old sounds.

           To make all chatters being satisfied with YM services, I suggest the latest version of YM should give choices for chatters. The YM sounds and alert categories should compress with the old and new sounds. So that, the chatters can choose their favorite sounds either old or new sounds in their YM. By this, the YM can bring satisfaction to all the YM users.

References

Dickson, M. (2006). An examination into Yahoo Messenger 7.0 Contact Identification. Journal of Digital Investigation, Vol.3 , 159-165.

Gunn, A. (2005). Ping!: The Yahoo! Messenger Guide To All Things IM. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Advantages and Disadvantages using Yahoo Email

 Great Things About Yahoo Email

You get unlimited storage with Yahoo Email.

      Unlimited storage is one of the best features with Yahoo. Compare this with other email programs such as Gmail (which only gives you 7329 MB of mail storage) and Hotmail (which gives you 5GB of email storage).
      
    Users are subject to Yahoo’s abuse policies, which requires users to follow “normal email practices” and not engage in activities like using Yahoo mail for basic online storage (a number of services have popped up to help people use Gmail for this purpose). Abusive accounts will not be summarily deleted – users will be notified by Yahoo and/or accounts suspended, but users will still have access to the data.

Yahoo Email is far better in my opinion than desktop applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express.

          The reason: you can save your emails online and not on your desktop where they would take up space on your hard drive. Anyone that is trying to conserve space on their hard drive would be better served by using a Yahoo Email account than one of these offline desktop applications, in my opinion.

 Yahoo Chat is available without downloading Yahoo Messenger.

        That’s right, if you don’t want to download Yahoo Messenger, one nice thing about the new version of Yahoo Email (and which they are supposed to make available even on Classic Yahoo Email) is the chat function. Sometimes, it extremely annoying, it is nice that you don’t have to download an application to chat with your yahoo messenger buddies anymore. Again, this saves space on your hard drive.

Yahoo Email has a very nice calendar feature.

        I really like Yahoo’s calendar and I use it to keep track of my writing deadlines. Also, you can set the calendar up to send you e-mail reminders about events that you have scheduled on your calendar. This is very useful and means you don’t have to worry so much about forgetting deadlines.

       Yahoo Email has a notepad feature which I also really like.I use Yahoo’s Notepad when I’m researching online.When you click on the Notepad tab, you can open a new note or edit your existing notes.You can use Yahoo Notepad to take notes or copy and paste sections of text from different web pages to use in your research, for example. Notepad also allows you to set up folders to organize all of your notes.

Yahoo Email uses Norton Virus Scan to scan all your emails before you can read them.

      It scans quickly, and ultimately protects you from getting a virus which can then attack your computer.In my opinion, this is one of the best things about Yahoo Email because I don’t have to worry about downloading an email with a virus that is then going to mess up my computer.

When you are using an e-mail application like Outlook Express for example, you have to be sure you have some kind of anti-virus software on your computer. And even then, an e-mail with a virus has been known to slip through.

Yahoo’s Stationery options are a nice bonus.

       With Yahoo’s Stationery option, you can choose to use to dress up your emails. Along these same  lines, Yahoo Email also has emoticons built in, plus the ability to change the color, size and font of your text, the ability to use bullets, change the alignment of any line, and highlight any word or line of text. All these features make Yahoo E-mail fun to use!

Not So Great Things About Yahoo Email

You cannot use POP with a free Yahoo Email account.

      This can be unfortunate, as many people want to be able to download their email to Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express on their desktops. If you are one of those people, then Yahoo Email probably isn’t for you. That is, unless you don’t have a problem paying a fee for web based e-mail to have this capability.

There are a ton of ads on Yahoo Email.

     This is especially true with the new improved version. That’s another reason that I’ve stuck with Yahoo Classic Mail, because there is only one ad banner at the top, plus one at the top and bottom of the bar on the left. That’s it. In the new version, ads appear everywhere making the page look so busy that you can barely tell where your email starts or ends.

Summary

All in all, the advantages of using Yahoo Email clearly outweigh the disadvantages in my opinion. I’m certainly willing to put up with a few ads (and even the Chat Rooms for every person in my address book who is online), if it means I get to keep using Yahoo Email for free. After all, if you really don’t want these 2 things to annoy , you can just switch to Yahoo Classic Mail instead, and that solves the problem.

References:
http://techcrunch.com/2007/03/27/yahoo-mail-announces-unlimited-storage/ 
http://help.yahoo.com/tutorials/cg/index.html?pir=VA8mw_1ibUkqH05mHwrKQeCBur54W_Ds7otcH.rmUjzV3At1O9MOQSOAGvvk_noUAA--

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_integrates_calendar_into.php

http://email.about.com/od/yahoomailtip1/qt/et_stationery.htm

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Yahoo-Mail-Still-No-POP3-IMAP-Just-a-Shortcut-for-the-Time-Being-81688.shtml
http://tech.thefuntimesguide.com/2009/06/yahooemail.php

Ugutan Melalui YM

YM merupakan laman chatting yang agak bebas. Anda boleh menulis setiap perkataan yang anda mahukan tanpa batasan. Namun kadang-kadang, ianya membuatkan kita lupa tentang diri sendiri dan orang lain. Bak kata orang, keseronokan itu melemaskan. Apabila kebebasan itu menguasai apa jua yang ingin ditaip atau yang ingin dibincangkan dengan teman sembang di YM, perkara yang sepatutnya peribadi dan disimpan untuk diri sendiri akan dikongsi bersama teman tersebut. Walaupun terdapat individu yang langsung tidak mengenali satu sama lain di luar namun mereka boleh menjadi sangat akrab di atas talian dengan adanya YM.Hal ini selalunya menyebabkan sesetengah individu memberikan kepercayaan kepada orang lain tanpa berfikir panjang.


Pada pendapat saya, individu yang cenderung untuk bersendirian di dunia realiti selalunya akan mempunyai ramai kawan atas talian. Adakah seseorang yang dikenali atas talian itu boleh dipercayai? Mungkin ada yang baik, namun tidak kurang juga yang menggunakan laman chatting seprti YM untuk menipu, memeras ugut, melakukan gangguan seksual dan sebagainya. Sebagai contoh, di bawah merupakan salah satu kes yang berlaku kerana perbualan yang berlangsung di YM dan sejauh mana kesan tersebut mempengaruhi individu terbabit.

I was a victim of extortion on ashley madison.

"To start with i left a dirty message on her phone(she asked me to) using my own cell phone.The woman's profile said she was 28 yrs old. During online chat on yahoo later on,she said she wanted sex and wanted to pretend to be 14 yrs old. I foolishly agreed to this(whatever turns her on).I also foolishly used my real contact name on messenger as my yahoo account kept fouling up.  As it turns out this is a man who blackmailed me by googling my name and finding my place of work and used the chat messages and a yahoo video to twist the whole thing into one embarrassing situation.  He emailed me an extortion letter and posted the video online with my name on it and my voice is clearly heard. This in hindsight is an obvious setup. I agreed to pay only because i am embarrassed. I have records of the money wire i sent. The police have called me to say they have other victims but they want me to come down to the station for a statement.  They say they want to get this guy. Should i be worried about this? The police never gave me any indication(although that is not their job)." Situasi diatas menunjukkan bagaimana seorang pengguna YM boleh dimanipulasi dan menjadi mangsa tipu oleh orang lain dalam talian. Pada awalnya, beliau mengenali seorang wanita yang berusia 28 tahun dalam talian tanpa mengetahui rupa sebenar wanita tersebut. Mangsa juga mengatakan beliau selalu menggunakan kata-kata kesat dan kotor semasa berkomunikasi dengan rakan sembangnya itu. Mangsa merasakan diri sangat dekat dengan wanita tersebut sehingga telah menunjukkan segala hal-hal peribadinya kepada wanita tersebut tanpa beliau ketahui bahawa wanita tersebut sebenarnya seorang lelaki. Mungkin ada sesetengah video yang dihantar kepada wanita itu yang amat privasi tentang dirinya. Video tersebut telah digunakan untuk memeras ugut dirinya sendiri.  Nafsu yang tidak terkawal kadang-kadang akan menyebabkan kita mudah untuk mempercayai seseorang. Perbualan yang bersifat seks bukanlah sesuatu yang baru dalam dunia internet terutamanya laman sepert YM pada masa sekarang. Oleh itu, setiap orang haruslah berwaspada dan menggunakan YM dengan etika yang betul. Mungkin pada pendapat sesetengah orang boleh menaip aap sahaja untuk dibincangkan dengan rakan sembangnya di YM kerana hanya mereka berdua sahaja yang tahu tentang hal tersebut. Namun tak seorang pun dari kita tahu bahawa apa yang kita lakukan itu boleh menjadi salah satu agen pemusnah kepada diri sendiri. Sentiasalah berwaspada sebelum menghantar gambar atau video kepada orang lain terutamanya kepada mereka yang tidak dikenali asal usulnya di dunia chatting YM.

sumber: http://legal.advicescene.com/ca/question/6892/i-was-a-victim-of-extortion-on-ashley-madison

Kebaikan Ruangan Chatting YM

Semua orang sedia maklum bahawa YM merupakan satu ruangan chatting yang boleh menghubungkan seorang individu dengan individu yang lain tanpa komunikasi bersemuka atau “face to face communication”. Pada pendapat saya, YM memberi kesan baik kepada penggunanya. Mengikut sebuah artikel yang bertajuk “The Benefits Of Chat Room From Yahoo Messenger For Users” hasil tulisan Min Da, YM telah banyak menyediakan kelebihan bagi penggunanya. Antara kelebihan tersebut termasuklah:

1)      Menambah Senarai Kawan-Kawan (Add Friends List):

Fungsi ini digunakan untuk mengemas kini nama-nama saudara mara, kawan-kawan dalam YM dengan menggunakan senarai yang ada pada anda. Anda boleh menggunakan cara-cara yang dicadangkan oleh penulis artikel tersebut untuk menambah bilangan kawan. Misalnya, anda harus menekan Ctrl + A atau klik ikon Tambah (+) yang terdapat pada skrin anda. Sebaik sahaja selesai, nama anda akan dipaparkan dalam senarai YM.

2)      Hantar Mesej Peribadi (Send Message):

Untuk mesej peribadi, anda klik pada ID Yahoo! seseorang yang ingin anda mesej. Anda hanya perlu klik dua kali nama orang yang anda ingin mesej, kemudian masukkan kandungan mesej dan klik Hantar (SEND). Anda juga boleh "mencantikkan" atau “menghias” kandungan mesej anda dengan memilih muka huruf, saiz muka huruf, teks warna, italic, bold. Anda juga boleh "menggambarkan" mesej tersebut dengan smiley (emoticon). Penghantaran mesej dengan cara ini adalah amat menyeronokkan kedua-dua penerima atau penghantar mesej. Anda juga boleh memilih latar belakang untuk mesej dengan klik pada IMVironment icon.

3)      Kelebihan mesej yang unik dalam ruangan chat YM adalah ia membolehkan mesej anda off-line. Ini bermakna bahawa anda boleh menghantar mesej kepada semua orang-orang yang pada bila-bila masa sama ada individu tersebut online atau tidak. Apabila mesej anda off-line, mesej anda akan disimpan pada server. Mesej tersebut hanya akan dipaparkan apabila orang ingin dimesej berada dalam talian.

Pendek kata, YM sebenarnya membawa banyak kebaikan kepada pengguna sekiranya digunakan dengan betul. YM membolehkan seseorang mengenali lebih ramai rakan yang berasal dari seluruh pelosok dunia. Hal ini membuktikan, penggunaan YM tidak dihalang oleh mana-mana sempadan yang wujud dalam dunia. Oleh itu, setiap pengguna haruslah sedar akan kepentingan dalam menggunakan YM dengan betul.

YM juga memberi peluang kepada pengguna untuk menyampaikan sesuatu mesej yang peribadi kepada sesiapa sahaja dalam apa jua keadaan. Hal ini termasuklah walaupun pada masa tersebut individu yang ingin dihubungi itu tidak berada dalam talian. Kebaikan YM juga terbukti apabila mesej yang disampaikan dapat disimpan tanpa tarikh luputnya (expired date). Mesej tersebut juga hanya dapat dibaca oleh penerima yang dipilih oleh penghantar. Mesej yang dihantar boleh dihiasi menjadi lebih menarik dengan penggunaan smiley dan emoticon. 

Selain kebaikan yang dinyatakan oleh Min Da seperti yang tertulis diatas, saya berpendapat YM memberikan lebih daripada apa yang dinyatakan oleh beliau. Sebagai contoh, YM pada masa sekarang bukan sahaja satu ruangan chat yang hanya melibatkan perbualan atau "chatting" yang menggunakan kata-kata yang ditaip sahaja, malahan ianya juga membenarkan penggunakan Webcam dalam taliannya. selain itu, pengguna juga boleh membuat panggilan video (video call) kepada sesiapa yang tersenarai dalam senarai rakan YMnya. Ianya mudah dan jimat kos kerana tiada cas dikenakan untuk panggilan video atau webcam tersebut. Sekiranya dipandang dari sudut yang positif, kelebihan yang ditawarkan oleh YM ini sebenarnya boleh mengeratkan hubungan kekeluargaan, persahabatan atau percintaan bagi sesetengah orang terutama bagi mereka yang jauh dari orang tersayang. 

artikel: http://www.ideamarketers.com/?Free_Chat_Rooms&articleid=2793284
imej/gambar: sumber dari Google

Emoticons

Emoticons will speak when you have no words to say...

           I have read the one of the article from IdeaMarketers Website, 'ExpressYour Emotions with Yahoo Messenger Emoticons' by Ray Caban. The author of this article did make point on emoticons in yahoo messenger. In his article, the author has list down some features that offered by yahoo messenger such sharing video, files, photos, games and video calls with friends. To make the chatter’s conversation to be more hilarious, the yahoo messenger service was added with emoticons such as smileys and winks. 

           The author defined about how the emoticons help the yahoo messenger chatters to express their feelings such as happiness, sadness, anger while chatting. The emoticons are divided into graphic emoticons and hidden emoticons. Graphic emoticons reflect to the visual icons which make movements such as dancing, scrolling, jumping and laughing (Luor et al., 2010). While, hidden emoticons reflect to symbol which the chatters can type the shortcut code to display the emoticons (Luor et al., 2010). For example, : ) stand for J. As such, the chatters can understand the emoticons and its can make the conversation more interesting and joyful in yahoo messenger.   

          In my point of view, I’m very happy with this article because I’m also one of the yahoo messenger users. I love to use emoticons because it is help me to express my thoughts and emotions. In very beginning, messages that send are always content with a lot of words and punctuation (Braumann et al., 2009). This can make the conversation between the chatters become very bored and uninteresting. But, once the emoticons are introduced, the messages become a mixture of visual icon and wordings. The presents of emoticons in chatting help chatters to express their thoughts and emotions without wasting time by typing long sentences.

           Other than that, emoticons help the chatters to perceive the meaning that trying to convey by the senders. By sending word messages, there is a chance for the receiver to understand the meaning of the message wrongly. According to Tran et al. (2005) ‘Pure text without emoticons, most cannot identify the correct emotion, behavior and meaning of the sender. In order to that, the use of visual icons together with the text can create more positive attitude than text alone’. Therefore, it is easy to understand a message with emoticons more than wording messages.

           The emoticons in yahoo messengers already become very popular among the internet users and people liked to use it in their daily conversation via yahoo messenger. But, there is a problem occurred when the receiver cannot view the emoticons send by the sender. It was because the receiver did not download the emoticons features. Therefore, to overcome this problem, I suggest the yahoo messenger service should always upgrade their service by automatically attach the emoticons to the yahoo messenger as it will help the users to view the emoticons without downloading it.

     

References

Braumann, E., Preveden, O., Salleem, S., Xu, Y., & T. Koeszegi, S. (2009). The effect of emoticons in synchronous and asynchronous e-negotiations. 113-115.

Luor, T. (., Wu, L.-l., & Lu, H.-P. (2010). The effect of emoticons in simplex and complex task-   oriented communication: An empirical study of instant messaging. Computers in Human     Behavior, Vol.26 , 889-895.

Tran, M. H., Yang, Y., & Raikundalia, G. K. (2005). Supporting awareness in instant messaging: an empirical study and mechanism design. Proceedings of OZCHI , 1-10.