February 27th, 2009 30 comments
This year marks 25 years of online communication, what a milestone!
To celebrate, the Yahoo! Mail Team have produced a video – check it out below 
If you experience any issues with this video, you can also view a larger version here.
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team
February 24th, 2009 6 comments
Following on from our last post about spotting online scams, we thought we’d let you know about a fantastic feature for logging into any Yahoo!7 product more securely – Sign-In Seals.
When signing in to Yahoo!7, you will no doubt be familiar with the yellow box directly above where you input your login details. This is the Sign-In Seal.
To start the creation process, simply click upon the key symbol or upon the “Create your sign-in seal” link, as demonstrated above. The entire process will only take a minute or so of your time, well worth it for peace of mind!
Once you have elected to create a sign-in seal, you are presented with two options:
Creating a text seal
To create a text seal, simply select the “Create a text seal” option.
You will then be shown 3 text boxes in which to input your message, you may fit more than one word per box, as we have shown in the example. In total, your message may not exceed 21 characters. It is not recommended that the message be either your Yahoo! id or your password; instead perhaps choose your address, names of your family members or pets, a favourite artist or saying. The important thing is – choose something that you will remember and know instantly that you are signing in securely.
Clicking the preview option will give you a view of how your seal will appear, clicking save will return you to the sign in screen and your seal will appear ready for use.
Creating an image seal
To create an image seal, simply select the “Upload an image” option.
You will then be shown a box, with a browse option from which to navigate your computer and select your image of choice. You may wish to use a photo of a family member or favourite pet, or something else entirely; the choice is up to you. The important thing is to choose something that is instantly recognisable to you.
As with the text seal creation, clicking the preview option will give you a view of how your seal will appear and clicking save will return you to the sign in screen; and your seal will appear ready for use.
Sign-in seal colour
To further customise your sign-in seal, you have the option to choose from a range of colours. As seen in the examples previously shown, you can see the use of purple in the image border and the text seal background.
If you are interested in reading further about Sign-In Seals, check out our FAQ page.
So what are you waiting for? Why not spend a few moments to create your sign-in seal and relax!
Happy creating,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team
February 16th, 2009 5 comments
We’ve all received scam messages via email and it really is quite scary the number of people who fall victim to scams – almost 3 million a year in the UK alone!
It is currently Scams Awareness Month in the UK, so we bring you this post from Andrew of the Yahoo! Mail Team who handles both the UK and US Mail Blogs:
This month in the UK, the Office of Fair Trade is promoting their annual Scams Awareness Month. In support of their efforts, I’ve posted some scam avoidance tips on the UK Mail Blog. Since they apply just as much across the pond as they do State-side, I wanted to share them with you too. The first step in helping you to stay scam-free is to recognize the types of scams that are out there. Here are the three most common types that come in email form (which I’m sure some of you have seen before):
- Phishing scams – These are email scams that claim to be from an organization, like a bank, and they ask you click on a link which takes you to a Website that looks real but is, in fact, fake. When you log in with your account details and password on this fake site, the bad guys gain access to your private information.
- Lottery Scams – These are emails that tell you have won a local or foreign lottery and to get the money you have to pay processing fees and send personal details.
- Advance fee or fund transfer schemes – These are also called Nigerian ‘419’ scams where you receive an email, often times from someone claiming to be in Africa or Asia, and claiming that they have access to huge sums of cash but need your help getting it out of the country. In this scam, the criminal offers to send you a check for $100,000 and you send him back a personal check for $90,000 and keep the difference. The scam is, of course, that the initial check is bogus but may take several weeks to clear, by which point the criminal is long gone with your money.
You know what? Your bank will NEVER ask you for a password in an email, you have NOT won the lottery and all you end up with for those huge sums is a ZERO balance in your bank account.
Still not sure if an email is really a scam? In collaboration with Mark our Anti-Spam Czar, Andrew has also posted some excellent tips on how to identify scam emails along with some examples of what they may look like. Head on over to the Yahoo! UK Mail Blog to read more
The most important piece of advice we can give you is, never act upon anything in these sorts of emails and never reply to them. If you should ever receive such an email, please be sure to pass it on to us via this form.
Happy Identifying,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team
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