So even if someone manages to guess a password, they would not be able to get the verification code from the users phone.

How to activate Twitter’s two-step authentication feature

• Visit your Twitter profile on the browser and sign-in. Now on the right-hand corner you will see a gear shaped symbol.
• Hover over it and it shows you the options to look up settings. Under Settings >> Account users can see a new option to titled Account Security.

• We can add a phone number and also select the option to turn-on two step verification.

Here is a nice video demo by Twitter to help their users out

With this step Twitter joins Google and Dropbox in offering two-step verification for better security.

Do drop in your comments.

-- This Post Enable Two- Step Authentication for Twitter is Published on Devils Workshop .

Flib really stands from the competition with its user interface. The icons look flat and neat and there are neat flipping (that’s why the name ‘Flib’) transitions here and there. Of course, the main focus is still on converting units.

There are a lot units available – starting from area, length, volume to energy, speed, temperature and to even time. If the list is missing the unit you want, you can always mail the app developers for a feature request. It doesn’t convert currency, for example.

Flib is pretty smart too, it shows the most used conversions on the first screen, for easy access. Finally, you can customise the interface too! Basically, you can set your desired colour for the interface.

The app is available for free and can be tried on Android right now. It is also tablet ready.

For iPhones, the app will be releasing pretty soon. You can sign up for the mailing list to get notified as it releases.

Link: Flib on Google Play

-- This Post Flib: A Gorgeous Unit Converter app for Android and iOS is Published on Devils Workshop .

The Tumblr Acquisition

Yahoo has bought Tumblr for a estimated $1.1 Billion. That is a lot more money than say Facebook shelled out for Instagram. So what does Yahoo gain from Tumblr?

Image Credit

• Tumblr has 300 million unique visitors on it and has over 900 posts published every second.
• The Yahoo+ Tumblr deal will grow traffic by 20% and its audience will go up by 50%. This increases the advertising opportunities.
• Mobile seems to be a focus for Yahoo with Tumblr’s acquisition.
• Yahoo’s CEO in her own Tumblr blog announced that Tumblr will be treated as an independent entity and their CEO David Karp will remain. More importantly in her own words she assuaged the feelings of Tumblr’s community with the quote “We promise not to screw it up”.

Flickr gets 1 TB free space

Flickr is still very popular and its not surprising Yahoo chose to make big announcements with it.

• Flickr users get 1 TB storage space free. That means if you upload 6.5 Megapixel photo on Flickr, you can upload half a million of them and for free.
• The big storage size means Flickr now remain relevant as a storage option especially with the rise of backup options from Google and Apple.
• Pro Flickr account users will continue to get unlimited storage space and have stats show up for visits on their photos. But new users cannot signup for Pro accounts. That basically means Flickr Pro is more or less going away in time.

Flickr might have rebooted with huge storage space but it will be interesting to see how it manages to complete with the likes of say Google+ which offers to store photos from a phone directly to the cloud. This helps freeing up space on the phone without worrying about losing any photos.

What are your views on Yahoo’s big announcements today? Do drop in your comments.

-- This Post Yahoo’s Big Day: Buys Tumblr and offers 1 TB space with Flickr is Published on Devils Workshop .

The meetups will take place on 27th May in many cities. If you are interested in meeting up with local WordPress enthusiasts then look up this list of meetups being planned.

If you find none in your city, you can even plan create your own meetup for your city or town.

Why are meetups important?

Meetups are very important for WordPress communities. Especially in India, where a lot of WordCamps have started to take place but very few small WordPress meetups are happenings. Being an open-source project no company is going to put a lot of resources in marketing events to get local developers and bloggers together  Hence such meetups organized from ground up are very important.

I will be attending the meetup in Mumbai and hopefully will meet some fascinating people from the WordPress community in the city.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: WordPress 10th Anniversary Communities | WordPress.org Blog

-- This Post Celebrate 10th Anniversary of WordPress: Meetups Across India is Published on Devils Workshop .

LG’s Nexus 4 has been awaited for a long time to come. It finally showed up a couple of days ago on Flipkart for pre-order but the launch was not officially confirmed. LG has confirmed declaring the phone is being launched in India at the price tag of Rs. 25,999. The phone will be available at select retail stores of LG and multi-brand retailers. It is already available for pre-order with online vendors.

The phone will ship with 4.7 inch screen, 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Processor, the resolution supported is 1280 X 786 pixel. The runs on stock Android 4.2.2. The phone will ship with a 8MP camera with the front-facing camera being 1.3MP HD.

So should you buy a Nexus 4 phone?

Firstly, the phone gives its users the pure Android experience. This means the manufacturer does not put their own software on it. That is one of the biggest selling points of a Nexus phone.

Secondly, the phone is priced very reasonably. Most high-end smartphones are priced over Rs. 30,000. The Samsung Galaxys S4 (though much more powerful than Nexus 4) is priced at Rs. 41,500. So the price tag of Rs. 25,999 seems attractive.

Finally, your phone will get the latest Android updates available straight away. You will not be dependent on the manufacturer getting the updates through to your phone. For instance if tomorrow Android 4.3 is released, it will be available for your phone immediately.

The one issue I find with Nexus 4 is its glass back cover protecting the battery. This tends to make it fragile. The best way to avoid it is to buy a cover for your phone.

Helpful Links:

• Review of Android 4.2 running on a Nexus device
• CyanogenMod 10.1 being a better option than stock Android (User Experiance)

Will you be buying Nexus 4? Do drop in your comments.

-- This Post LG Nexus 4 Launched in India: Should you buy one? is Published on Devils Workshop .

Well, why would Google release yet-another-instant-messaging-client? This time, they have a unique approach to it. They want Hangouts to replace all the messaging apps they’ve made till now. It’s kind of surprising how it took Google this long to realize this.

Hangouts is released for Android, Chrome and iOS. On Chrome, it is available as an extension which sits in your system tray or menu bar, more like a native app. The mobile apps (Android and iOS) are very well designed and show a lot of detail in UI.

The Android app for example, lets you swipe to dismiss the conversations (like you do in Gmail). There are lot of small transitions and animations hidden here and there. When you send a new message, an ellipsis starts animating (or dancing, if you prefer that way) and shows that it’s delivered.

You can of course send images and there’s plenty of emoji. Group Video and Voice calling are probably the standing out features, as originally seen in Google+ Hangouts. You can also snooze notifications for a specified amount of time (there needs to be such a system wide toggle in Android).

But Good is not enough

So Hangouts works well on Chrome, iOS and Android. But it completely misses the most important feature – unifying all Google messaging apps. Sure, Hangouts replaces Talk and Google+ Messenger. But what about Google Voice (US-only) and more importantly, the (SMS) Messaging app.

Hangouts is obviously not available for less popular platforms like Windows Phone, Symbian, so it perfectly makes sense to integrate SMS into the app itself. So that you can SMS your friends who’re on those platforms.

That’s not the only downside of Hangouts, though. Hangouts doesn’t use XMPP, which is the widely used open protocol for instant messaging. But why should you care? Well, the number of instant messaging apps dependent on XMPP is mind blowing. I use iMessage for Mac as my default IM client, and Google Talk and Facebook Chat work perfectly. Because, both of them rely on XMPP.

Though it looks like Google won’t be shutting down Talk, leaving it for people who really need XMPP. Still, Google not respecting open web standards? Never expected this.

The sad thing for Google, is that, its competitors are doing really well. Facebook’s new Messenger app can do SMS. Heck, it even does Chat Heads – a really cool way to chat on your Android or iPhone. WhatsApp looks much better now with the flat Holo UI on Android.

The tl;dr is that, though Google has put some real effort into Hangouts, it is indeed going to be just another messaging app.

UPDATE: Some of the Google Fellows have confirmed that Messaging and Voice integration is coming to Hangouts soon. But here’s the thing: The fact that Google can’t ship a Messaging app with all its promised features (SMS and Voice integration) is what disappoints me.

Also, Google+ app on Android has got updated today, and it still has traces of Google+ Messenger in it. That surely tells that there’s a lot of work left for Google.

-- This Post Hangouts: When making a good Instant Messaging app is not enough is Published on Devils Workshop .