All posts by Computers Made Simple

WeChat

WeChat – Tips and Tricks and New Features Part 1

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If you’ haven’t heard of WeChat (Weixin in China), you really should get out more! WeChat, put out by Tencent Holdings in Shenzhen, China, has taken most of the world by storm. Fast, fun and free, it’s undoubtedly the best way to keep in touch with friends by text, voice, video or even group video chat. Download the free app for your mobile device here:   WeChat website  Depending on your platform, WeChat’s features may vary somewhat, but if you use an Android or iOS product, you’ll get the best experience. WeChat is available for the following devices: Android, iOS (Apple), Windows, Blackberry,  and for Nokia S40/Symbian.

WeChat recently released updated versions for the Apple , Windows and Nokia devices. In this post, we’re going to give you a rundown of some of the new features on the iOS (Apple) platform. In our next few posts we’ll  show you some tricks to make your experience a bit more fun…and safe. Let’s go:

Photo of WeChat Version 5 5
WeChat is, indeed, the New Chat. It’s chat redefined.

1. In a blatant (and silly) attempt to make some money from WeChat, they’ve started to sell animated stickers from what they call ‘The Sticker Shop”.

Photo of WeChat Version 5 1
The Sticker Shop is available from your profile page. Groups of stickers are $0.99.

 

2. Version 5 for iOS allows you to save (copy) bits or chats or sections of the Moments that you see on WeChat.

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We’ll show you how this works in another post. Stay tuned!

3. We’re not sure how this next one works so we’ll have to investigate it a bit. Sometimes, probably because of the language difference, things are lost in translation. Looks like fun, however.

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Hold Together. We’ll let you know what we figure out.

4. Swipe and tap. If you’re in the middle of a few chats, you can now swipe to go back to the main chat menu or, better yet, tap Chats to go through open chats one by one.

Photo of WeChat Version 5 4
These two are handy if you chat with many people at the same time.

 

WeChat for Android, probably one of the biggest platforms for it, hasn’t be updated yet but we’ll be sure to share its new upgrade when it’s ready. Next time, we’ll take a look at some of the new stickers as well as some of the blocking systems that are in place. We get quite a few questions on the various privacy issues so we’ll try to clarify all of that for you.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook, Keyboard Shortcuts

Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts

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Facebook has recently allowed us to use keyboard shortcuts instead of mouse clicks on their site. There are several of them that save time when you’re doing repetitive things, too.

We have started to delete all of our friends on one of our simulated profiles. For some reason, hundreds of people sent us friend requests but, since that person doesn’t really exist, we’ve decided to delete them all. Without a keyboard shortcut, this would take a long time. Here’s how to speed things up.

1. Go to your friend list.

2. Click on the words ‘friends’ on any profile then press ‘u’ twice and hit enter. Poof! The friend is gone. Click, u, u, enter. Zapped.

Want to send a message? If you’re using Chrome on a PC, simply press the ALT key and the letter ‘m’.

Some of the shortcuts simply didn’t work for us but here is a list of all of them: (Note that these are for Google Chrome on a PC.)

Alt + 1 – take you to the main Facebook page, not your Timeline.

Alt + 2 – Should bring up your timeline but we couldn’t get it to work for some reason.

Alt + 3 – Add friends page. Not much use unless you’re actively adding friends.

Alt + 4 – Your list of messages.

Alt + 5 – All of your notifications on one page.

Alt + 6 – Account settings.

Alt + 7 – This is supposed to zip you to your privacy settings but didn’t work for us.

Alt + 8 – This brings up Faceook’s very own Facebook page. Yes, they have one.

Alt + 9 – Shows you the very boring Facebook Terms and Policies

Alt + m – Allows you to write a message instantly. The message window floats in the middle of the page you are on.

Photo of Facebook Message Menu
This might be the only one you’ll ever use. ALT + m brings up the new message menu.

 

Thanks for reading! Let us know if you find any cool shortcuts that our readers might be interesting in hearing about.

 

 

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Adding Friend, Layered Privacy

Hide Facebook Friend Activity

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For some of you, Facebook is all about who is on your friend list. That’s what it’s all about, right? We’ve shown you how to keep your friend list hidden completely or partially. Today we’re going to show you how to keep your ‘friending’ activity private.

Facebook’s privacy can be divided into two sections. The first is the things you have, such as friends, photos, likes, videos, notes, etc. The second section is the things you actually do while you’re on Facebook. All of the clicking, sharing, posting and so on are actions. Here’s how to hide one of those actions, we’ll call it ‘friending’. Friending is when you add a friend to your list, obviously. Can you think of a reason why that particular activity has to be public? Why should anyone know who you just added to your list? That’s your business, isn’t it?

Steps to Hide Your Friending Activity

1. Click on your name up on the top left of any Facebook Page. This will take you to your Timeline.

2. Once your Timeline comes up, click on Activity Log.

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Start with your Activity Log.

3. The next page lists everything you’ve done lately. That’s not what we want. Look on the left middle for the word MORE. There are two but we want the top one, just under Comments. Click it.

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Click More.

4. On the longer list that opens, look for the word Friends. Click it.

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Click Friends to bring up the right page.

5. This page shows your ‘friending’ activity, adding and subtracting friends. Look up on the top right for a new icon. We’re not sure what the icon represents but click it anyway.

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What do you think this icon represents?

6. To hide your activity, uncheck everything that can be unchecked. One choice can’t be unchecked, simply because when you add a friend, you have to be able to see their profile. If that’s hidden, how would you know who your friends are?

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To hide everything you can, make sure your box looks like this.

7. Your choices in this box will only take affect from this point on, it won’t hide your past activity. For that, go down the list and choose ‘Hidden from Timeline’ for anything that you might want to hide. As you know, or as you should know, Facebook has little warnings here and there about the stuff you try to hide. Here’s what they have to say about all of this:

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A reminder from Facebook. You can hide YOUR friend list but what if your friends don’t hide theirs?

 

We hope we’ve given something to think about over the last two weeks. Even if you don’t agree with our suggestions on hiding everything, at least you’ll know how to help your kids, your parents, anyone who isn’t tech savvy enough to figure it out for themselves. Good luck on your journey to a more private Facebook experience.

Thanks for reading! Join us on Facebook. Like our page and you’ll get all of our updates: Computers Made Simple on Facebook 

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Layered Privacy

The Perfect Facebook Profile (Part 4) – What a secure profile looks like

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We can write all kinds of posts about what your Facebook profile should look like but we think it’s better to give you an example. We’ve set up a fictitious, but active, profile that we use as a test bed for our posts. Here’s the link to it:

Our Test Profile – Meet Jean Paul Clavicle 

This is where we test our Facebook group settings, our timeline adjustments, etc. Just this morning we noticed that we can’t seem to hide the activity when we add a friend so there are still many parts of this privacy set-up to work out. In the meantime, click the link and see what you can find about this person. We think you’ll be surprised at how little information there is on that profile.

Photo of JPC Profile
Not much information here. Check it out.

How did we lock everything down? We started by opening one of our Facebook profiles in a different browser. If you’re using Chrome, open your own profile in Firefox. It goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway, that you have to have two different Facebook accounts open at the same time, right? If you don’t have two Facebook profiles, we think you should make one now. That way, you can check your privacy out while you look at one profile from your other profile. Don’t add yourself as a friend, OK?

Search for your real profile in your alternative one and hit refresh every time you make a change. Continue hiding things until your real profile is the same as the one in the link above. Everything is done from your Timeline so start there. Click the various edit icons and see what you can hide. We’ve given you lots of information over the past two weeks so use our site as a guide. Remember that you have to edit just about everything, including the apps that you’ve let into your account, as well as your friends, your lists of Likes, your photo albums and so on.

Think of it this way. Let’s say you apply for a job and, as more and more companies are doing these days, the HR people decide to check out your Facebook profile to snoop on you. Is there anything on your profile that could potentially embarrass you or prevent you from getting that job? If someone is your friend, that’s one thing. If someone is a complete stranger, do you really want them to see the album from your graduation party in Key West? Put future employers into the mix and we hope you’ll see why we’re concerned about your privacy. You should be too.

Photo of Shock Face
Lock up your profile and this won’t happen to you. (Photo of ex-future boss.)

 

Now is the time for you to ask us what things you want to hide? Our next post will explain how to hide your ‘friending’ activity. Just as no one should be able to see what friends you have, we don’t think they should be able to see when you add someone to your list. If you see something that we’ve missed, let us know in a comment below.

Thanks for reading! Facebook is always changing. Make sure you keep up to date with these changes by liking us on Facebook. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Layered Privacy

The Perfect Facebook Profile (Part 3) – Hide your friend list

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Day three of creating a totally private Facebook profile. By the end of this week, anyone who manages to find you on Facebook won’t be able to discover much about you, certainly no more than the bare minimum that Facebook says you have to reveal. Today, we’re going to lock up your friend list, at least as tight as you can. Remember that you cannot hide mutual friends that you have with someone.

Theory: Ask yourself why any of your friends need to know who else you are friends with. Think about it and then you can set your privacy accordingly. If you have friends that you don’t know very well, keep them from knowing who else  you know. If you have guys who raid your list of friends for leads, you know what we mean, you can stymie them easily.

1. Short and sweet, head to your own Timeline by clicking on your name up on the top left.

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Click on Friends to start the journey.

2. Click on the word Friends.

3. Up on the top right, click on the pencil icon and choose ‘edit privacy’.

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Click the pencil.
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Choose ‘Edit privacy’.

 

4. In the box that opens, make your selections carefully. You can choose ‘Only me’ or any number of other options. If you’ve made a list of acquaintances, you can keep your friend list away from them, for instance.

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Lots of choices here. Make your choice carefully.

5. Ideally, this is what we’d like to see:

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No one else really needs to see your friend list, do they? Why?

6. If you want some friends to see your list, you can tune your privacy in quite a few ways. Friends of friends? Specific people or lists?

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It doesn’t have to be complicated. That’s why we prefer the ‘Only me’ setting.

 

Finally, please remember that you can’t hide your mutual friends. Facebook does not allow that. We can see how that might be a problem for some teen users, but that’s the way it is.

Thanks for reading! Let us know if you have comments, problems, questions or suggestions. We’re very approachable. Like us on Facebook and you’ll get some good karma! Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook.