We’ve been asked to write a post about how you can use DownAlbum to download complete photo albums from Facebook. We’ve gone one step better and have created a Youtube video that explains the whole thing.
Here’s the video. You can play it here or on Youtube itself:
Here are some tips to remember:
If the album is very large, wait until all of the photos are shown on the first DownAlbum page before trying to save the album. If the page hasn’t finished loading, you won’t get all the photos.
Even though the photos on the DownAlbum page are shown smaller than the original, the full-size photo will be saved to your computer.
You will need a lot of RAM on your computer before you will be able to load large photo albums. If you’re squeaking by with 2 gigs or 4 gigs of RAM, you probably won’t be able to load albums with 100 or more photos.
If you don’t have a lot of RAM, try closing everything down first. Make sure you only have the single Facebook page open before you load the album. Basically you want to single-task, not multitask.
If your data plan keeps you on a short leash as far as usage goes, a Facebook video that plays automatically can ruin your day. Here’s how to prevent the video from playing by itself as soon as it shows on your screen.
1. These instructions are for Android devices. They may work for iOS (Apple) devices as well but the steps may not be exactly the same.
2. Once you’re in Facebook, look for the three horizontal lines at the top of any screen. Touch them. This is what you’re looking for :
Look for the three lines on the top right. Touch that icon.
3. On the screen that shows up next, look for App Settings. Touch that :
App Settings is what you want.
4. Now you’ll have to scroll down from this screen. The setting you want is below this one:
Scroll down. The one you want is below this screen.
5. At this point, Video Auto-play is on. It’s on by default:
This is the one you want. Press Video Auto-play.
6. Press Video Auto-play to get this screen:
We’d suggest setting this to Off.
7. There is no reason that we can think of to have auto-play on, no matter if you’re on Wi-fi or not. We think you should set it to Off:
Video Auto-play is off. Yay!
That’s it. Now your data usage will be a lot less, depending on how many videos your friends post on Facebook.
TIP: We installed Facebook on our Nexus 5 just for this one post. Please remember that Facebook has access to everything on your phone; your contacts, your text messages…everything. While Facebook tells you that this is all very secure, you have to ask yourself if it really is. We’d suggest that you delete Facebook from your mobile device. Once we did these screen caps, we did just that.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading! Comments and questions are welcome but Likes on our Facebook page get immediate attention. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook .
We’ve all seen them. Those posts that promise a video of something astonishing. The poster says they ‘can’t believe what happened next’. Well, we know what happens next. People who click the link usually end up with malware on their computer or mobile device.
There are several ways that this scam works. We’ve said for a long time that when you’re inside Facebook itself, you are safe. Once you click something that takes you out of Facebook, you’re on your own. These posts that purport to shock and amaze you are known as ‘click bait’. Some are completely safe, some are very dangerous.
How do you know which ones are safe and which aren’t? You don’t. Our advice is to simply not click on anything that leads out of Facebook. If the post looks interesting, do a search on Google and find an alternative, and safe, link to the information.
Here is an example of click bait:
So Obama forgot to salute. So what? Is it really that important to click and see what happened?
If you hover your mouse cursor over the photo and look down on the lower left of your browser, you’ll see that it leads out of Facebook.
The photo is linked to this site. Once you click it, you’re out of the Facebook site.
If you hover over a few others posts on your newsfeed, you’ll see that most of them the links begin with ‘facebook.com’. These are safe, right? You’re still inside of Facebook’s protective screen.
This kind of link is totally safe. You’re still inside the Facebook site, just heading to another page.
Lastly, the most dangerous links are those that lead to a page where a video plays for a very short time then stops. The page then tells you that you need a certain flash player to view the video. Quite often the flash player starts to download automatically. Cancel the download immediately if you can. Whatever you do, do NOT click on the file or install it. Right click it, hold down the shift key and choose ‘Delete’. Windows will ask you if you really want to delete this file permanently. Click Yes to delete it forever.
Facebook is fun, we all know that. But it can be dangerous too. Think about what you’re doing when you click on a link. Don’t fall for the click baits and scams that are out there. Use your common sense and you’ll be safe.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading! Comments and questions are welcome but Likes on our Facebook page get immediate attention. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook .
If you don’t know about keyboard shortcuts, you’re missing out on a lot. You may not even know what you’re missing. That’s why we’re here.
Example 1:
You do a search on Google and find a page that has the term/terms that you are looking for. Quite often that means a typed page full of seemingly everything else but what you want. How to fix that? Press your Control Key (lowest left key on your keyboard) and f at the same time. Depending on which browser you’re using, and you should be using Chrome, a little box up on the top right will open up. Type the word/s you’re looking for in that box and, voila! Every instance of your search term will show up, highlighted on the page. Cool huh? If the term isn’t on that page, you’ll see a 0/0 and a red search box. Try it on this page.
Here’s where the Control Key is:
It’s usually on the lower left but might be one key to the right on a laptop keyboard.
Example 2:
You open a document, could be from Word or a simple Text file, and you can’t find the word or phrase that you want. Ctrl/f again and a search menu opens up. Type in it and press enter, you’re home free. Click Find Next to get to the next location where your term shows up. Yes, it’s that simple.
The search box in Notepad. Remember to choose Up or Down, depending on where you are on the page.
TIP: You can use the same feature/shortcut in Word to find and replace words all through a document. Le’ts say you named your heroine ‘Sandy’ but want to change her name to ‘Abigail’. Search for Sandy, then type Abigail in the Replace line. Word will find every instance of Sandy and replace it with Abigail. (Notepad will do the same thing but not from the same menu. Under Edit, look for Replace and use that instead of Find.)
We’ll post about other keyboard shortcuts from time to time. If you know of some cool ones, let us know. That’s it for today, thanks for reading! Comments and questions are welcome but Likes on our Facebook page get immediate attention. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
If you’ve lost the videos that you’ve uploaded to Facebook, never fear. They’re still there. Facebook decided to move them, that’s all. They also removed the Video tab on your profile. Here’s how to get to your videos. Unfortunately we can’t get the category back, just the location of your Facebook videos.
1. Go to your own timeline. You get there by clicking on your name at the top of any Facebook page.
It’s always up at the top, click your name.
2. Look for the word Photos. Click it.
Click the word Photos.
3. Once your photo page opens, look for the word Albums. Click.
Head over to your Albums to find your videos. Seriously.
4. On the album page, Videos is the first album. Cool huh?
Ah, there they are! Why did Facebook hide them?
5. Now that you’ve found them, what can you do to make them more visible? Nothing. Here’s why. This is a list of what you can hide and unhide from your profile page. Unfortunately there is no separate setting for videos.
As we’ve shown you before, you can hide some of these but others you can’t.
That’s it. Now you can share some of them or, better yet, tell your friends how to find their videos by sharing this post! We’d appreciate it.
Comments and questions are welcome but Likes on our Facebook page get immediate attention. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
Thanks for reading!
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
