Category Archives: Facebook

Hide Facebook Page Likes – A new twist

October 13, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

Recently, a couple of our readers asked questions about hiding Facebook page likes. We’ve written about this before but we think we need to clarify this whole topic. You have to remember that we have readers from across the globe, many of whom may not be proficient in English. We’ve found it useful to explain things in several different ways, hoping that one explanation will finally make sense to a portion of our audience. Here we go:

1. We all know what a ‘page like’ is, right? If you go to a company’s page or a singer’s page on Facebook, you will see a large ‘Like’ button. It looks like this:

We’ve all seen it, right?

2. If you click that like button, you will receive updates from that page on your news feed. Unlike adding a friend, liking a page sets up a one-way communication link between the page and you, not between you and the page. Sure, you can comment on the page or on anything the page owner posts but they will not receive your updates or posts. It’s one-way only.

3. If you have hidden your page likes, as described here: Hide Page Likes, none of your friends will be able to see which pages you have clicked ‘like’ on. (There is an exception which we will describe below). If you’ve already hidden your page likes, this article isn’t for you…except for the glitch that we will explain later.

4. Let’s say you haven’t hidden your page likes but you don’t want to broadcast the fact that you like a page. Here’s how to do that. We’ll be using the Psych page as an example. This is what it looks like before you click the like button:

Photo of Psych Facebook Page — **Facebook Psych Page**

5. Click the Like button and you’ll see this menu pop down:

Photo of Facebook Like menu — ***Here is your chance to hide this particular like from your news feed.***

6. Let’s uncheck the ‘Show in News Feed’:

Photo of News Feed Unselected — **This page like will not show up on your news feed to your friends.**

7. OK, here’s the explanation: If you’ve hidden your page likes, this won’t show up on your news feed or in your likes box. If you haven’t hidden your page likes but you unchecked the ‘Show in News Feed’ section, this won’t show up but it will be in your page likes section. Got it? There are some exceptions to all of this. Read on:

Facebook Page Like Glitch – this is the exception to the rule

Remember those like boxes, the ones on your timeline that have titles such as TV shows or Movies, etc? Believe it or not, some page likes fall into two categories. Take our Psych example. Yes, it is a Facebook page and, yes, we have liked it. Since our Page Likes are hidden, it would make sense that anything to do with our liking that Psych page would be hidden, wouldn’t it? Well, it isn’t.

Since that Psych page is a TV page, the fact that we liked it is visible in our Favorites under Television. Yes, the page like is hidden but the Psych page is still listed in our Likes/Favorites/Television section. Curious, right?

What should you do? We suggest that you completely hide all of your favorites. Maybe you don’t like a singing star’s music but you do like the photos on that person’s page. If you don’t hide your Music Favorites, that page will show up there. Any page that intersects with a favorite, could be music, TV, games, athletes, etc., will show up in two places on your Facebook Timeline page. If there is any question about whether you want your friends to know what pages/stars/movies/singers/sport/whatever you like, then hide them all.

Tip: Many employers use your Facebook profile to check you out before they hire you. Whether or not you agree with this, they do it. Let’s say you like the TV show ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘Weeds’. Some conservative employers might just assume that you’re more interested in drugs than you should be, at least if you want to work with them. Do you see the ramifications here? Mull that over while you hide all of your likes.

Tip: Remember that you can hide any of your likes except photos and mutual friends. You can hide your friends but you can’t hide your mutual friends. Keep that in mind.

Thanks for reading. We’re going to to a whole post on that glitch, just to highlight it. Comments and questions are welcome!

Block game invitations, Facebook, Facebook Games

Stop Game Updates on Facebook

October 12, 2012 Computers Made Simple 2 Comments

Admit it. Some of your friends are pests, right? They play too many games on Facebook and you get all of their annoying game updates. Your Facebook page is spammed with these continuous and obnoxious bits of junk. Here’s how to block these updates before they reach your Facebook page.

1. Here’s an example of the kind of update we’re talking about:

Photo of Facebook update — ***An update from The Ville.***

2. Up on the top right of this person’s game post, look for the little down arrow icon when you hover your cursor (mouse) over that spot. Here’s what we mean:

Photo of hidden menu — ***Hover then click the word Hide…***

3. The word ‘Hide’ has three periods after it. This means that there are some choices available after you click Hide. You are hiding this single game update but Facebook allows you to hide more than that. Here are the choices:

Photo of other selections. — ***OK, the story is hidden but do you want to hide everything from The Ville (yes, if you don’t play it).***

4. The single post is hidden now and all of the updates from The Ville are hidden too, as long as you click Hide all stories from The Ville. But what if that one friend plays a dozen or more games? Let’s hide every game update from this person. Click on ‘Change what updates you get from…’ :

Photo of menu to hide different updates from a Facebook friend. — **Deselect Games and anything else that might spam your news feed.**

TIP: We were having a problem with one particular Facebook game, Slotomania. No matter what we did, we kept getting updates on ‘So and so ‘likes’ a post made by someone else about Slotomania. Even though we hid all updates from that one game, we kept getting what looked like updates. Only when we deselected ‘Comments and likes’ did we actually stop those annoying posts. Unfortunately we don’t get any of that person’s likes, either.

Hopefully this post will help you clean up your newsfeed. Questions or comments are welcome.

Thanks for reading!

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Privacy

Facebook Stalking – how to stop it

October 11, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

Even though you may have your Facebook contact info privacy settings for your phone number set to ‘friends only’ or ‘only me’, did you know that anyone can find you on Facebook using that phone number? Read that again. You’re right. It doesn’t make sense. But, that’s Facebook, right? Read on and we’ll tell you how to stop complete strangers from stalking you and finding you on Facebook.

1. Go to your privacy settings page. Here is how you get there:

Photo of Privacy Settings link — **Down arrow, then click on Privacy Settings.**

2. On the page that pops up, look for the words ‘How you connect’. This is where you edit the settings for how people search for you. If you don’t change the settings here, anyone can find you using your phone number, the one that you might have given Facebook, or your email address. This is how it looks:

Photo of Facebook Privacy settings page — **How you connect, that’s what you’re looking for.**

3. This ‘How you connect’ setting is not overridden by your basic info settings. If you have your phone number listed in your basic info and if you have that set to ‘friends only’ or only me’, anyone can still search for you using that phone number. Sad but very true. Here are the settings that we suggest:

Photo of Facebook search settings. — **We suggest that you set this to ‘Friends’.**

4. If your friends happen to know your phone number, they can find you on Facebook. If they know your email address, they can find you. Then again, if anyone knows your phone number or email, they can find you on Facebook…unless you change this setting. Sure, anyone can search for your real name and they may or may not find you, depending on how many other people share your name and whether you used your real name or your nickname when you signed up. In other words, people can still find you, old school friends, ex-lovers, whoever, but they won’t be able to link up your phone number to your Facebook account. Change it now!

Working backwards here, your friends won’t be able to see your phone number on Facebook if you have this particular privacy setting:

Photo of Phone Number privacy settings — **You decide…Only me or Friends or whatever you want.**

OK, if your friends already know your phone number, that’s fine. With your phone number privacy set to ‘only me’ , at least they won’t be able to find the number on Facebook. If you set this to ‘friends’, then they can find your number here. Either way, using the privacy settings outlined above, no one will be able to search for you using your phone number.

Are we chock full of paranoia? Not really. Consider this scenario: You apply for a job. Obviously, you have to provide a telephone contact number. If that number is linked to your Facebook account, the person who is hiring you can search for you on Facebook using that number. Like it or not, they can find out quite a bit about you, depending on your privacy settings. If you remove your email and your phone number from your search settings (unfortunately you can’t separate them), then no one can find you that way.

Lastly, should Facebook even have your phone number? Think about that for a while. Sure, they say that they need it in case your account is compromised. Hmmmm, really? Your phone number is a direct link to you and/or your home. Mull that over for a while.

Thanks for reading!

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Create a List, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Layered Privacy

Layered Privacy on Facebook – Part 2

September 25, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

In our last post we divided our Facebook friends into different lists (groups). Here’s the link, in case you missed it: Layered Privacy on Facebook – Part 1 This time we’ll show you how to separate your posts and some of your activity, in order to keep the posts from being seen by everyone on your friend list.

Remember that anything you comment on that isn’t yours is wide open. You can’t hide anything that isn’t your own, including comments that you make on another person’s photo,note,share, or post. No can do!

OK, now that we have that straightened out, here’s how to control who sees what you post:

1. Go to your normal Facebook page, not your Timeline. Click on the word Facebook up on the top left.

2. We’re going to add a photo as a test. Click on Add Photo/Video to bring up this menu:

Photo of Facebook menu — **Note that the current default setting is ‘Friends’. Keep that in mind for later.**

3. Click on the little down arrow just to the right of the word Friends. Your menu may differ, depending on your default privacy setting. (It may say Public which is a big no-no. Nothing you post should be shared with the Public unless you are a celebrity or a celebrity wannabe.) Whatever it says, click on the down arrow to bring up a menu that looks like this:

4. Click on the words ‘See all lists’ to bring up the following menu which will show all of the lists that you made last time. Here it is:

5. For this exercise, we’re going to share it with our Family, no one else. Click on Family (or some other group) to put a check mark beside it. If you don’t have a list or group named Family, choose another one. If you see where this is going, skip out of class and do something else. The last section is important though, so maybe you want to stick around.

6. Once you choose which lists you want to share your photo with, you can upload the pic. Only those lists that you’ve chosen will be able to see or comment on the photo. No one else will see the photo or the comments on it.

You’re done. However, if you sort out your Facebook posts using this method, there is one more thing to remember. Read this:

Tip: Whatever your setting was for your last post, that setting is now your default setting. If you chose Family as the list you will share your photo/note/video with, your next photo/note/video or share will be visible to only that list. Read that again if you’re not clear on it. You have to change the setting for everything you post from now on. Safer, perhaps, but kind of a pain, too.

This is important. Let’s say you post a questionable pic and share it with the wrong group. Oooops! After all of this ranting about layered privacy, we still think it’s best to have separate Facebook accounts. This isn’t crucial unless you are kind of ‘out there’, right? If you just post pics of kittens and fishing trips and weddings, stick with this method. If you have a wild night life and a staid home life, think having two or more Facebook accounts.

As always, questions and comments are welcome. Our Facebook posts are the most popular on this site. If you want us to write about something that’s bugging you, let us know in a comment.

Thanks for reading!

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Create a List, Facebook, Facebook Tricks, Layered Privacy

Layered Privacy on Facebook – Part 1

September 24, 2012 Computers Made Simple 1 Comment

We’ve talked before about creating a separate Facebook profile, just in case you need an extra layer of privacy. Now, we’re going to show you another way to protect your privacy while using only one account. It’s a bit complicated and it only works for things that you post but we think it might help some of you. Stay tuned for subsequent posts on this. We can’t do it all in one post.

Here’s how to isolate parts of your profile:

The theory works like this: out of say 100 friends, 15 of them are family, 30 are close friends and the rest are simply acquaintances that you’ve picked up over time. Your family photos are probably private. Maybe you don’t want to share all of your birthday photos with your other 85 friends. By the same token, that party at Mickey’s last week isn’t something that you want to share with your family. Get it? You want to share some things with some friends, but not others.

The first step is to sort your friends out into groups. You want to make lists to keep them all separate. Here’s how to sort your friends into lists:

1. Make sure you are logged-in to your account, right? Then, click on your profile photo up on the top right to bring up the timeline. Then, click on the little box that says Friends. You might have to click on the right side of the boxes if your Friends box is tucked underneath your Likes and Photos, etc. Ultimately, you want to see this page (or one like it):

Photo of Facebook Friend Page — **A full page of your Facebook friends.**

2. Now we get into some hovering. Hovering is when you rest your cursor (mouse) over something but you don’t click on it. You hover, OK? If you click, it makes things much more difficult so just hover. Practice. We’ll wait. (insert coffee break here…) Got it? Good. Start at the top left and hover over that person’s name. This is what you want to see:

Photo of Facebook Friend menu — ***Your first hover shows this. Wait, there’s more!***

3. Hover over the word friends. You’ll see this next :

Photo of Facebook Friends menu — **Here are all the settings for that particular friend. Right now, you’re looking for the words ‘Show all lists’**

4. If you have hundreds of friends, this could take a while. Do 10 or 20 a day, something like that. Anyway, this time you get to click. Click on ‘show all lists’ to bring out this menu:

Menu of Facebook Lists — **We have some lists set up, even some Trial ones for this post. Your menu will be different.**

5. Now, you might have some lists already. Facebook arbitrarily makes some lists for you, based on geography or school or some arcane algorithm that only they understand. You want to start dividing your friends into different groups. Take some time and think about it. A list of family members is an obvious choice but some of your family might be more open-minded than others. Then again, they are in contact with your other family members so the next step is to figure out how discreet they are. You get the gist of what we’re trying to say here.

Click on the words, New List. Like this:

Photo of New List slot — **Type in the name of your new list.**

6. Type in the name of your new list, Men from Mars sounds good, and continue on through all of your friends. Sure, it’s a chore but you might find it easier than creating a separate profile. If you only have 50 or 60 friends, this won’t take long. Remember that some friends can be on more than one list. You’ll work it out, no problem.

Tip: Remember, when you add a new friend, make sure you put them on one of the lists you’ve created or start a new list.

This is step one. As this week progresses, we’ll get deeper into the layers of privacy as we attempt to simplify your Facebook experience and protect your reputation.

Thanks for reading!

a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun