Last week we got a notice from Facebook about a survey asking about our experience with News Feed. Hmmm, we thought. This could be interesting. Here’s how we responded:
1.
We hate surveys, don’t you? 1-2 minutes? Oh OK. Let’s do it.
2.
Is anyone ‘completely satisfied’ with anything?
3.
News Feed has changed. So has our attitude towards it.
4.
Facebook chooses the stories. How interesting could it be?
5.
Now it’s all ads, even ads with sound. Booo!
6.
We like the new look, not the new News Feed.
7.
You point, you click, what’s easy or hard about that?
8.
The News Feed should be about people you interact with, not ads or virtual strangers.
9.
Did they even have to ask?
10. Finally, our thoughts:
Our thoughts. What do you think?
That’s it, a very short survey but you just know that Facebook is testing us for even more ads than before. We think they are gauging our reactions to the increasing number of ads that are already spoiling our Facebook experience. Have you noticed that they are using ads with sounds recently? That’s a jarring experience if you’re listening to music. There should be a way to opt-out of these ads but, of course, there isn’t.
Facebook is on a downward spiral, we think. Since the IPO, they are selling their users out to ads and data mining every bit of information they can and, we suspect, selling it all to the corporate world. It’s up to you to decide if you want to be part of it. Comments are welcome.
Back in May of 2012 we posted a story about WeChat and its new Shake feature. Since then we’ve been inundated with hundreds of questions regarding Shake, usually about problems users have with it. To date, there have been just under 400 questions and answers, 368 actually. For one post on a small blog such as this, that’s an incredible number of comments.
368 comments so far.
Most of the problems with WeChat Shake seem to stem from faulty GPS signals or helper apps that interfere with the main WeChat/Weixin app. We use WeChat on two devices, one Android and one iOS (Apple) but, unfortunately, we haven’t been able to duplicate the errors. Every now and then we get a result that we know isn’t correct but after shaking again, everything goes back to normal. In this post, we’re going to list some suggestions about how you can solve problems that you have. We’ve tweeted the makers of the app several times but they have not responded yet. Although they follow us on Twitter, they don’t seem interested in helping their users. Hey, the app is free so we really can’t blame them, can we?
Suggestions for Troubleshooting WeChat Shake Errors
1. Is your GPS working perfectly for other apps?
2. Do you get errors on wifi or data? Do you get the same errors on each?
3. Have you installed helper apps that promise to assist you in finding other single WeChat users? We think that this is the first place to look for answers.
4. When you are chatting with someone, do you see blue lines under some of their words? These are links to something. Whatever you do, don’t accept a file from them.
5. Further with number 4, don’t accept files from anyone, even if you know them. Ask them to send it in an email or on QQ. That way you can use your anti-virus to scan the file before you open it.
6. If you notice Shake doing strange things, change your password. This goes for problems with any app or social media site. Make a point of changing your password on a regular basis.
7. Log out of your account, delete WeChat, reboot your phone then install WeChat again. Create a new ID and see if the problems are still there.
8. Change your WeChat name. You can change your name to anything you want, any number of times you want. This is what people see you as, not your WeChat ID.
9. Change your location. If you know that the results you are getting are faulty, move to another location. We’re not talking a few meters here, go a few kilometres away and see what you get.
10. Have a friend check their results against yours on a completely different device, preferably with a different carrier as well. What you’re trying to do here is to narrow the error down to your device, your carrier or the actual WeChat app.
Those are ten suggestions to start with. Use your head on this. The way to troubleshoot these problems is to narrow down the possibilities in an attempt to find a solution. It’s easy to suggest that WeChat is at fault and maybe it is but eliminate things that you are in control of before blaming the app makers. Here are our results from the last Shake search we did:
No Chinese users and the KM distances are correct.
Remember this above all, WeChat is free and it’s fun, when it works. The Shake feature is taking the world by storm, sure, but it’s also free. If it works, fine. If not, don’t go crazy trying to figure it all out. Wait for a while to see if things change. Explore your device and your carrier’s services to see if the errors are based on something you or they are doing. We will do our best to answer your questions but until we can duplicate the errors, we’re simply guessing at a solution. Good luck and keep commenting.
It seems that Youtube has changed its policy regarding the downloading of some videos on the site. When we lauded Miro on its ability to download Youtube videos, we hadn’t run into anything that this free app couldn’t download. That’s changed. Some videos are just about impossible to download from Youtube, even when using the Real Downloader which has worked well in the past. Recently, we’ve discovered a new add-on for Firefox that works very well for most, but not all, videos on Youtube. Here’s how you do it:
1. Next to Google Chrome, Firefox is our favorite browser. If you don’t have it installed, download it from here: Mozilla Firefox Install it and let it update itself.
2. Head over to Download Flash and Video to get the app that will allow you to save Youtube videos to your computer. Install it as per their directions.
Here is the main page.
3. Once the add-on is installed, you’ll be taken to the main site. You can read a brief how-to there:
A basic set of instructions for the Firefox add-on.
4. We’re using Youtube as an example but you can choose any video site, except vevo.com. Download Flash and Video works with just about all of them. Once you’re there, pick any video that you want to save and click on the play button. Up on the top right of your window you’ll see an icon. On a non-video page it will be grey. On a video page, as in now, it will be blue. Click on it to something similar to this:
Choose your poison, as they say.
Don’t be put off by the rather confusing array of file types. The section at the top, at least for this Mumford and Sons video, lists the ads on this page. What you want is the list of video files in the lower section. Which one you choose depends on what you want to do with the video. The smaller files, like the ones you can record on a cell phone, are pretty crappy, to be honest. The best quality videos will be the larger files, let’s say the one at the very top. It is a new filetype, at least for us. We haven’t seen ‘.webm’ videos prior to this but we use the VLC media player and, thank goodness, it will play just about any file we download. Click on the file you want to save, we suggest the .webm or .mp4 ones, and the download window will pop up:
Click Save.
5. Click Save and you’re done. We were impressed with the quality of the .webm video and we’re pretty sure we’ll use that for future downloads.
TIP: You don’t have to watch the video while it’s downloading. Click pause and do something else if you want. The download app will save the video on its own. Remember that some of these files are quite large. Downloading them takes time. It all depends on the speed of your connection.
Initially, we had a problem with a Conan O’Brien video, there was no listing for it when we clicked on the icon. We moved on to another one then went back and there it was, a full list of file options. The lesson here might be to reload the page or move ahead then back if you don’t see the various download options.
Youtube has a much larger selection of videos than you might imagine. We’ve found full versions of movies, both foreign and domestic. Using Miro and choosing a ‘World’ setting, we find many videos we were unaware of. If we can’t download them through Miro, we copy the url and paste it into the Firefox url slot. After that, it’s a snap to download it using Download Flash and Video.
Good luck! We hope you find this easy way to save videos as useful as we do. Let us know if you have problems, OK?
WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world, by far. It has become so pervasive on the Internet that you probably might not recognize that you’re actually on a site that uses WordPress. We’ve already covered the installation and several other aspects of handling WordPress and its seemingly endless array of plugins and features. Here are ten steps you should take to lock down your WordPress site.
WordPress sites often don’t look like WordPress sites.
Popularity breeds contempt, as they say, and WordPress is certainly popular. Hackers and spammers all over the world make it a point to attack sites that use WordPress, hoping to take advantage of new webmasters. Once these folks find a hole, they will exploit it as much as they can, often taking over the site while the owner is not even aware of it.
Step One: Get rid of the user name ‘admin’.
Every WordPress site defaults to the main user being named admin. Even with a secure password, leaving that username in place means that a hacker already has 50% of what he needs to access your site. Add another user, keeping in mind Step Two coming up, and make that user admin. At that point you can delete the original username ‘admin’. Hint: You need to assign the admin role to another user before you can delete the user named admin.
Step Two: Name the user with admin rights something other than any user who can post.
If you post under the name Jane Doe, don’t assign admin right to that user (usually you). When someone reads your posts, they could assume that Jane Doe is the admin. As in step one, if Jane Doe has admin rights, they already have half of what they need to gain access to your site. Change the admin user name to something completely different, something that can’t been found on your site.
Step Three: Keep your WordPress installation up to date.
This goes without saying but we’re saying it anyway. WordPress is constantly being updated, with security loopholes constantly repaired and additional features added. Make sure you keep your installation fresh by updating it whenever WordPress prompts you to do it. We use the automatic update and the whole process takes about a minute. Make sure you do the same.
Step Four: Keep your plugins up to date.
Update notifications are right in front of you as soon as you log in to your site. These include updates for WordPress as well as the various plugins you use. Make sure you keep everything up to date, including those plugins. Once an exploit has been uncovered, plugin creators change the bits and pieces that make up the software and then release an update. WordPress tells you instantly when an update is available so there’s no reason not to take a moment and update everything.
Step Five: Use Akismet to filter spam.
Akismet is free and using it is a no-brainer. We get thousands of spam comments every day here on Computers Made Simple. If it wasn’t for Akismet our site would be a mess of ridiculous comments that would steer users away from our site. We’ve covered installation of Akismet before in our WordPress installation series.
Step Six: Make sure all comments must be approved by your admin user.
As with the use of Akismet, this goes without saying. If a spammer’s comment is missed by Akismet, and that happens frequently, you must make sure that you can report it as spam before that comment shows up below a post. We all know that some sites, actually some big name sites, don’t filter out these comments but make sure that you do. Any savvy reader will be able to spot a spammer’s comment and will naturally think less of your efforts. To them, it might seem that you want these spam comments visible, as if your site was more popular than it actually is. Don’t fall into that trap. Change your discussion settings and moderate all comments.
Step Seven: Don’t inhibit comments.
We had a spammer attack our site a few weeks back. Every day we’d get twenty or thirty comments that Akismet was missing for some reason. To us, the comments were obviously spam but to Akismet, they seemed legitimate. What to do in this situation? We thought that adding a captcha (Completely Automated Public Tuning test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, believe it or not) device to our site. You’ve all seen them, the little photos of pictures and/or numbers that you have to type in to prove you’re human. Well, we tried but the results didn’t work out well at all. For the duration of the ‘attack’, we simply marked those comments as spam and, over time, Akismet either recognized them as such or the company which was commenting gave up the battle.
Please Note: If you want to comment on our site, all you have to do is give us an email, a name and a comment. The email is never published, it doesn’t even have to be a real one. The only reason we ask for it is to make sure you get our reply to your comment, not to spam you. We don’t even really see your email, except when we reply. At that point a WordPress plugin sends our reply to you automatically.
Step Eight: Use one admin, no more.
Even if you assign user accounts to other writers/posters, don’t assign anyone else the admin position. Anyone with the admin designation can change any setting in WordPress, even to the point of locking you out of your own site. Don’t do it. Keep the admin rights and keep your site safe.
Step Nine: Don’t let anyone access your site for whatever reason.
Again, this is from personal experience. We purchased a theme and, after installation, found that there was one setting that was causing us problems. After a few emails back and forth with the theme creator, he suggested that we give him our password and let him see if he could fix it. Our warning beacons went off immediately. Yours should too. Let’s say we did allow this person to access the site then changed the password immediately afterwards. In case you didn’t already know this, all WordPress installations are made up of a vast array of php scripts that work behind the scenes, controlling every part of your website. Unless you are a very smart programmer, you would never know what this person might have changed deep inside your WordPress installation. No matter how innocent a request for access is, don’t do it. If something needs to be fixed, there are hundreds of very helpful people and sites out there to assist you.
Step Ten: Take control of your own site and your own destiny.
WordPress is complicated, we all know that, but it’s not rocket science. If you’re in the blogging game, you have to expect some confusion and you have to allow some time for learning about things other than what you’re blogging about. We are assuming, of course, that you own your own domain name and are using a hosting site for your WordPress installation. None of the steps above apply to bloggers using a community blogging site, but if you’re reading this, you probably already know that. Take the plunge, buy a domain and get a cheap hosting account. There are vast amounts of WordPress resources out there to help you along the way. Good luck!
Finally, we’re not WordPress experts in any sense of the word. We get things done and we have always learned to do things by actually doing them, after reading up on the topic, of course. The worst thing that could happen is that your site might be down for a bit. Hopefully, your frequent readers will realize that glitches happen and will come back another time.
Thanks for reading! Comments and questions are welcome. Like us on Facebook and you’ll get a direct path to us for relatively instant updates and solutions: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
We’ve had a huge jump in the comments on one of our WeChat posts. Here is a link to the post: Weixin/WeChat – Shake your way to new friends Lately, the comments have focussed on what readers think are search results using the Shake feature that are skewed somehow. We think we’ve found the reason for this. Check out some of these screen caps. Maybe you can see where we’re going with this:
WeChat plus 54 other apps related to it.
We have both apps on our devices; WeChat and WeChat Voice. Both are made by TenCent International, the company that created WeChat. Can you trust these two apps? Sure you can. No problem. Let’s look at what other apps are available to ‘enhance’ your WeChat experience:
Same two at the top but lots more below.
Let’s see what we’ve got here. Find Friends for WeChat? Huh? Isn’t that what WeChat is all about? Why would you need to use an app to find friends for an app that finds friends? Something’s fishy here, folks.
Some of these are pretty sketchy, aren’t they?
One more, just in case you are missing the point:
Don’t even think of adding any of these. OK?
Just the same as on your PC, you’re at risk when you add software from companies that you are not familiar with. You have to ask yourself, why is this free? What will these people get from offering me free apps? Some get money from advertising. Others, unfortunately, have found a way to hijack WeChat’s Shake results. Instead of showing you other people who are shaking their phones, these apps will show you something else, usually spam ‘contacts’ who will try to get you to spend money on a product or service.
If you add any of these apps, you’re just asking for trouble. Remember those ‘free screensavers’ from a few years ago? Same thing there. After you installed them, your computer would start to act differently or would slow down to a crawl. Adding apps to your mobile device is reasonable safe, as long as you think about what you’re doing.
TIP: All you need is WeChat, nothing else. These add-on apps will do nothing but cause you problems. Some of these may actually hijack your mobile device, meaning that you won’t be able to remove them, even by reformatting or resetting your device. Your flash card would be toast, even your ROM (the brain of your device) might be attacked.
Install WeChat, maybe add WeChat Voice but nothing else. You’ve been warned.
