Have you ever something posted on your Facebook Timeline that wasn’t appropriate? Something that upset you? Have you recently been tagged in some crazy photo or video? Here’s how to stop things like this from ruining your day.
1. Head over to your Account Settings:
Click on the gear (settings) then Account Settings.
2. Click on Timeline and Tagging:
Timeline and Tagging.
3. Click on the word Edit up on the right. Start at the top and work down.
Click on Edit.
4. Who can add things to my Timeline? You can choose to block all of your friends. Unfortunately, you can’t block only some of your friends. It’s all or nothing.
Tough decision here, right?
5. If you choose to allow your friends to post on your Facebook Timeline, make sure you also choose to review those posts:
Review posts before they show up on your Timeline. Read the warning note, though.
TIP: Make sure you read the note in the photo above, the one that says that nothing is private on Facebook. Quote: Note: This only controls what’s allowed on your timeline. Posts you’re tagged in still appear in search, news feed and other places on Facebook.
6. Limit visibility of posts that you’ve been tagged in:
Set this to ‘Only Me’. No one else has to see the posts, right?
7. Continue on down the list and edit each one so that they match your own level of security and privacy. Here is an important one:
Make sure you review tags on your own posts BEFORE they show up on your Timeline.
We hope this tour of your Timeline privacy settings helps you keep unwanted posts and tags off your Facebook page. Remember that you can block someone who posts troublesome things on your Timeline. Choose your friends wisely, right?
Thanks for reading!
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Peerblock, available here: http://www.peerblock.com/ , is a small, free app that prevents websites from accessing your surfing information. Many of you may not know that everything you do on the Internet is visible to someone. In most cases, these ‘someones’ are companies who make a profit by directing ads to you or by selling your surfing habits to other companies. Peerblock can protect you from being spied on by these companies.
There are other uses for Peerblock but private surfing is the main reason for this post. You don’t really have to know how Peerblock works but let’s just say it uses lists to decide which websites to block. Those lists are compiled on a regular basis and Peerblock updates them for you if it detects a change. Peerblock also has a user manual that is worth checking out. You are able to fine tune the blocking mechanism yourself, just in case you need to access one of the blocked sites.
Once you’ve installed Peerblock, part of the fun is seeing which sites it is blocking. Prepared to be amused and, perhaps, shocked at the names you see in Peerblock’s block log. Here’s a sample:
In a span of a few minutes, Peerblock protected us from these websites.
You’ll see the names of the sites, the time that they tried to access your computer as well as the IP address. Most of these names are ad sites that are trying to feed ads to the pages that you have open in your browser. Others may be product or software update inquiries. We’ve seen Adobe and Nvidia in these logs. There are some unusual ones too.
Install Peerblock and keep an eye on who is trying to access your computer. Accept the defaults in the installation process, there was no adware or ‘free’ toolbars in our download, and choose what level of protection you want. We chose to block P2P snooping, ads and spyware. Here’s a shot of the installation wizard that we copied from the Peerblock site:
We checked off the top three for our settings.
There is ample information in the online user manual. We’d recommend that you read it, at least the first two parts, before you install Peerblock. Peerblock does not have to run all the time so don’t worry about it screwing up your settings. If you can’t access a web page, simply turn Peerblock off. Then use the manual to figure out how to add a site to your list of allowed sites.
Facebook chat can be a lot of fun. It’s a quick way to send an instant message without using a third party application. On the other hand, Facebook chat can sometimes be a pain in the butt, right? Maybe you don’t want to chat with all of your friends. Maybe you don’t ever want to chat with a few particular friends. Maybe you only want to chat with one or two friends. Can you see what we’re getting at here? If you’re constantly being interrupted but you don’t want to turn Facebook chat off, here’s how you can exclude different friends or groups of friends from bothering you.
1. First, you need a list of those friends you want to avoid. Use our post here: How to make a list of friends on Facebook to make a ‘restricted’ list. We use the term restricted but you can call it anything you want.
2. Facebook chat resides on the lower right side of your Facebook page. Here’s how to access the settings menu:
Look for the gear or settings icon on the lower right side of any Facebook page.
2. Hover your cursor (mouse) over the gear icon and click on Advanced Settings:
Hover then click on Advanced Settings.
3. In the next window that opens up, click on the top (default) choice ‘Turn on chat for all friends except…”:
On this menu, click the top choice and then click in the slot.
4. Start to type ‘Restricted’ and Facebook will fill in the rest for you:
Friends who are on your Restricted list will no longer see you on Facebook Chat.
Using the same menu box, you can hide from individual friends too. Just start to type their Facebook name and choose from the list that drops down. Do that one by one or create a list and use that. Either way, you won’t be bothered by these people any more.
For some reason, maybe it’s a problem with the latest WordPress update, links in comment replies are NOT working. This was written on March 11, 2013 and the problem may be fixed by the time you read this but if it isn’t, here’s how to repair the problem.
1. When you reply to a comment on your WordPress blog, you are actually writing in HTML, more or less. All of the HTML codes are shown, unlike the normal WordPress window which shows a kind of Word window, completely void of HTML coding. (Yes, you can work in HTML if you want but most people don’t.) In other words, the comment reply window is not WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get).
2. The comment reply window looks like this:
An example of faulty HTML code.
3. In the example above, we have pasted in the URL of our Facebook page and have asked WordPress to give us the HTML code which would show the link AND open it in a new window. Unfortunately, WordPress has given us faulty code.
4. Here is what the code should be:
Bad code on top, good code on the bottom.
We’ve put both codes in to show you the fine difference between the two.
5. Here is the correct HTML code that you can copy and paste. Make sure you change the URL and the title before you use this:
<a href=”https://www.facebook.com/ComputersMadeSimple” target=”_blank”>Computers Made Simple</a>
You can change it this way:
<a href=”insert the URL between the two quotation marks” target=”_blank”>Put the name of the link here. This will be visible in the reply.</a>
That’s it! A simple fix for a frustrating problem. Hopefully WordPress will fix this situation in a future update.
Hi! Glad you could make it. Hey, before we begin, give me your real name and email address. Yes, it has to be a real email address and, yes, you must give us your real name. OK good, thanks. Now, tell us about yourself. Here’s what we need to know:
1. How old are you?
2. Are you male or female?
3. What is your current location? Yes, we need city, state and country.
4. For security purposes only, we need your phone number. Better give us your cell number too.
5. Where did you go to school? Try to list every school that you attended…ever.
6. Where have you worked in the past? Yes, we need a complete history.
7. Now we need a recent photo of you, your family and friends, your home…anything to make you more interesting to us. If you have a bikini photo, even better. We ask guys if they have a photo where they’re not wearing a shirt. We love that kind of thing. What was that? Yes, we will use your photos for our own promotions and we won’t tell you about it. OK? Privacy? Well…we have some privacy settings but they’re really hard to figure out and we keep changing them, almost every month. Better leave your stuff open to the public. It’s better that way.
8. What do you like? Yes, we know. There are so many things to like in the world, right? Well, we’ve broken everything up into categories. Music, video, hobbies…all laid out for you. Why do we need these? It’s simple really. We sell your information to advertisers. Once you tell us everything about yourself, we turn around and tune the ads that you see to your own demographic. Do you make any money from all of this? Certainly not! This is our company, not yours. We just use your information, we’re not about to pay you for anything. It’s a privilege to be with us, you should know that!
9. We also need some of your financial details…well, we would like them. Maybe you could give us your credit card number, simple things like that. Security? Oh yes, we have pretty good security here. What’s that? Well, we have been broken into a few times but not much was stolen. No, not much. Just a complete list of usernames and passwords, nothing major.
Look familiar!
We think you get the point. Share, reveal personal details, give out your personal information just like that, let complete strangers see your photos….it’s all there on Facebook. The point of this article is simply to make you think about what you’re doing. Hand all of this stuff out and let Facebook make money on it. Is that what you signed up for?
Facebook is very helpful, that’s for sure.
Sign up for Facebook and your profile photo might end up in a facepile somewhere. Anyone in the world could click on your photo and be taken directly to your Facebook profile page. Here’s an example:
If you see something like this, click on a face and see what happens.
Make sure you set your privacy settings accordingly to avoid being seen on a website. You have no control over where Facebook posts things like this but you can control whether they can use your photo or not.
We’re simply trying to make you think. Be smart, learn all you can about Facebook privacy before you reveal too much of yourself to strangers.
This man is a billionaire because of your information.
Thanks for reading! Let us know if you have problems with anything on Facebook. We’ll try to help.
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
