Tag Archives: Facebook

Facebook Fail – Five things that should be changed

October 31, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

Photo of Facebook Fail — Facebook needs to change in order to remain popular…and current.

Facebook’s popularity is fading fast, at least that’s what the media would have us believe. We tend to agree, basically because we don’t see a whole lot of activity there these days. Except for fan pages, it seems that anyone who wanted to join up has already done so. Fan pages abound, and yes we have one, but we don’t see a huge increase in the numbers of personal profiles. What will Facebook look like in ten years? We don’t have any idea but if it’s going to even exist at that time, here’s some changes they could make.

1. Allow private messages on posts – Renren.com, the Chinese version of Facebook, lets users make private comments on anything that anyone else posts. When you say something on Facebook, the world sees it. You’d think that China, because of its supposed personal restrictions wouldn’t offer something like this but they do.

2. Get rid of some of the ads – Facebook has sold out, in our opinion, forcing ads on their users. Not only do we see them on the sidebar, which we’re used to, we now see them in the middle of our newsfeed. Hell, we even see suggested ads, as if we’d shout, “Yeah Facebook! That’s a cool Buick ad right in the middle of my Timeline!”

3. Stop asking for personal information – We know where we live, where we went to school, where we work or used to work…why is that important to Facebook? The tendency now is to simply lie about all of this. Why not? It’s not as if we’re going to get something out of revealing our private information, right? Facebook gets something out of it, not its users.

4. Let us like something but don’t tell the world about it – This one change would mean the world to almost every Facebook user. Liking a photo or a comment isn’t always something we want to share, is it? As long as the original poster knows we like something, why does every single person who can see that post have to know? Can you imagine how this affects teens? High school is tough enough without the added pressure of everyone knowing that someone liked someone’s photo.

5. Stop with the repetition of posts – There is no reason to repeat the same post endlessly in the newsfeed, is there? We get a notice if there is activity on something that we’ve interacted with so why does Facebook persist in showing us the same post ten times or more as we scroll down the newsfeed? Sure, we can hide the story but why do we have to interact with something we don’t want to see anyway. (We actually know why this is. Facebook is logging our ‘hides’ in order to tune the different types of ads that they put on our main page.)

Last but not least, and it’s not one of the five main points that we’d like to see changed, but Facebook does need a thumbs down icon, don’t you think? Not ‘liking’ something is not the same as ‘not liking’ it. We’ve all seen comments and opinions that we really disagree with so let us, darn it!

OK, that’s our list, what’s yours? Maybe we missed some key things here. Let us know. Better yet, let us know on your very own Facebook page. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

As always, thanks for reading!

The Facebook Survey – Did they expect us to be polite?

October 7, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

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:

Photo of Facebook Survey 1 — **We hate surveys, don’t you? 1-2 minutes? Oh OK. Let’s do it.**

Photo of Facebook Survey 2 — **Is anyone ‘completely satisfied’ with anything?**

Photo of Facebook Survey 3 — **News Feed has changed. So has our attitude towards it.**

Photo of Facebook Survey 4 — **Facebook chooses the stories. How interesting could it be?**

Photo of Facebook Survey 5 — **Now it’s all ads, even ads with sound. Booo!**

Photo of Facebook Survey 6 — **We like the new look, not the new News Feed.**

Photo of Facebook Survey 7 — **You point, you click, what’s easy or hard about that?**

Photo of Facebook Survey 8 — **The News Feed should be about people you interact with, not ads or virtual strangers.**

Photo of Facebook Survey 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.

Thanks for reading! Like us on Facebook and you can keep up with our posts and tech tips: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Timeline

Avoid Being Embarrassed on Facebook – turn on Timeline review

September 12, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

We’ve all been there. Some fun-loving friend tags you in a questionable post or photo that seems hilarious to them but not to you. Here’s how to prevent your other Facebook friends, and complete strangers, from seeing these annoying posts.

1. From any Facebook page, click on the icon on the top right to bring down this menu:

Photo of Timeline Review 1 — **Click the down arrow then choose Settings.**

2. Clicking Settings brings up this menu, you want Timeline and Tagging:

Photo of Timeline Review 2 — **Timeline and Tagging next.**

3. On the page that comes up, you can adjust everything that pertains to your Timeline; who can post, who can see the posts and whether you can review these things before anyone else sees them.

Photo of Timeline Review 3 — **Spend some time on this menu to fine tune your privacy settings. Do this before you get a surprise post that may affect your life.**

Make sure you enable ‘Review posts before they appear on your timeline’.

4. As with just about everything else on Facebook, there is a disclaimer. Read this carefully:

Photo of Timeline Review 4 — **These settings will keep things off your Timeline but they’re still visible elsewhere. Huh?**

Make sure you’re clear on everything in this friendly message from Facebook. We’re wondering what ‘other places on Facebook’ means.

5. See the setting at the top of the photo above? It reads ‘Who can post on your timeline?’. You’d want that set to Friends, obviously. Once you do that, you’re allowing anyone who is on your friend list to post comments, photos and videos on your timeline. The question we’d ask you is this: “Do you know all of your Facebook friends personally?” If not, you’d better make sure that only you can see the things that are posted.

Photo of Timeline Review 5 — **Make sure that only you can see what your friends post.**

We have ours set to ‘Only Me’. Once we see what has been posted, we can share it or delete it. Read step 7.

6. You can fine tune this setting. It allows you to hide posts from certain groups of friends or open everything up to everyone. To narrow down the visibility of posts, you have to make lists of friends or identify some friends as ‘Close Friends’. Once you set this to Friends or Custom, for instance, you can always go back to your Activity Log and ‘unhide’ some things that you think everyone might like to see.

7. Change the settings of the things that are set to ‘Only Me’ on your Activity Log. Here are your choices:

Photo of Timeline Review 7 — **Allow it, highlight it, delete it, you can even change the date!**

All of these settings should keep you from being surprised the next time you open your Facebook page. You have to realize that your standards of what’s right and what’s offensive are very likely different from some or all of your friends. As you know, these standards vary greatly when alcohol is involved! Make sure you’re protected from ‘NSFW’ (not suitable for work) posts,pics and comments on your Timeline.

Thanks for reading! Why not Like us on Facebook? It’s just a click and we’d really appreciate it: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

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

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

August 14, 2013 Computers Made Simple 1 Comment

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.

Photo of Hide Friend List 1 — **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’.

Photo of Hide Friend List 2 — **Click the pencil.**

Photo of Hide Friend List 3 — **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.

Photo of Hide Friend List 4 — **Lots of choices here. Make your choice carefully.**

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

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?

Photo of Hide Friend List 6 — **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.

Facebook, Facebook page likes, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Facebook Likes

Facebook – Get your Likes back

August 5, 2013 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

Here’s a short post on getting your Facebook Likes back. We’ll show you how to sort out the different sections that appear when someone checks out your profile.

1. Head to your own Timeline and look for the words ‘Update Info’.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 1 — **Click on Update Info.**

2. Once you click Update Info, look over on the right for the icon of a pencil.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 2 — **The word Edit appears when you hover over the icon. Click it.**

3. Even if you don’t want to edit anything, click the icon and you’ll get this menu. Click ‘Edit Sections’ when you see it:

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 3 — **Click Edit Sections.**

4. Up pops a list of all of the sections that you can choose to show or hide. Notice that three sections can’t be hidden: About, Photos and Friends are all permanent. You can, however, hide parts of these sections as we’ve told you before. You can hide your full Friend list, for instance, but you cannot hide any mutual friends that you might have with someone who sees your profile.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 4 — **Pick the ones you want to show or hide.**

5. Finally, don’t forget to click Save to make your changes take effect.

Photo of Get Your Likes Back 5 — **Click Save and you’re done.**

That’s it. Your list will vary from ours, of course. The main sections will be the same but you won’t have Spotify, probably, but you might have ones that are not on our list.

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