Tag Archives: Timeline

Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline, Timeline

Facebook Likes – The Ultimate Guide – Part Two

Leave a comment

Let’s take a look at our Facebook Likes and see what we can do with them. When someone visits you on Facebook, they see your timeline, of course. What we’re going to do is take a look at what they see, not what you see. You can hide things from your friends but you can’t hide things from yourself. (That’s actually quite a pithy statement, isn’t it?)

Tip: To get the most out of our articles, set yourself up with another Facebook account. Do that now. Add yourself as a friend and open the new account in another browser (not the same browser you are using now). Go to your timeline in your new profile where you are a friend and get used to using the refresh button to see what affect the changes you make on your other profile have as your friends see it. You are editing one account in one browser and checking out the results in another account that is open in another browser. Get it? Yes, you can use the ‘view as’ button but that isn’t as fast as using a separate Facebook profile.

Here is a perfect example of what we’re talking about. The first photo is from the original person’s profile. The second one is how a friend sees the same profile. Note that the ‘Likes’ are different.

Photo of likes menu
The two ‘likes’ show in this photo are hidden from everyone but are visible to the profile owner.

 

Photo of Likes menu
Innocuous likes such as Mickey Dolenz and Triumph are fine, right? You may want to hide the fact that you like Andy Williams, however.

 

Now that you can see why it is valuable to have two profiles, let’s get back to work. The next step is to show you the difference between sharing and allowing things to be seen on your timeline. So far, all of this has to do with YOUR stuff and YOUR actions. We’ll get into your various interactions later.

 

Your Facebook timeline is a constantly evolving record of what you do on Facebook. As long as you stick to simply sharing things, you can hide that from others, all or some or none. As we showed you in our last post, you choose whom you want to share your own stuff with. That post is here: Ultimate Guide Part One . Today, we’ll deal with your timeline and show you how to use its edit feature.

There are two ways, at least, to keep things off of your timeline. Let’s deal with your Activity log first. Head to your own timeline, click on your profile pic up on the top right then click on Activity log. The next page that opens is a long list of things you’ve done recently. Each of those things can be edited, depending on what it is. Two more pics will explain this better.

Photo of Activity log
This item is something that someone else posted. Hovering our cursor over the circle icon, we can see that it is allowed on our timeline.

In the photo above, there is a comment on something that was posted on someone’s profile. It is allowed on the timeline. How do we get it off the timeline?

Photo of Activity log 2
Because we commented on someone else’s post, we can ONLY delete the comment. That is the only way to get it off of our timeline.

 

We can only delete the comment. Yes, this is going over the same stuff as our last post but we feel that we have to reinforce this concept. Let’s deal with something that we did. Facebook is more forgiving with things that you post yourself.

 

Photo of a photo
This album is, for now, allowed on the timeline.

 

Photo of another photo
If you click on the circle, you can perform several actions as far as your timeline is concerned.

 

If you put something up on Facebook, you can hide it from your timeline. It sounds simple but we think it gets a bit confusing (and frustrating) for some of you.

 

TIP: When you share something with some of your friends but not all of them, the former can see it on your timeline but the latter can’t. If you hide something from your timeline, you are hiding it from EVERYONE. More on this in the next post.

Thanks for reading!

Facebook, Facebook Tricks

Facebook – Third Party Apps

Leave a comment

The new-ish Facebook Timeline doesn’t seem to be as popular as its originators thought it would be. The latest addition to it, the ‘trending’ section at the top of the news ticker, is upsetting thousands of users. On our own Facebook page, which is available here: https://www.facebook.com/ComputersMadeSimple?ref=hl  , we were asked about removing that item from our Facebook page. We discovered a way of doing it but we don’t recommend using it. Here’s why.

When a site becomes as popular as Facebook has become, many third-party applications pop up around the Internet. A few of these apps are totally safe, others aren’t. The app that will get rid of this particular pest on Facebook isn’t one that we can recommend. Here’s how their site looks:

Photo of a web site
Check for spelling mistakes and bad grammar.

 

What is your first impression? Does it look like a reputable site? We’ve been around the Internet for a long time and sites like this should be avoided, in our opinion. Would you trust your Facebook profile, password and personal information to these folks? We wouldn’t.

The other thing that gives Facebook Purity less of our confidence is the fact that, while it’s been around since 2009, only 70,000 people would be labelled ‘happy users’. Indeed, their own Facebook page has less than 65,000 likes. If this app did what it says it can do, we’d think it would be a lot more popular than this.

The real problem with these third-party apps is that they can change your whole Facebook experience, far beyond what we’d call normal. Facebook itself is blocking the url. Whether this is a legitimate danger or not, that in itself should tell you something about Facebook Purity.

From time to time we’ll look at other apps such as Facebook Purity but, for now, we’d advise you to steer clear of it. We’ve posted many suggestions about how to fix these annoyances on your own without the need of these add-ons. The fewer apps that know your information, the better off you’ll be.

Thanks for reading!

Facebook, Facebook 101, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline, Timeline

Half a solution – deleting a like box, probably forever

8 Comments

We’ve been confronted by a problem this week, a problem that we could duplicate but not solve. One of our readers commented that she was unable to unhide her June like box on Facebook. To get to the root of this problem, we deleted the June box in one of our profiles on Facebook. Lo and behold it’s gone, forever it seems. If we find a way to get it back, you’ll be the first to know. Here’s how we got rid of the box:

1. Head to your timeline and find the box you want to delete. In this case, our June Like box is the target.

Photo of a like box on Facebook
This was our June Like box before we deleted it. No edit button shows at this point.

2. Hover your cursor (mouse) over the top right corner of the box to bring up the edit button giving you a choice of editing or removing the box:

photo of edit button on like box
Hovering your cursor over the top right corner brings up this Edit button.

3. Click on the icon to bring this menu up:

photo of Facebook box edit menu
The choices for this box are to simply hide it from the timeline.

4. You would think that if you can hide the box from the timeline, you’d be able to unhide it, right? Well, we can’t. We also hid another box and lost it too. If you don’t refresh your page, you can undo the hide but once you refresh the page, it’s gone forever…we think.

photo of hidden box
It’s gone! We’re looking for it. If we find it, we’ll let you know.

5. Once we refreshed the page, not only were the two likes gone, the whole damn box was gone!

Facebook is chock full of mysteries and confusion sometimes, isn’t it? But it’s fun to try and unravel these mysteries. We often wonder if the people who created this mess will ever be able to simplify it or, perhaps, they don’t want to. The more confusing the interface is, the less chance that someone will be able to dodge Facebook’s ads and their various invasions of our privacy. The less people hide, the more money Facebook makes, right? You might want to think about that before you dive into it.

Thanks for reading!

 

Computers, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline, Timeline

Why is Facebook hiding its Timeline Help Page?

8 Comments

As I was researching a post on hiding your likes from the new-ish Facebook Timeline, I came across a little Facebook secret. It’s a bit like an Easter Egg but it’s not totally hidden. You can see it but just for a fraction of a second. As of this moment on May 11, 2012, the link is just a flash on the screen. Lucky for our readers, my hand is about as quick as my eye. Here are the steps to see the secret link that Facebook, for some reason, wants to keep hidden from its users:

1. Go to Account Settings (top right, click the down arrow to the right of Home and choose Account Settings).

2. Click the Edit your Timeline on the left side of the screen, at the very bottom of the left column. Here is what you are looking for:

Click on 'your Timeline' to edit your preferences.
Click on 'your Timeline' to edit your preferences.

3. Close the default open Basic Info box by clicking cancel or Save, if everything there is as you want it.

4. Click on the down arrow to the right of the word About and choose Timeline, as shown here:

Click the Timeline to edit it
Click the word Timeline to edit your preferences.

5. You’re almost there. Click on the words ‘Activity log’. Watch the top of the next page very carefully. As the page is loading, you will see the following link appear then disappear: 

Watch for this hidden link as the page loads.
This line appears only for a fraction of a second before it disappears.

6. Depending on your Internet connection, the time that this menu appears may vary. If you’re lucky, or quick, you can click on the words ‘Learn More’ and find information about how to edit your own Timeline to share or not share some items. In case you are slow, here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/help/activitylog

7. As you click your way through the following menu, the hidden link will appear for a very short time then disappear. Here is the menu which shows the link:

Edit your timeline choices on this menu.
Here is everything you can share on Facebook. Edit each one to your preferences.

 

While this may be a glitch in the Facebook page coding system, I have used three browsers in researching this anomaly and each one has shown the link for only a fraction of a second.

 

Why would Facebook hide this link from its users? As I said, it’s either a glitch or it’s done on purpose. If it is done on purpose, then it might be because editing your shares, likes, subscriptions, Etc., defeats the purpose of Facebook. Facebook is all about sharing, right? If you can hide some or all of the things you interact with, what fun would Facebook be? Well, that’s their own point of view, perhaps, but we all know that Facebook wants to know EVERYTHING about you. First, they make it tough to find this activity page, and second, they only display the link to their own help page for an extremely short time.   This virtually insures that it’s all out there, everything you do while you’re on Facebook. Well, thanks to Computers Made Simple, you can take control of your own timeline, no matter how hard Facebook tries to make it.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Facebook, Facebook Tricks, Timeline

How to Hide Your Likes in Facebook Timeline

60 Comments

PLEASE NOTE: This method is no longer valid. Please take the link to our latest update on this topic. Facebook has changed their Timeline editing system. Here is the link: 

Hiding Likes on Facebook – it’s back! 

I like many diverse things on Facebook, some of which wouldn’t fit in with some of my friend’s sensibilities. There is no reason why everything I like has to be open for my friends to see. Here’s how to hide these likes from your friends.

TIP:  This only applies to the new Timeline feature of Facebook. If you’re still on the old Facebook interface, this doesn’t apply to you.

Step One: Navigate to your own profile. Simply click on your name up on the top of your browser window, right beside the little icon which is your profile pic.

Step Two: On the far right of the word Home , you’ll see an arrow pointing down. Click it and you’ll see Account Settings. Click Account Settings to bring up General Account Settings. Basically, that’s your name, your username, email etc.

Step Three: On the left side, under the word facebook , you’ll see the words General, Security, Notifications, Apps, Mobile, Payments and Facebook Ads. Go through each of them, if you want, but what we are looking for now is the little blurb at the bottom. This is what it looks like:

Here is how you edit your timeline.
Click on ‘edit your timeline’ to bring up an editable version of your timeline.

Step Four: Click the word timeline to bring up a non-graphical version of everything on your timeline. Again, you can view these settings page by page. The initial one is  About you. You can edit and show/hide any portion of your information. How? Look for this icon:

The timeline edit menu
Click on the ‘world’ icon to change your settings.

Your icon, if you haven’t set it already, will be the globe one. Mine is the two headed friends icon. Here is where you decide what to hide from the public, from your friends or, by using the custom setting, some of your friends.

Step Five: Right beside your name on the upper left, where it says About now, click on the little down arrow to show this menu:

Different things to edit
This is where you choose what to edit.

What we’re doing now is editing the Likes part of your timeline so click it. Adjust the others according to your personal tastes.

Step Six: Once you click Likes, you’ll be presented with a rather blank page, depending on how much you like . The next step involves a hover button. A hover button is hidden unless you hover your mouse over it. Move your mouse around the Favorites section. It’s all white and you’re looking up on the top right. This is how it looks:

The hover button for Editing your Likes.
Hover your mouse in the white area to bring up the edit button.

Click the Edit button to, finally, edit your likes.

Step Seven: You’re almost there, don’t get discouraged. Clicking on the edit button in the previous step brings up an editable page for all of your likes. Clicking on the down arrow to the right of the globe icon, you can hide some, all or none of them. Down near the bottom is the  Other Pages You Like section. This is how it looks:

Edit your 'like pages' here
I’ve hidden my pages likes so only I can see them.

You’ll recognize the icon of the globe just to the right of the Other Pages You Like words. This is how you can adjust your settings according to your tastes. As you can see, I hid my page likes from everyone, except myself, of course. You can fine tune this setting to eliminate a few of your friends, too, by setting things up in the Custom section that you see fourth from the top.

There isn’t any reason that I can see to share all of the pages that I like. My tastes aren’t totally diverse from the norm but maybe I’m a rock musician and I happen to like Celine Dion’s Facebook page. How would that go over? I’m sure you can see why someone would want to cover up some of their likes. Now you know how to do it!

Thanks for reading. Questions and comments are welcome.