The Comprehensive Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings

The first thing you have to realize about Facebook: Nothing you put there is truly private. Yes, you can control how users see or don’t see your profile. But every time you like a product or even look at a page, the company itself is taking note. This doesn’t mean that some day Facebook will malevolently release your every click to the world. But it does mean that Facebook is not your private diary, and what you do on the website gets collected and catalogued. That's worth keeping in mind whenever you use the service. That said, Facebook is a great way to stay in touch and share small and big moments with family, friends and assorted other connections. The key is making sure you’re presenting the most appropriate profile possible to each friend. So let’s go over the various settings you can change to ensure pictures of your wacky jaunt to Vegas don’t end up at the top of your boss's news feed. Since Facebook tends to opt you in automatically to sharing information as new features are released, it's a good idea to check your privacy settings every few months to maintain the level of transparency you want.
The following information was updated on March 12, 2014.

 

Check your current basic privacy settings

When you log in to Facebook, in the top right corner are two different ways to access your privacy settings. Clicking the lock icon opens a drop-down menu that shows Privacy Shortcuts. From here, you can make a few key changes to your settings.

Who can see my stuff?

In this section, you get three settings to control how your posts are seen on the site and by whom.
Who can see my future posts?
Your options here are Public, Friends, Only Me and Custom. What you set this to becomes the default sharing setting for all your future posts. It does not affect anything you've previously posted.
We recommend you set this to Friends. If in the future you want to post something that you don't want all your friends to see, you can change this setting right in the post box. No need to come back to this default setting for one post.
You can also group your Facebook Friends in lists and restrict your posts to those lists. Use the Custom option for that.
Only set posts to Public that you are very sure you want out on the Internet forever. Public posts will be captured by Google and other web indexing services and made available to the world for all to see.
Where do I review who can see or find things I've posted or been tagged in?
This will take you to the Activity Log page. Here you can look at every post you've written, every photo you've uploaded, every friend's post you've liked and more. Basically, everything you've done on Facebook or been tagged as doing by others will show up here.
As you go down the list, you can un-like posts you don't want to be associated with, take yourself off tagged photos and even see posts you've hidden from your personal timeline.
You can also change who can see your posts and photos (i.e. custom setting) on an individual basis. And for your friend's posts you've liked and commented on, you can see the privacy settings on those. Didn't know that post you commented on was set to Public? You do now.
What do other people see on my timeline?
This will take you to a page where you can view your timeline the way others see it, even the public. You won't see much difference in your timeline view if you choose to see what it shows to different friends. This is mostly if you have set certain posts to be restricted (or thought you had).
One thing that is of interest is what is public — for example, the header picture you set to be at the top of your timeline. That's right: If it's a picture of your kids, that is public.

Who can contact me?

People who are not your Facebook friends can still send you messages. This is where you can change that.
Whose messages do I want filtered into my Inbox?
It comes as a surprise to many people that they have a Facebook inbox. It's hidden down in a few menus. First, click on Messages on the left column of your Facebook home page under your name and profile picture. On the Messages page that then appears, click on the downward arrow next to the word More and choose Unread. You will now see the messages you never knew you had.
You have two choices for filtering what messages get to you: Basic (loosely defined as "people you may know") and Strict. What this boils down to is do you want messages from people who are friends of friends or not at all? Basic is more lenient with allowing emails; Strict is not.
Who can send me friend requests?
The default here is Everyone, because Facebook wants your network of social interactions to grow. But if you want to limit requests, you can always change it to only allow Friends of friends to send you requests.

How do I stop someone from bothering me?

This one is simple. Just enter in the name of the person or their email. Facebook will unfriend them for you, stop them from starting a new conversation with you and prevent them from seeing any of your posts.
Facebook doesn't like you to unfriend other users, and it provides a few alternate courses of action including messaging the friend to let them know they are bothering you as well as instructions on how to hide someone's updates from your news feed without unfriending them.
If you later change your mind, click on the View All Blocked Users to see who you have blocked, and unblock them. You will have to wait 48 hours to reblock them again.

 

Advanced settings

Now that we've covered the basics of privacy settings, we can dive into a few more options that will make your Facebook experience more pleasant.

Customize all your timeline settings.

Now that you've mastered the basics, go down to the next section, Timeline and Tagging. From there, you can control exactly who sees what on your timeline, who can post to your timeline, and who can tag you in photos and posts. To check how people see your timeline, you can type any user’s name into View As. It’s a quick way to double-check that your boss doesn’t see your vacation pictures.
To customize your timeline settings, click on the button in the far right corner to reveal a drop-down menu and select Privacy Settings.
Who can post on your timeline?
It's set by default to Friends, and the only other option is to allow only yourself to post on your timeline. This gives you the most control over what appears on your timeline.
Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your Timeline.
If you are concerned about getting tagged in a photo that you don't want all your friends on Facebook to see, this is the setting for you. Once enabled, you'll have to manually approve any photo or posts you are tagged in before they appear on your timeline. Note that this only affects timeline; those updates will still appear in searches, the news feed and other places unless you un-tag yourself.
Review what other people see on your timeline.
As we mentioned above, it's a perfect way to check that your mother or boss won't see what you don't want them to.
Who can see posts you've been tagged in on your timeline? & Who can see what others post on your timeline?
These areas give you a great deal of flexibility, with options ranging from Everyone to Friends of Friends to custom lists. Using these two in conjunction with manually approving what photos and updates you've been tagged in goes a long way to keep prying eyes away from more sensitive Facebook updates.
Review tags people add to your own posts before the tags appear on Facebook.
This is an important option if you are concerned about a photo popping up on your timeline. This applies only to photo tagging by your Facebook friends. You'll always be notified if someone who's not your friend tags you in a photo.
When you're tagged in a post, who do you want to add to the audience if they weren't already in it?
This one sounds more complicated than it is. Often a Facebook friend of yours will make a post and tag you in it. The option here allows all of your Facebook friends to see an update or photo you've been tagged in by someone they aren't friends with themselves (the Friends of Friends function).
You can choose to remain tagged but have none of your other Facebook friends see that update, limit who sees that update to certain groups of friends, or you can outright block certain Facebook friends altogether by using the Custom option.
Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are updated?
Facebook uses face-matching technology to suggest who you should tag in photos. It will only suggest people that are on the user's friends list. If you don't want to show up as an option when your friends are tagging photos, set this to No One.

 

Blocking

If you want to take steps to keep people away from your profile, this is the section for you.

Restricted list

If you don’t want to un-friend somebody but you don’t want them to see all of your information, you can add them to the Restricted List. This means they can only see your public information, but they have no way of knowing you’ve limited their view (unless they happen to see someone who isn’t restricted browsing your profile — but that’s probably not going to happen).

Block users

You can also just straight up block somebody. This means this person cannot be your friend. This is an excellent setting if you have stalkers or other people consistently bothering you. Note that this does not stop them from interacting with you in apps, games or groups you're both a part of.

Block app invites

In addition to blocking and restricting people from your profile, you can also block app invitations on a user-by-user basis. So if your Aunt Jackie keeps bombarding you with FarmVille apps, you know what to do.

Block event invites

Tired of your nephew inviting you to his New York City raves every weekend? Typing the name of the Facebook user into this section will stop you from seeing any future event invites from that person.

Block apps

Some apps and Facebook games are great fun at first, but after a while, you want to drop them. You can remove the app or game (see the Apps you use section, below) or block the app, which means it can no longer contact you or get non-public information about you through Facebook. If you are getting emails from the app, you will have to use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

 

Customize your app privacy

After you finish adjusting the blocking section, click over to the App Settings section. It’s not quite as obvious as changing your timeline settings, but apps often gain a lot of access to your information, and they can do things you might not want them to: collect data about your location, post on your timeline and more.

Apps you use

Click Edit next to a listed app to gain all sorts of controls, including who can see that you are using the app to removing the app altogether. If you want to remove an app, click on the X to the right of the Edit button.

Apps others use

This is where you can control what apps find out about you when you are the friend of the person using the app. Choose exactly what information apps can pull from your profile in 17 different categories.

Instant personalization

Facebook provides profile information about you to outside sites to "personalize your experience." That's Facebook code-speak for looking at your profile to deliver ads and content the company believes you'll be more interested in. Sites listed include Bing, Yelp, Zynga and others.
If you don't want these outside sites to pull your profile Facebook, click the checkbox in this section. You'll get two warnings before it actually happens, so be sure to click through all boxes.

Old versions of Facebook for mobile

If you use an older version of Facebook mobile (such as outdated versions of Facebook for Blackberry), you won't be able to select who can see your updates when posting from that app. You can set it here instead.

 

Customize your ad settings

Facebook is now a pervasive marketing and advertising tool, and all sorts of businesses want access to your preferences so they can better target you. It’s kind of impossible to use Facebook without leaving some sort of trail of breadcrumbs for advertisers, but you can reduce this in a couple of ways.
First, go to your Ad Settings, located right under App Settings. If you don’t want Facebook to use your preferences in ads, click on the Edit button on the right of the Ads & Friends and Third Party Sites and then change those settings to No One. That means your name won’t get used in an ad for something that you’ve liked. However, this won't prevent sponsored posts from companies you've liked — those items that appear in the news feed, not ads — from being sent with your name. And you'll still receive sponsored posts from companies your friends have liked.
If looking at targeted ads gives you the heebie-jeebies, you can dial down the frequency of the ads by manually hiding stories by each company that targets you. It’s a cumbersome task, but it allows you to get rid of ads that are particularly annoying. You can do this by clicking the small X in the upper right corner of an ad.
Taking these steps will help you control who sees your Facebook page, but you should check every so often to make sure your privacy settings have remained the same.
Still have questions? Leave them in the comments below, and we'll see what we can do to find answers for you.

Nobody is immune.

I've been tied up with google over a deleted (I did it on purpose) post with 2 photos, also deleted. They are however searchable by google because I used his full name.

 Problem is the post was about my grandson (a minor). He did like the post, and even showed it to friends. But was upset that friends could google his name and see any picture of him at all.

Still fighting this battle. Hope it isn't going to take a lawyer.

Plus it took several hours to remove the conduit search from my browsers. It was a hitchhiker on a harmless file from my trusted (NEVER AGAIN) download site ' download.cnet.com  '. I got sloppy and didn't pay attention to the installation. 

I had to uninstall the files then track down all instances of files for conduit which included in the common files, app data, roaming local and local low. with that cleared I got Hijackthis from Sourceforge.com and was able to isolate the bad registry entries and delete them.

Happy to say I'm now back in control of my browsers.

disposable?

Too lazy to redo the post here.

 

Apparently people can afford to throw away money.

This is about a PC someone threw out that, with a little elbow grease to clean it, is better than new because I upgraded it.

one mans trash

4 Signs You Love Your Tech Too Much

 

There's a fine line between loving your tech and loving your tech too much.

After much consideration, I've realized that I fall on the wrong side of the line between tech sanity and tech obsession. I definitely love tech too much. Do you? Here are four warning signs to look out for.

You check your phone in bed

Like most people, when I first wake up in the morning I stretch a bit, get out of bed, brush my teeth, and turn on my coffee maker. Of course, before I do any of that, I use my smartphone. Priorities. And I’m not the only one who does it either: A recent ten-city survey of mobile phone users found that 84% of Americans check a smartphone app first thing in the morning when we wake up.

Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay connected. But researchers at the Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute warn that bright displays from tablets and phones is linked with increased risk for sleep disorders and melatonin suppression. Other scientists warn that using your phone, even just to check emails, can boost stress levels – something you don’t want to do in an environment dedicated to rest and relaxation.

So, as tempting as it may be to check your phone in bed, try to hold off. You’ll sleep better.

Come on, you're sitting right next to each other. Put down
your smartphones and talk to each other already!

From the other side of the couch, with love

From my younger cousins to my aging parents, everyone in my family has embraced text messaging. Sure, we could call each other on the phone, but texting seems simpler and less intrusive. Who has time for conversations these days?

That’s all well and good, but here’s where my tech obsession spills into social dysfunction: I’ve started to text people, even when I’m in the same room as them. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s becoming a natural habit. And that’s bad news – a recent Brigham Young University study shows that increased texting may ruin relationships.

So if you find yourself texting someone who’s sitting a few feet next to you on the couch, turn your phone off and start a real conversation. Your relationship will be better for it.

You genuinely fear being without it

I keep telling myself that I’m not addicted to my smartphone. I can quit using it at any time. But the moment I leave home for a quick errand and realize I left my phone at home, I go through a panicked withdrawal.

Believe it or not, there’s a word for this: Nomophobia, the fear of being without your mobile phone. According to a U.K. study, over half of us feel anxiety when we forget our smartphones or start running out of battery life. And in many cases, the level of stress caused by nomophobia rivals that of getting the drill at the dentist.

You keep watch over a tech graveyard

Open your right desk drawer. Now open the left. Are either filled to the brim with old, outdated tech devices like clamshell phones, beepers and digital cameras that record directly to floppy disk? If so, you’re probably an collector. (It’s okay – there’s a tech graveyard in my house too.)

People joke about tech devices practically being obsolete by the moment you cut the shrink wrap off the box. But that’s not quite true – even older devices like the iPhone 4 still have a surprising amount value to the right people. You can make a ton of extra cash by trading-in your gently used tech.

Can’t bear to part with that old smartphone you’re not using, even though you know could get some real cash for it? Then you definitely love tech too much, you collector, you. Either that, or you’re a hoarder.

How to Increase Lifespan of Laptop/Desktop

     Why do computers get slow or create problems over time? After all, it is a machine and should be like iron. But remember, even iron rusts when kept in humid atmosphere. It is all about keeping your machines – anything from computers to phones to cars – well maintained and cared for from time to time - just as you would care for your own baby. And for most of us here, our gadgets are more like our babies, aren’t they?

     All machines, including computers & laptops, have a time-period or lifespan as they call it. If you use it roughly, it will fall sick, work improperly and eventually die. If you handle it with care, show some love, it will keep on performing as new for a longer tenure and not only that, you will also end up extending the battery life of the laptop.

     Any electronic machine is composed of many parts and each part plays a role in the overall aging of the machine. For example, you have the motherboard, circuit joints, RAM, CPU, Hard Disks, and peripherals to name a few. I will provide a few tips on maintaining your computer.

Computer Maintenance Tips

     If you are using the Windows Operating System, you can reduce the wear and tear of your essential computer components significantly while enhancing battery life at the same time. The Power Options in Windows help you manage not only power consumption but also helps you in preventing wear and tear of computer components such as monitor, hard disks, RAM and the CPU. All you need to do is to get into a little details instead of just selecting from the given powerplans. Here is an article on the pro’s and con’s of different power plans in Windows by default.

     There is much more to the Power Options in Windows than is visible in the Control Panel. Navigate to Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Power Options > Edit Plan Settings (Click any of the two listed). You will get a link below the usual Turn off Monitor etc. The link you need to click is labeled Change Advanced Power Settings.

Tweak Power Options

     The following computer maintenance tips will help you in two ways: a) They help in enhancing battery life and b) They help in keeping your computer working as new for a longer period.

     The above image of Change Advanced Power Settings Dialog Box shows you what you can do for enhancing battery life while at the same time, speeding up your computer. Once you are on the Advanced Properties dialog box, you just need to change settings under two sections: a) Hard Disks, and b) Sleep Settings.

     Most of us set up the computer to sleep for the whole night. I do not recommend this for two reasons. First and foremost is that you never know if a storm drops by and sends heavy voltage to ruin your computer if you are sleeping. You may be using ’fuse’ but then, the voltage can also pass through the Ethernet cable or phone cable.

     The second reason is related to enhancing the lifespan of computer and to keep it new for a longer period. Since now we know that screensavers do not save any energy, it is better to turn off the monitor or screen after 5 minutes of inactivity. Gone are the days when monitors needed high voltage to start-up. This, while saving battery, gives some rest to the monitor or screen as well.

     Likewise, if you are away from the computer for, say 15 minutes, why keep other components running? Put it to sleep either manually, while leaving the machine or set up the power plan to put the computer to sleep after 15 minutes. Many other devices – including audio peripherals – get rest that way. And if you are not sure if you would return early, set it to hibernate after 30 minutes or so. That way, it will store RAM contents to Hard Disk and shut down.

     This means all your computer components are getting rest until you come back and press the power button. You won’t lose any data as it was written to hard disk before computer hibernated. For those who don’t know the difference, unlike shutdown and restart, hibernate resumes from where you left it. That not only saves power but also gives rest to components when you are not using it.

Tips To Increase Lifespan of Laptop

     Here are four images I created for demonstration purpose. I have used CCleaner for two of the tasks. You can use any similar program. The bottom-line is, if you want to increase the life of your computer, you need to perform these tasks on a regular basis as mentioned in the images.

 CCleaner is a free app  http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

  always back it up. you can delete the backup once you are sure it has no effect
on programs you are using.

 there are several really good defrag programs with free versions.
I like http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-Disk-Defrag/3000-2094_4-10567503.html

 Don't forget to clean all fans (ie. power supply, graphics card and especially the CPU fan.

Dust and other contaminates are the major computer killers.

     The above tasks do not require any special type of training. You may easily get a video demo on YouTube regarding how to clean the motherboard and RAM slots - just in case you are skeptical about opening up the computer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

I have watched our country go down the drain since the "Camelot Days"

(AKA J F Kennedy administration) 

I am an Indepentant and go with the candidate I hope

 will do the most good for our country.

THIS IS NOT POLITICAL.

It's common sense. I am an employer, you the employee. 

(setting the stage)

Government says I must increase your wages.

I do.

And so do my suppliers (the farmer, factory worker, the trucker,etc)

Cost of gas rises to pay their workers.

Now to pay you, I have to charge more for my product (service)

Who pays for this increase?

You and I both do.

What have we gained? 

 

 

Just a dog chasing our own tail.

Our government is doing the same.

Raising the debt ceiling means we all have to pay more..

It's time to say 

STOP.

This is total insanity!

Am I missing something?

Windows Temporary Files

5

We have already seen the nature of some temporary files like Temporary Internet Files, Index.dat file, Cookies and Prefetch Files. In this article we shall have a look at a few aspects of the Windows Temporary Files, which your computer creates, during the course of its normal running.

Windows Temporary Files

What are Temporary Files in Windows

Temporary Files in Windows are those files whose use is only temporary and become redundant once the task in hand is completed. Such temporary file are created to hold data temporarily while a file is being created or processed or used.

Why are Temporary Files created

Windows Temporary files are created by the operating system during the normal course of its running when there may not be enough memory allocated for the task.

Software which use large amounts of data like Graphics, Video or Media editing software also create temporary files. Such created temporary files are more often than not, left behind even when the task is over, leading to their wasting disk space.

Temporary Files are also created for backup purposes, by programs. For instance, Microsoft Office saves a Temporary File of the open document every few minutes. If you save the document and exit, the Temporary File gets deleted. If the program crashes unexpectedly, the Temporary File is not deleted. They can thus be useful to help recover lost data if the program or the system crashes.

Ideally, the Temporary Files should get deleted once the program exits. But this is not always the case, leading to wasted disk space.

Temporary Files Location

The Temporary Files in Windows are typically found located in two locations:

• %systemdrive%\Windows\Temp
• %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp

If you click on C:\Windows\Temp you will receive a message You don’t currently have permission to access this folder. Click on Continue to do so. You will see that most of its contents are .tmp, .temp and .txt files.

The other folder typically located at C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp, is created for each User. It’s a hidden folder and you will have to first ‘un-hide’ System folders from the Folder Options before you can see it.

The Temporary files created by the Windows operating system are usually stored in the %system%\Windows\Temp folder, whereas the one’s created by the User when running any software is stored in his user profile at %userprofiles%\AppData\Local\.

Temporary Files of a particular software may also be located in a sub-folder, inside the parent folder of the particular software.

On rare occasions, a temporary file or a temporary files folder may get created into the root directory of the C (System) drive. You may want to examine the folder in details, and then delete it if you are sure, if it indeed contains temporary files.

Change location of the Temp folder

If you wish, you can change the location of the Temporary Files folder. To do so, open System Properties via the Control Panel > Environment Variables > Edit the System and/or the User variables as you wish.

But do remember that it is never a good idea to combine the temporary directories together for all the user profiles, forsecurity reasons, since there have been cases of security vulnerabilities with temporary files, due to a particular software’s incorrect file permissions or race conditions.

Empty Temporary Files folder

You can use freeware junk files cleaners like CCleaner,  Quick Clean or the in-built Disk Cleanup utility to easily empty the contents of the Temp folders.

Planning to empty the contents of your Windows Installer Folder or WinSxS directory due to its sheer large size!? Think again! These are needed files for windows to work.