The Unsubscribe Message Being Sent Around on Facebook

September 25, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Facebook 

I have had multiple friends post on their Facebook status’ about the “Uncheck Comments and Likes” link.  I’m sure you have too.  Due to the new Facebook update, you too have likely noticed the ticker on the upper right hand side that shows the activities of your friends on other people’s pages.  This might send a few chills up your spine because if you’re able to see this information about your friends, it’s likely they’re seeing yours also.  So here’s what it is and how to fix it.

The Facebook status updates that you may have been seeing might differ from the one below but here’s what one of them says:

Do me a favor: please hover over my name here, wait for the box to load and then hover over the “Subscribe” link. Then uncheck the “Comments and likes” choice. I would rather my comments on friends’ posts not be made public. Thanks** Then repost if you don’t want your EVERY MOVE posted on the right for everyone to see!

Unfortunately, this is erroneous information.  Because this message has been passed around so often, Facebook has added some information to their help page.  For the record, the information that you see on the upper right hand side of your page is called the “Ticker” and the explanation from Facebook is this:

To control stories about your commenting activity in ticker and News Feed, always check who can see the privacy of the posts you’re commenting on.  

When you follow the instructions by your friend, all that this does is stop their comments and likes from showing up in your Ticker or News Feed.

This also means that unsubscribing from a friends “comments and likes” in your News Feed does not have any impact on whether your friends see it when you comment on or like their posts.

Now the best way to fix this is to update your Privacy Settings and Read the information from Facebook about “How Sharing Works Now“.

Here’s what they say in a nutshell:

Whenever you make a post in Facebook, you have a few sharing options.

  1. Let’s you tag who you’re with.
  2. Let’s you say where you are.
  3. Most importantly, the privacy settings.
When you make a post, it’s important that you choose who you are sharing it with.  If you make it public then everyone, anywhere will be able to see that post. 
In order to make your post only available to certain people, you need to choose the drop-down selector and then choose from the following:
All that said, Facebook did mention in their information about the Ticker this:
If you aren’t comfortable with who can see the post, please don’t comment on it or like it.  If you do, a story about your activity will be eligible to appear on Facebook including on your timeline (profile), in News Feed and in ticker.
Mari Smith said it best when she stated:
In any case, I’m of the opinion that to be uber safe, just do not post anything online/on Facebook even under privacy settings that you wouldn’t want all over the web. I know that’s tricky to do for most folks. My favorite feature on Facebook for more private content and conversation is Secret Groups. I have one for several masterminds and for my family.
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Google Hangouts and Video Conferencing

September 22, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Google, GooglePlus 

With Google+ now open to everyone (over 18 that is), you might be wondering just exactly how to use some of the features that are available to you.

Today we’re going to talk about Google Hangouts – which is also sometimes referred to as “video conferencing”; either way, they’re used for the same purpose; to connect with someone in real-time in order to share ideas, content, opinions and more.

Here’s how it works:

Once you’ve created your own Google+ account, you’ll want to navigate to the “Home” icon:

 

Once you’re there, look on the right-hand side of the page for this:

Next, you’ll need to choose which of your circles you want to start a hangout with.

You can also choose to “Hangout” with just one person; it doesn’t have to be an entire circle of people.

At the very bottom of this hangout screen are a few features…

As you can see, you can mute the video, mute your mic, adjust some settings, and exit out of the program.  Since most of these are self-explanatory, let’s take a look at the settings:

The program will run you through a few questions such as “can you see yourself?”, “when you talk, can you hear yourself?”, etc.

You can also adjust what camera to use, the microphone that you want to use, and the speakers you want to use.

Also, notice at the bottom, there is a checkbox that says “Report quality statistics to help improve voice and video chat.”  If you are uncomfortable sharing these things, uncheck the box.

Finally, click “Save”.  When you’re ready click the “Hang Out” button.

Now, for those of you who want to use Google Hangouts for Video Conferencing, Google has introduced enhanced Google Hangouts.  You can get to the enhanced version by clicking the following link on your Hangout screen:

After clicking on this link, here’s what you’ll see:

If you’ll notice, Google has a message at the top which states that these are “sneak previews” of new Hangouts features and that they’re only for a limited time.  If you love it, be sure to let them know so that it has more of an opportunity to stick around for awhile.

Notice how with these extras you can name a hangout,  share notes and a sketchpad (perfect for meetings), integrate Google docs, and even share your screen with someone.

All in all, Google Hangouts is pretty simple to use but the options that you can use it for are almost limitless!  Imagine having a chat with a friend who is a country away instantly or holding an online meeting where you don’t need to use any expensive hardware.  It’s one of the neatest things that Google+ has available to you and I’m sure it’s only going to get better!

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