The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now

In December, Facebook made a series of bold and controversial changes regarding the nature of its users' privacy on the social networking site. The company once known for protecting privacy to the point of exclusivity (it began its days as a network for college kids only – no one else even had access), now seemingly wants to compete with more open social networks like the microblogging media darling Twitter.

Those of you who edited your privacy settings prior to December's change have nothing to worry about – that is, assuming you elected to keep your personalized settings when prompted by Facebook's “transition tool.” The tool, a dialog box explaining the changes, appeared at the top of Facebook homepages this past month with its own selection of recommended settings. Unfortunately, most Facebook users likely opted for the recommended settings without really understanding what they were agreeing to. If you did so, you may now be surprised to find that you inadvertently gave Facebook the right to publicize your private information including status updates, photos, and shared links.

Want to change things back? Read on to find out how.

1. Who Can See The Things You Share (Status Updates, Photo, Videos, etc.)

Probably the most critical of the “privacy” changes (yes, we mean those quotes sarcastically) was the change made to status updates. Although there’s now a button beneath the status update field that lets you select who can view any particular update, the new Facebook default for this setting is “Everyone.” And by everyone, they meaneveryone.

If you accepted the new recommended settings then you voluntarily gave Facebook the right to share the information about the items you post with any user or application on the site. Depending on your search settings, you may have also given Facebook the right to share that information with search engines, too.

To change this setting back to something of a more private nature, do the following:

1. From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices on the next page.
3. Scroll down to the setting “Posts by Me.” This encompasses anything you post, including status updates, links, notes, photos, and videos.
4. Change this setting using the drop-down box on the right. We recommend the “Only Friends” setting to ensure that only those people you’ve specifically added as a friend on the network can see the things you post.

2. Who Can See Your Personal Info

Facebook has a section of your profile called “personal info,” but it only includes your interests, activities, and favorites. Other arguably more personal information is not encompassed by the “personal info” setting on Facebook’s Privacy Settings page. That other information includes things like your birthday, your religious and political views, and your relationship status.

After last month’s privacy changes, Facebook set the new defaults for this other information to viewable by either “Everyone” (for family and relationships, aka relationship status) or to “Friends of Friends” (birthday, religious and political views). Depending on your own preferences, you can update each of these fields as you see fit. However, we would bet that many will want to set these to “Only Friends” as well. To do so:

1. From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices on the next page.
3. The third, fourth, and fifth item listed on this page are as follows: “birthday,” “religious and political views,” and “family and relationship.” Locking down birthday to “Only Friends” is wise here, especially considering information such as this is often used in identity theft.
4. Depending on your own personal preferences, you may or may not feel comfortable sharing your relationship status and religious and political views with complete strangers. And keep in mind, any setting besides “Only Friends” is just that – a stranger. While “Friends of Friends” sounds innocuous enough, it refers to everyone your friends have added as friends, a large group containing hundreds if not thousands of people you don’t know. All it takes is one less-than-selective friend in your network to give an unsavory person access to this information.

3. What Google Can See – Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines

When you visit Facebook’s Search Settings page, a warning message pops up. Apparently, Facebook wants to clear the air about what info is being indexed by Google. The message reads:

There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.

While that may be true to a point, the second setting listed on this Search Settings page refers to exactly what you’re allowing Google to index. If the box next to “Allow” is checked, you’re giving search engines the ability to access and index any information you’ve marked as visible by “Everyone.” As you can see from the settings discussed above, if you had not made some changes to certain fields, you would be sharing quite a bit with the search engines…probably more information than you were comfortable with. To keep your data private and out of the search engines, do the following:

1. From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Click “Search” from the list of choices on the next page.
3. Click “Close” on the pop-up message that appears.
4. On this page, uncheck the box labeled “Allow” next to the second setting “Public Search Results.” That keeps all your publicly shared information (items set to viewable by “Everyone”) out of the search engines. If you want to see what the end result looks like, click the “see preview” link in blue underneath this setting.

Take 5 Minutes to Protect Your Privacy

While these three settings are, in our opinion, the most critical, they’re by no means the only privacy settings worth a look. In a previous article (written prior to December’s changes, so now out-of-date), we also looked at things like who can find you via Facebook’s own search, application security, and more.

While you may think these sorts of items aren’t worth your time now, the next time you lose out on a job because the HR manager viewed your questionable Facebook photos or saw something inappropriate a friend posted on your wall, you may have second thoughts. But why wait until something bad happens before you address the issue?

Considering that Facebook itself is no longer looking out for you, it’s time to be proactive about things and look out for yourself instead. Taking a few minutes to run through allthe available privacy settings and educating yourself on what they mean could mean the world of difference to you at some later point…That is, unless you agree with Facebook in thinking that the world is becoming more open and therefore you should too.

via The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now – NYTimes.com.

Well, it seems like book publishers are following the fool.  Ever since the iPad was announced, the publishers have been pushing Amazon (and succeeding) to raise their standard e-book price from $9.99 to $14.99 and up. Their reasoning is that an e-book is going to cannibalize their hard back sales and the price needs to be higher.  What these older crudgedy CEOs fail to see is that if you price your product right, your sales will go higher because you are reaching a larger audience that won’t pay 20 bucks for a book, but would pay 10 bucks.  The e-book market is in its infancy.  If it picks up, you most likely will see the same type of piracy that you see with music and movies.  So why start down the same path that the music companies have?  I guess they just want to deal with the same pain and suffering that the music companies dealt with.

Random Thoughts for the Day:

1.    I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2.   Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

3.   I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

4.   There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5.   How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6.   Was learning cursive really necessary?

7.   Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5.  I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8.   Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9.   I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

10.   Bad decisions make good stories.

11.   You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day..

12.   Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray?   I don’t want to have to restart my collection…again.

13.   I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14   “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this — ever.

15.   I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dangit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16.   I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17.   I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18.   My 4-year old grandson asked me in the car the other day “Grandpa, what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the heck do I respond to that?

19.   I think the freezer deserves a light as well…

20.   I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

see more Epic Fails

All of you know how bad the economy is. Though they aren’t calling this a “Great Depression”, they have termed it the “Great Recession”. The State of Virginia has been hit harder than some states due to their heavy reliance on real estate taxes, and a free spending ex-Governor. Over the next two years we are looking at another 4 billion dollar deficit. We’ve already patched holes of 2 billion, and 1.6 billion respectively, so trying to cut another 4 billion is not going to be easy. The State has made major cuts in it’s departments, and their state colleges and universities. Seeing 1st hand (I work in higher-ed) what these cuts can do, I was hoping that 2010 would get our economy on an upswing and slow the losses down. I don’t think the state universities can take much more, but Virginia is proposing a new law (the 1st of its kind) that will allow them not only to cut funds that the State provides, but also dip their hands into the University’s bank accounts that keep things like, the dining hall operational, or you know…things like heat and electricity turned on. The State is now looking to require state colleges and universities to deposit part of their tuition and fees into a State bank account so they can balance the budget. This would be like the Feds saying: “I know that we took taxes from you last year, but if you could just go ahead and send 5% of your bank account to us that would be great.”

The reason that they are trying to get this through? Well State law only allows the governor to make up to 15% cuts to university’s general fund (the money provided by the state) during each fiscal year. To date, Virginia universities have had 35% of their general funds cut already, and project to lose another 26% over the next two years. But due to that cap, the State wants to find ways to take more money away…soooooo they are trying to change the law, and take money that ISN’T THEIRS! Not only that, but they are looking to take the most money from the universities that have the most fees saved up. So for being fiscally responsible, and saving money in order to keep the students sheltered from the failing economy, and trying to provide a good education to its students, Virginia wants to punish you and take more money.

So if this law gets passed, and you see tuition and fees skyrocket across the state, please don’t blame the school, but start calling your politicians, because they are going to be the ones responsible.

America’s Biggest Rip-offs – Text messages – 6,500% markup (1) – CNNMoney.com.