Thread: Clean up your Facebook profile

Clean up your Facebook profile

For many, Facebook has become indispensable. It is how we stay in touch with family and friends online. It can also be overwhelming. Unwanted updates may crowd your News Feed and embarrassing status updates and comments can haunt you.

So, take a little time to clean up your Facebook profile.

TECH TIPS:Ask Kim

Block FarmVille updates

Tired of hearing about "FarmVille" crops? Then block family and friend updates from "FarmVille" in your News Feed. Locate one of the posts in your News Feed. Mouse over the update and click Hide. Select Hide "FarmVille." You can also hide updates from other apps or even friends.

You may want to prevent apps from posting to your wall. This will leave more room for updates that really matter. To block posts from an app, click Account, then Application Settings. Find the app and click Edit Settings. Deselect "Publish recent activity (one line stories) to my wall." Click OK.

This handy trick also works for "Mafia Wars" and other games, too.

Delete posts

Maybe someone posted a rude comment on your wall. It could cause trouble with your boss or your spouse. It's easy to delete wall posts. Mouse over the offending post. When the blue "X" appears in the right corner, click it. You'll be asked if you want to delete the post. Confirm the deletion.

Job hunters should clean up old wall posts. You don't want to turn off potential employers. Remove anything offensive. You should also remove anything you may have said about former employers.

There are some wall posts that everyone should delete. Posts claiming to reveal who has viewed your profile should be nixed. Facebook does not let people or apps access this information. Likewise, posts offering extravagant gift certificates are likely scams.

Keep your real friends close

Maybe you want certain friends always to show on your profile page. They're probably your most attractive friends. Seriously, though, these are the people whose profiles you post to most frequently. Fortunately, you can have certain friends always appear in your Friends box.

Visit your profile page. Click the pencil icon in the top right corner of your Friends box. Find the section labeled "Always show these friends." Click and start typing your friends' names.

Keep posts private

You can post hidden messages to a friend's wall. Visit your profile and click your status box. Start by tagging your friend in the message. Type the recipient's name preceded by "@." For example, enter "@Kim Komando" (minus quotes). Then, enter your message.

Before clicking Share, click the privacy lock. Select Customize. Select "These people" under "Make this visible to" and click Specific People. Enter the recipient's name. Click Save Setting and Share. This also works for multiple people. Only you and the recipients will see the post.

You may also want to hide certain posts from your boss or others. Type your post in the status box. Click the privacy lock and select Customize. Find the box labeled "These people" under "Hide this from." Enter the names of those who shouldn't see the update. Click Save Setting and then Share.

Delete your account

Maybe Facebook isn't for you. It's eating into the little free time you have with family and friends. Deleting your account is fairly easy. Complete and submit Facebook's form for deleting your account. You'll lose all the data in your account, so download important photos and other information first.

You can also deactivate your account temporarily. You won't appear on Facebook, but your data is saved so you can reactivate at any time. Click Account, then Account Settings and open the Settings tab. Click "deactivate." Specify a reason and click Deactivate My Account.

Before deactivating or deleting your account, notify your friends. Otherwise, they may think you unfriended them.

Kim Komando hosts the nation's largest talk radio show about computers and the Internet. To get the podcast or find the station nearest you, visit www.komando.com/listen . To subscribe to Kim's free e-mail newsletters, sign up at www.komando.com/newsletters . Contact her at C1Tech@gannett.com .

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/ ... file_N.htm

Apr 23, 2010

What new Facebook updates might mean for your privacy

01:45 PM
By Sean Kilpatrick, AP

Good insights are popping up deconstructing Facebook's big moves this week to extend its reach across the Web. Bottom line: You should pay attention, and consider tweaking your privacy settings again to control the experience.

Basically, the giant social network wants to replicate your Facebook experience everywhere you go on the Web. It is starting with just a few launch partners for what it calls the new "Facebook Platform" -- music service Pandora, review site Yelp and Microsoft Docs.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described it this way in an official blog post:

For example, now if you're logged into Facebook and go to Pandora for the first time, it can immediately start playing songs from bands you've liked across the web. And as you're playing music, it can show you friends who also like the same songs as you, and then you can click to see other music they like.

Digital music blogger Matt Rosoff, in a post titled "Pandora and Facebook Get Social Music Right," walks us through the Pandora experience in more detail.

I tried it, and while it's neat to see everything your friends have been listening to, I'd say it's a fair bet that at this point, those friends have no idea they are sharing with you.

If you are squeamish about privacy, you might want to heed this simple instruction that some folks are pasting into their Facebook status updates as a helpful tip for friends. Here is a sample that I grabbed this morning:

There is a new privacy setting called "Instant Personalization" that shares data with non-Facebook websites and it is automatically set to "Allow." Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck "Allow." Please copy & repost.

Over at GigaOm, you can get a deeper tour of how to adjust your settings in a post titled "Your Mom's Guide to Those Facebook Changes, and How to Block Them."

By Nancy Blair

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... -privacy/1

Thank you for posting this JohnDoe2 , it is very helpful.

Yes, thank you! Those stupid Farmville things are annoying.

Originally Posted by SicNTiredInSoCal

Yes, thank you! Those stupid Farmville things are annoying.

Join

I dont care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-dont-ca ... 7382931457