WizGidget

There are several websites such as golikeus.net or thelikepage.com that lets people make short posts, which then other people can mark that they “like” that post on Facebook — and it shows up in that person’s “wall”.  Recently my friend Woody found one of these GoLikeUs posts that went: “IF ANYBODY SENDS ME ANYMORE MORE FARMVILLE REQUEST I AM GOING TO BURN YOUR CROPS AND KILL YOUR ANIMALS”.  It echoed the sentiment I’d mentioned in the “Introduction to Facebook” article of July 28 that I don’t really care to see the comings and goings of the games my friends are playing online.  Fortunately, there’s a sneaky way to get rid of these notices — in effect to Burn Farmville! And your friend will never notice the singed crops!  This technique works for the Farmville notices as well as other Facebook games and applications.  It doesn’t affect the games or applications for the other person, it just gets rid of their game notices in your facebook page. The solution is as simple as it is obscure.

First, pick a “Farmville” (or other application or game) notice on your Facebook page. Below is an example (the names have been changed to protect the guilty):

Notice the pointer in the upper right corner, and next to the pointer is a faint blue “X”. This “X” won’t show unless your pointer is hovering over the posting. Try it out with your own Facebook page.  Also, when your pointer is actually over the “X”, the X will become highlighted and show a “Remove” caption as shown at right.  If you click on the “X”, you will be presented with a menu which will include “Hide {friend’s name}”, “Hide Farmville” or whatever the application is, “Mark as Spam”, and “Cancel”.  An example is shown below:

You can click the “Hide Farmville” (or whatever) button to eliminate the Farmville notices from your Facebook page.  After clicking “Hide Farmville”, you’ll get a confirmation:

Voila!  You’re done.  Farmville has been burned (Pssst!  Don’t tell anyone!) and you’ll never see another Farmville notice from any of your friends.

Next week: turning off AutoRun as a security measure.  Meantime, this and all past articles are available at wizgidget.com

Whenever I login to my PC, there are programs I want to start automagically.  Some programs are designed to start when Windows starts, like my antivirus program, but others are not.  I have a whole list of programs I also want to start:  Cygwin (for unix geeks), VNC (remote access), Pidgin (instant messaging) and so forth.  Fortunately with Windows this is fairly easy to do.

The key is the “Startup” folder in the Programs list, accessible from the Start menu.  When you click the Start button on the taskbar, and select Programs, one of the folders in the list is the “Startup” folder.  You can add shortcuts to programs into the Startup folder, then when you login those programs will automatically start.  The easiest way to do this is using Windows Explorer (WExplorer).

Windows XP users: right-click on the Start button and pick “Explore”.  This will open an WExplorer, already browsed to your Start Menu.  You should see the “Programs” folder in the right pane of the window.  If you don’t see the folder tree in the left pane, click the “Folders” button at the top of the WExplorer window.  That’ll help you understand the context of what you’re seeing.  Navigate into the Programs folder either by double-clicking the Programs folder in the right pane or left-click the Programs folder in the left pane.  Now you’ll see several folders in the right pane, one of which should be the Startup folder.  Navigate to that folder using the same method: doubleclick on it in the right pane, or left-click on it in the left pane.

Windows 7 users will want to left-click the Start button (the round button on the left end of the taskbar with the windows emblem), then click the “All Programs,” which will put a scrolling list of programs and program folders in the left pane of the startup menu.  Scroll down until you find the Startup folder, right click the folder and select “Explore” and you’re there.

Now we’re ready to put programs in the Startup folder.  We’ll do that by copy and paste-shortcut the programs we want into the Startup folder.  You may see some programs listed in the Startup folder already, for instance CA Security Center automatically puts its own shortcut there.  Click the Start button on the taskbar again, and browse to the program you want to automatically start.  For instance on WinXP click Start, then Programs, then the folder containing the program you want.  Right-click the program you want, and pick “Copy”.  Then go to the WExplorer you have opened to the Startup folder, right-click in the right pane, and pick “Paste Shortcut” (or just “Paste” if “Paste Shortcut” isn’t in the list of choices).  Using this method leaves the original program icon where it was, and creates a shortcut in the Startup menu.  Voila!  That program will start automagically the next time you login to Windows.

Next week we’ll teach Woody to burn Farmville.  Meantime check WizGidget.com for this and previous articles.

Last week I introduced Facebook.  Because privacy on the internet is such an important topic, I felt Facebook privacy needed to be the next article.  The main cause for concern is identity theft — where someone uses your private information to gain access to your credit or bank accounts.  But anything you post on Facebook could at some point become public knowledge, and cost you money, your job, your friendships, and who knows what else.  It’s better to think ahead and make sure your information is secure.

I mentioned last week that the first thing you should do upon creating a facebook account is to go through the privacy settings.  This is because just about everything on the internet gets indexed by search engines like Google.  There are also websites that archive web content — so even if you realize you’ve made a mistake and fix the security setting, it may already have been archived and as such is now public record.  Theoretically the search engines should not have access to your Facebook information, but that depends on how you’ve set the privacy for your Facebook account — if you have all your privacy settings set to allow access to “Everyone”, it will probably get indexed — and archived.

There are a number of good articles on the ‘net about Facebook privacy, just do a search for “facebook privacy.”  A notable ones are www.allfacebook.com/2009/12/facebook-privacy-new/ But before that, click on the “Privacy” link at the bottom of any Facebook page, and read through the information there on Facebook privacy.  Familiarize yourself with the privacy categories, and the privacy setting options.

You should also be careful about what you put in your profile, for instance your birthday.  The Birthday has a setting to “Show only month & day” which would be better than publishing your entire birth date, but you might consider choosing a bogus year to help deter identity theft.

There is a privacy dashboard you can access by pulling down the “Account” menu at the upper right of your Facebook page, and then pick “Privacy Settings.”  You can see the current settings for the 9 catagories.  I personally have “Friends of Friends” set for “Status Photos and Posts”, and “Photos and videos I’m tagged in”.  Everything else is “Friends Only.”  At the bottom is a “Customize settings” link that you can use to change those settings.  Note also that below the list is a “Block Lists” link that you can use to block people and applications.  Also notice above the “Sharing on Facebook” section, there is a note about “Basic Directory Information” — with a link to “View Settings” where you can override Facebook’s settings for information such as who can search for you, send you requests or messages, and so forth.  I have “Education and work”, “Current city and hometown”, and “Interests and other Pages” set to Friends Only.

Next week is a commentary on Facebook and its impact on the way we interact with each other.  Meantime you can read this and other articles at www.wizgidget.com