Facebook Privacy Settings GRAPH APP Myth

Posted at 12:54:49 PM in Web (12)

I just saw this post on Facebook which if you follow it's recommendations actually steps your friends through removing themselves from seeing your posts and comments. I don't know if it's on snopes.com yet, but I'm sure it'll be there soon.

The statement goes like this (i added highlights to show the flags that should make you suspicious of the content).

HEADS UP!!! FACEBOOK HAS CHANGED THEIR PRIVACY SETTINGS ONCE MORE!!! DUE TO THE NEW “GRAPH APP” ANYONE ON FACEBOOK (INCLUDING OTHER COUNTRIES) CAN SEE YOUR PICTURES, LIKES, AND COMMENTS. The next 2 weeks I will be posting this, and please once you have done it please post DONE! Those of you who do not keep my information from going out to the public, I will delete you! I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of my family that I don't want strangers to have access to!!! This happens when our friends click "like" or "comment"... automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we cannot change this setting by ourselves because Facebook has configured it that way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS" (also without clicking), then down to "Settings", click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on "LIFE EVENTS" and "COMMENTS & LIKES". By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public. Now, copy and paste this on your wall. Once I see this posted on your page, I will do the same.

The person that posted this originally is not a tech savvy person. Privacy options are not their forte.  And the step by step instructions were far too detailed to be anything they wrote. That's the first clue that something is wrong. My first fear was that someone had hacked their account and published themselves, but why do that when you can make it sound so self protecting that users will just naturally share it and post it to all their friends. Heck, some may even copy and past it into email and send it to everyone on their mailing list even if they don't know they have a Facebook account. Or, like me, they might even post it on the internet on the blog...

My first comment to the person who posted this was "delete me." The next day I was still there and there were no other comments after mine. I decided to investigate a little further.

First off, why would any "friend" post a general posting that says, if you don't do what I'm asking you to do, I will delete you.

The second issue is that if it is about privacy, then a statement like "we cannot change this setting by ourselves" would indicate that this is not privacy.

Lastly is the invitation to share it with your friends, "once I see this posted on your page" I love the ones in email that say, someone will die if you don't share this, or you don't love god if you don't share...  

Of course, once these steps are followed, you'd never see any more comments and thus if anyone said don't do it, those that already did wouldn't see it.

Written by Leonard Rogers on Thursday, February 21, 2013 | Comments (0)

Acer Aspire 5250-0639 LED issues

Posted at 5:33:26 PM in Recovery (44)

Acer is also making laptops with no hard drive activity indicator lights. I guess this is the new wave of laptops. Maybe the manufactures think that no one looks at those lights, but we really do. If the laptop isn't working properly, all the indicators we can get help.

I also noted on this laptop, that Caps Lock and Num Lock flash an image up on the screen when it's depressed. This is not very useful when the screen isn't working or we're troubleshooting. 

Written by Leonard Rogers on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 | Comments (0)

AVG replaces search engine

Posted at 11:36:37 AM in Software (15)

Recently in all version of AVG from 2011 and up, I have found a recent pop up that has very very tiny options to ignore the pop up and continue. If you delay or accept, it replaces your search page in Chrome and in IE. I believe it also replaces Firefox too. This is annoying, both the pop up and the replacement, but recently, on a PC that never had AVG on it and no pop up, I suddenly found the AVG search engine had replaced my search page, it also replaced my home page which I noticed right away. There was a plug in for AVG which I didn't request or install. I normally search right from the address bar, which in Chrome is called omnibox. Other browsers call it inline searches.  On my next search, I discovered that AVG was now managing my searches as well.

Not sure how it happened, but this just isn't right.

Written by Leonard Rogers on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 | Comments (0)

AVG 2013 Free Edition Freezes PC

Posted at 11:31:29 AM in Installations (48)

Just an observation. I believe I saw this in the paid edition also, but when AVG updates, the entire PC seems to freeze. This is just a download and patch to their databases. I cannot imagine what it is that it's doing that would cause such a problem, except that the program is not sharing the CPU which is just plain bad programming.

Written by Leonard Rogers on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 | Comments (0)

Dell Inspiron 1440

Posted at 9:25:27 AM in Recovery (44)

I don't know what Dell was thinking. Perhaps LED indicator lights are the next thing is cost savings. This laptop only appears to have one LED and a power light in the power button. It doesn't even have a charging light. Frustrating to troubleshoot as there is no hard drive light to show there is any activity at all and no numlock light and no capslock light. 

Written by Leonard Rogers on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 | Comments (0)