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Seven tips for staying safe on Facebook

The virtual world can be a dangerous one. Follow our seven simple steps to ensure you stay safe on Facebook.Skip related content

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1. Hide yourself from the public

This isn’t as straightforward as you might think and many people are under the impression that they are already hidden. But if you don’t apply these settings in multiple categories, other people will still be able to see your information. This is especially important for children’s Facebook accounts.

To protect yourself, click Account > Privacy settings > Profile information. Adjust your privacy settings for all 12 categories. Then click Back to Privacy > Contact information. Adjust your privacy settings for all 9 categories.

2. Don't let search engines find you

To help prevent strangers from accessing your page, go to Account > Privacy settings > Search. Select ‘Only friends’ for Facebook search results. Make sure the box for public search results isn't checked either.

3. Don’t allow Facebook to hand over your details to other companies

Unless you tell them not to, Facebook will give companies access to your profiles for research and advertising purposes. They can even use your details in the adverts themselves.

To stop Facebook from handing over your details, click Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and websites. Next to ‘Instant Personalisation Pilot Program’ click ‘Edit setting’. Make sure the box is not ticked at the bottom of the screen. To make sure you don’t appear in any adverts, go to Account > Account Settings > Facebook Adverts. Select ‘no one’ on ‘Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to’ and ‘Show my social actions in Facebook ads to’.

4. Make sure nobody else is using your account

This is a new feature which was rolled out by Facebook last week. It allows you to monitor which devices are being used to access your account.

Go to Account > Account settings > Account security. Click ‘Would you like to receive notifications for logins from new devices?’ and then click ‘Yes’ below.

Log out and log back in. You will be asked to name the device you are using. Then it will send you an email. Do this with each device you use to access your Facebook account. From now on, if anyone logs in to your account from a device you don’t use, you’ll receive an email telling you. If this happens, change your password straight away and report it to Facebook via the Help Centre.

5. Don’t put your full date of birth in your profile

It's an ideal target for identity thieves, who could use it to obtain more information about you and potentially gain access to your bank or credit card account. If you've already entered a birth date, go to your profile page and click on the ‘Info’ tab, then on ‘Edit Information’. Under the Basic Information section, choose to show only the month and day or no birthday at all.

6. Protect yourself from your friends

When your Facebook friends use applications they may be inadvertently sharing your details with third parties.

To protect yourself, click Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and websites > What your friends can share about you. Untick all of the boxes and then save your changes.

7. Don’t advertise your home

You should make sure you never post your full address on Facebook and certainly don’t put it under your ‘Info’ section.

If you’re going away on holiday, although tempting, it’s best not to advertise it on your Facebook page, or even to mention it on your friends’ pages. This is especially crucial if you or your friends’ profiles can be accessed by people not listed as friends. There have been numerous instances where people have gone away and returned to an empty home, just because they shared too much information on social media

Download Music for Free at Jamendo

If someone had told me a couple years ago you can legally download music for free, I’d wink twice and give him an elbow nudge. Times, they have a changed!

Simon Slangen from MakeUseOf.com—which is quickly becoming one of my favourite sites—recently reviewed four sites where you can download free music. Here’s what he had to say about Jamendo:

“All the music available on Jamendo is released under the Creative Commons license. This means that it can be freely listened to and used and redistributed under the same license.

The artists then get rewarded via user donations and revenues from the Jamendo’s commercial programs and partnerships.

You can browse through over 150,000 tracks by artist, album and genre, or you can use the tags for quick navigation.

All of the tracks and albums are available for download without any needed registration and can be shared over the internet using widgets.”

Learn about more sites to download free music here.

Boost Computer Performance with This Easy Check

There’s little in life more frustrating than a painfully slow computer. I know—I’m currently using one. If you’re using Windows, you can improve your machine’s performance by ensuring your IDE drives aren’t operating in a slow, ineffective transfer mode.

From MakeUseOf.com via Lifehacker:

“When fresh from the box—or your workbench— your computer should have had all it's IDE drives set in Direct Memory Access mode. This is a far speedier method of disk access than Programmed Input/Output mode. The technical side of the two modes is dense but let it suffice: DMA is a the fast and preferred method and PIO mode is the slower method Windows defaults to after having six redundancy checks fail. Things like power outages, doing a hard reset and other disk interruptions can cause these errors. Your Windows box may be operating in the slower transfer mode because mistakenly thinks that your system is unstable or that there is something wrong with your disks. The fix for your computer downshifting into PIO mode is simple. Go to your Control Panel, click on the System icon, open up your Device Manager and pull up the properties for your Primary and Secondary IDE channels. Under the Advanced settings tab you'll be able to set the Transfer Mode to "DMA if available". Reboot and you should be in business. MakeUseOf has a full step by step guide with screenshots if you'd like a visual reference.”

3 Easy Tools to Record Streaming Music as MP3 Files

Until now I never even considered making MP3 files from streaming music. My life is forever changed. If you’d like in on this action, check out these three tools (step-by-step instructions on the source site):

1. ClipInc 4

ClipInc is available for Windows. It comes with hundreds of preset internet radio stations, and with the free version you can record up to three audio streams simultaneously.

2. Streamripper

Streamripper is a plugin for Winamp and as such it is platform independent.

3. TheLastRipper

TheLastRipper is available for Windows, Linux, and in a beta version for OSX. What really makes this tool a winner is that you don’t have to deal with commercials, badly cut tracks or alternating quality.

Speed Up Your Computer’s Performance

In today’s super fast paced world, we expect everything to work instantly. Can you imagine how much patience a dialup connection once took, let alone life before the Internet?

A slow computer is enough to drive one bonkers.

There are a few simple ways to optimize your computer’s performance. Basically, it’s about getting rid of things you thought you already got rid of.

The blog Computer Tips n Tricks offers the following suggestions:

1) Check registry files to make sure they are properly installed and in good working order (you can use what is called a registry scanner to do this).

2) Remove icons you don’t need or use from your desktop. This will free up memory and increase the speed of your computer.

3) Deleting a program alone is not enough. Use a program uninstaller to remove all traces of unwanted programs.

4) Make sure to remove all unwanted programs from the taskbar as well.

Protect Your Laptop from Data Loss Disasters

Way back, like ten years ago, when I went to school, we still used a pen and paper to write notes. Nowadays, laptops are the norm.

And while they are super convenient and efficient in many ways, they are not perfect. As with all computers, the biggest risk is the potential loss of data. And there is nothing as frustrating, and true, as the excuse “the computer ate my homework”.

So whether you’re a student, or someone who simply prefers to work on a laptop, it’s good to keep the following in mind:

• Be gentle. Laptops are reasonably robust, but they do not always survive rough handling.
• Backup. At least once a week if not more on a CD, DVD, USB flash drive or online.
• Keep your anti-virus up –to-date and run it regularly.
• Use the auto save function. Losing a document you have spent hours slaving over is devastating.
• Pay attention to your battery. If your computer suddenly shuts off, you may lose your work.

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Run Skype from Your Flash Drive

Using Skype could keep your phone bill down, but it isn’t portable—or is it? Mark O’Neill from Makeuseof.com explains how to run Skype from a USB flash drive so you can connect with your contacts anywhere. He outlines 7 steps. Here are the first 3:

1. The first step is to make the folder on your USB stick where it will all stay. So call it whatever you want. Let’s call it “Portable Skype” for example. But you can give it whatever name you want.

2. Now go to the installed Skype app on your computer (normally located at C:\Program Files\Skype) and look for a file called Skype.exe. Right-click and copy that file. Do not move it anywhere. Just right-click and copy.

3. Now go to the “Portable Skype” folder and insert that copied “Skype.exe” file into the “Portable Skype” folder.

Read the remaining 4 steps to run Skype from a flash drive here.

Optimize Your Hard Drive in 3 Easy Steps

Hard drives have a way of filling up (completely independent of your own compulsive need to download, of course). CNET offers three strong tips to keep your machine running at top speed. Here’s the first:

“Step 1: Analyze your drive

First, identify how much disk space you're using with WinDirStat. This free software, based on the Linux application KDirStat, offers you an informative visual display of your hard-drive usage. It can also analyze your local devices, but let's for now stay focused on just your local drive. Depending on the size of your disk, the initial WinDirStat scan may take quite a while. Grab a cup of coffee and come back.

When you return, you'll see all of your files (for the drive or directory you decided to scan) displayed in a rainbow of colors. WinDirStat assigns colors to each file type, such as MP3, ZIP, EXE, JPG, and so on. By default, the files that take up the most space are colored blue, the second heftiest are red, and the third largest green. After the first 10 color-labeled file types, the rest appear in gray--but you can change these settings and colors through the Options menu.

Once you've identified where your disk space has gone, you can then more easily decide where you can save space. WinDirStat is loaded with features for managing your files, such as the ability to automatically delete files without even bothering with the Recycle Bin.”

How to Fix Common Problems with Your Laptop

Posted at 21:38, 06/05/2008 by LauraWilliams
Your laptop was made for durability, but it has its limits. You’ll likely end up paying for that—unless you know what’s wrong and how to fix it.
Thanks to laptopmag.com, it’s simple to identify and address notebook issues.

The site lists 11 common laptop complaints (and fixes!) like:

My computer crashed. Help!

What’s the deal with my slow hard drive?
I sure do wish my keyboard wasn’t missing keys.
Check it out and save yourself some money.
See more like this: Laptops, Computers