Tag Archives: Facebook

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No Human Contact – Tech Logic

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call-contactIf you are on different social media sites, you will be aware of the constant strain when trying to get in touch with someone when something goes wrong.
When you report something on a site, they use bots which are pre-programmed to anticipate how to deal with your request. Most of the time if programmed correctly this method is a timesaver and brings costs down because you don’t need to pay for extra staff to deal with minor issues.

It might be cost-effective, but in times where it fails to address the request, it leaves the user feeling frustrated and unable to get any proper answers from an automated message.

Facebook use bots, and it can be understandable as to why they have them in place. Six billion active accounts and at any given time they could be ten percent of these accounts reporting something. Essentially they don’t have enough payroll to employ that amount of staff to deal with such minor issues. The consensus is a person requires wages to do the job whereas a robot can do it for free. Completely unsupervised and no need for extras just a few tweaks over time to allow for optimal performance.

In some ways, it would make it easier for them to give out a number to a data centre to address the issue, but then they run the risk of more expenditure and security issues if implemented incorrectly.

The long and short of it all is, this won’t ever change at any tech company as they have better things to deal with and from a practical standpoint they have to cut back where they can to reduce costs overall.

News Social Networks

Facebook Messenger Active Now — Problem

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The same old plagued question with Facebook: why am I showing as active now? This question is always being asked within Facebook’s support centre, and it’s about time someone put logic across to explain how this is happening.

Previously I explained about the “Active Now” message and what it meant, but even after explaining this, it still seems that millions of users are facing this issue. I am also one of those users who face this issue, and at times it has caused issues.

There will be specific reasons why this is occurring, most of which you wouldn’t even think of, but I do believe this could be the reasons why.

Being a new Android user I have found that using Facebook Messenger “heads” has caused my account to be active all the time. As you can tell this is a big glitch, but one Facebook could fix. When you use Facebook heads it essentially checks for new changes (messages) regularly, and because it’s always looking the master session doesn’t reset and there for producing a false active now message.

As I explained in previous articles, Facebook games and also other apps can cause the false “Active Now” message. These games and apps cause the session to become active because it touches the Facebook server, but sometimes the server forgets to timeout the session which leads to the false reporting of your account session.

If you’ve read the previous article, you will know that I said “There isn’t a way to fix it,” but I now believe that there could be a way to fix it. Whether it is an app or desktop site, it should have an automatic session timeout request where it talks back to Facebook after a length of time and it updates the session file. This should fix the issue because it allows it to be updated correctly, and it becomes more reliable.

It often questions why Facebook hasn’t thought of a better way to cure this issue, but again, does it need fixing, or are we all over obsessing with this issue? Have your say in the comment section below.

News Personal Social Networks

Facebook – Dislike Button Coming

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Facebook have finally buckled under and listened to user demands. But, it won’t be what they’ve all asked for.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, it will be in the form of a “sad” button, he feels that a dislike button would be insensitive to other users.

Even though Facebook admit that this button will be used for showing negativity, but I think they are prepared to take the chance.

After researching, there appears to be no conformation on dates that they will be rolling this out.

Personal Tuesday Poet

Tuesday Poet – Social Media

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Tuesday Poet – Social media

Social media is such a drag,
Watching people sat on their ass,
Nothing to do but they light a fag,
Must be that social media smoke glass,

You go through the feed like it’s the Bible,
Chanting everything verse to verse,
Social media isn’t good,
It’s just a curse,

The chat on Facebook causes problems,
No matter what you do you’re active now,
Someone needs to sort that,
Facebook is being a cow,

Go outside and drop those devices,
Social media is colliding,
Ruining your life filling it with drama,
Go and make friends, or buy a lama!

News Personal Social Networks

Facebook Tracking — How to Prevent it Web Browsers

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So, Facebook tracking, I come to your rescue again, here is how to disable it on all four major browsers—not that we class internet explorer as a major browser these days, but we couldn’t leave them out, they might get a bit upset.

Google Chrome:

Click the Chrome menu Chrome menu on the browser toolbar.
Select Settings.

Click Show advanced settings.

In the “Privacy” section, click Content settings.

In the dialogue that appears, scroll down to the “Location” section.

Select your default permission for future location requests:
Allow all sites to track your physical location: Select this option to let all sites automatically access your location.

Ask when a site tries to track your physical location: Select this option if you want Google Chrome to alert you whenever a site requests your location.

Do not allow any site to track your physical location: Select this option to automatically deny site requests for your location.

Tap the last option!

Firefox:

In the URL bar, type about:config

Type geo.enabled

Double click on the geo.enabled preference

Location-Aware Browsing is now disabled

Internet Explorer:

And for those of you who are using IE (why would you be using that?) Here is a link to terminate location services, somewhat long winded, but it’s outlined on their page, but it will prevent Facebook tracking. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/change-internet-explorer-9-privacy-settings

Safari:

With Safari running, choose Preferences from the Safari menu.

Click the Security tab.

Deselect the “Allow websites to ask for location information” checkbox.

If you want to disable Location Services in Mac OS X v10.6:

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.

From the View menu, choose Security.

Click the General tab.

If the icon in the lower-left corner is locked, click it to authenticate with your admin password (to unlock the Security pane).

Click the “Disable Location Services” checkbox.

And there we are, let’s stop the tracking, and stop Big Brother from watching you!

News Personal Social Networks

Facebook Tracking — How to Disable it

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Since writing up a few articles last week about Facebook, I have been inundated with several requests about the whole tracking issue. Well, your prayers have been answered, I will show you how to disable it on all latest Android and iPhone (this includes iPad) devices. I am working towards a resolution for web browsers on both Mac and PC, bare with on those.

Android Devices:

1. Pull down at the top the screen, and tap GPS until it turns grey.

2. Go to settings – Wireless and Network — Data usage, and select Facebook (also do this for Facebook Messenger). Under that you will see a tick box saying “Restrict Background Data,” tick that for both Facebook apps.

3. Go into the Facebook messenger app, then settings, and make sure location services are off (it will be a little tick box.)

iPhone/iPad/iPod Devices:

1. Go to Settings — Privacy — Tap Location Services. Now, you can either turn this off completely, or you can manually control the apps individually in the list it displays below. When you tap Facebook in the list, it will show three options, hit never. And repeat this above, but do this for Messenger (if installed.)

2. Go into the Facebook messenger app, then settings, and make sure location services are off (it will be a little tick box.)

For now, this should be the solution to this issue for the devices listed above. I will be back another time on how to prevent Facebook from seeing your location via web browsers.

News Personal Social Networks

Facebook Tracking — It’s Fact!

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Recently I published an article that concerned the Facebook “Active Now” messenger status, in which I outlined how it worked. 

Now, in this article I will explain about Facebook tracking, and believe me, the two articles have a lot of similarities. 

Today there has been concerns over a Chrome extension that allowed any user to stalk their friends. Basically, you add the extension to Chrome, open Facebook messages, click a user, and it will tell you every location they’ve been to recently on a map. Before anyone makes assumptions, I did not even install this software extension, my knowledge of this app came purely from articles I have read—even though it’s common knowledge that Facebook can track you with ease. 

I’ve been following the news on this closely for the last twenty-four hours and it seems people are in a panic. Let me put it like this, when you see ads on the side of Facebook and they seem to relate to places you’ve been recently, that isn’t a coincidence, it’s because they collect tracking data. I even proved recently that they pattern match chat messages and then use that for serving ads that may interest you. But, let’s give Facebook some slack here, it’s a free service, how else will they earn money? Billions of users are on Facebook, they probably have the same amount of information on you as Google, and what’s more worse, they probably have more information on you than your own government. 

The way I see tracking on Facebook is, it’s like wearing a wireless ankle tag, they know where you are, and the extension software proved with ease how much you are being tracked. Unfortunately, the extension has been disabled by Facebook now, but it openly proved how trackable we all are. 

Me, personally, I don’t see it as a privacy risk, they can track me all they like, I don’t leave my house due to anxiety issues. The ads I see are virtually non-existent, so it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. 

Personal

Facebook Messenger Active Now — Explained

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Have you ever wondered why people seem very active on Facebook messenger, or you get asked why you didn’t reply to a message when you were showing as active? Well, there are some simple explanations for this, and even I was surprised at some of the causes for this.

If you are running either an iPhone or Android device that was made within the last three to four years, both Google and Apple have implemented background processing, in basic terms this means it allows a user to control services or apps within the software that is currently running within the background of the device. I have found on many occasions that this can display a negative result on the Facebook messenger app just because it has been running all the time. Bear in mind that this can be turned off, but with this turned on and leaving the app open will play havoc with this display message.

There is also the major cause of location services within new devices, this is another separate setting that Facebook can constantly look at even with the top option disabled for the Facebook apps or services. Would you believe that your device holds every movement you make? Well, if your phone knows, then your apps will know! You can of course switch these off, but since most apps away from social media require your location, you will hit stumbling blocks along the way. But, again, most device software makes this option individual to apps, you would need to check this on your device because with every software change manufactures make, it changes certain things, and this is one of those things.

Facebook games or connect to Facebook game? They will also play havoc with the active message because most people play games through Facebook, which talks to the session file of your account, meaning it will show as active. Signing up to games using Facebook is something we are all guilty of, it makes life easier because you only need to know your Facebook login details, even at that, if it’s logged into your device, it takes one tap, and that is it you are logged in. Again, this will implement the methods above, and therefor giving a false response even if you are not touching the Facebook or Messenger.

Let’s look at why this happens. Well, in essence, it’s very simple. Your account has session files that are created on the Facebook server at any given time, so if you log off completely these files will be known as ended sessions, and therefore Facebook will keep your last active time or date on their database using a time stamp. When you log back on, a new session file is created, and from that point until you log off again, it will carry on using a session file that continually updates itself and reports certain things to the Facebook services.

Can this be stopped? The blunt answer is no, purely because they use programming languages such as PHP to build and create sessions, these sessions hold your user information upon logging in, and without these you wouldn’t be able to use the Facebook service.

Now, this is the same for any site using session related programming, but some of us nice programmers put in a session cutout, which prevents hiccups like this from happening. I do know that Facebook does have a certain cutout point, but it becomes redundant when you have devices that look all the time at the sessions, and remain talking to services even when you are asleep. 

FREE FICTION EBOOK. 

Personal

Facebook Overhaul

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I had a eureka moment yesterday, it was something I needed to do. As in any time of life it was time to make changes, clear out the dead wood, refocus the mind, and to do what’s right. 

The culling of my Facebook friends list was done for a reason. There were people I didn’t talk to, people who cause drama, and people who didn’t need to be part of my private life—it was that simple. Most of the time having some people on my list was just to keep up appearances, as I used to be part of the YouTube crowd, but due to other commitments and health issues, I’m not wasting my time on pure drama dribble. 

Those who remained on my list are ones that won’t, and don’t cause me hassle. The pure drama queens who are now gone will remain that way, and no I’m not having a mental breakdown. I am putting those who I love first, like it should be. 

So, to those whom are reading this that now can’t find me, or even text me (yes over two hundred people were mobile blocked too), then I give you my apologies, but I won’t be undoing any blocks, there’s no exceptions. 

In the words of the two ronnies, it’s goodbye from me, and it’s goodbye from him. 

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