Last week I got to attend 2nd Story. I volunteered to help take pictures for them since I’ve got this fancy camera and I’ve been practicing and learning how to make it work. I could take all this time here to explain what 2nd Story is, but reading about it doesn’t do it justice. You need to attend to understand. They do have podcasts on their site that you can listen to, which may help you get an idea what it’s about. But, let me tell you, attending an event is just so much more amazing. It’s all about compelling stories and the stories that spin from the one you’ve just heard. Go, listen to the podcasts and watch the videos posted on their site. Then take a look for where the next event is and go.

So what do you guys want to read about? What do you want to know? What burning questions do you have that you’ve been aching to read about? I’m here to help you… just ask!

And then on the next screen choose English (Pirate). Now you will experience a lot of fun things with your Facebook page.

And even if you log out, you’ll get some fun Pirate awesomeness.

You’re welcome!

Why would your “friend” do this to you? Well, are they REALLY your friend? Are you SURE? Do they only “sorta” like you? Is it a family member? Yeah, there are any number of reasons why someone would put you on the restricted list.  I’m sure you’re wondering now why they left you as a friend. Well, chances are they figured you’re less likely to notice being put on the restricted list than being unfriended completely. Or maybe they want to snoop on you. If it really bothers you, ask the person directly. If they are really your friend it wont be such a big deal and being honest and direct is always a good plan when it comes to talking to your friends.

Want to add someone to your restricted list? Well, from the menu on the left sidebar go down to the bottom where it says Lists. There may be list options, click on the word Lists. (in the image to the right I’ve put a red box around where it can be found).  From there you’ll go to the lists menu, click on the Restricted list and from that page you can add people.

The box on the right side of the screen is where you type in a friend’s name and add them to the list. You can add as many people as you want, they wont get any kind of notification. And chances are, they wont notice unless they only have like 10 friends total and don’t follow any pages or subscribe to any famous people’s feeds.

If you’re really paranoid about what they can see, you can view your profile as that friend and then you’ll see what they see. Depending on whether or not you’ve got the new timeline feature there are two ways to do this. Both start by going to your profile page. Then, if you still have the old profile there’s a button at the top right that says “View As…” if you click the button you’ll get an option to type in any friend’s name. Just type in the friend you’ve put on the restricted list. If you’ve got the new Timeline it’s a little bit harder to find. It’s still on the right, under your cover image, under the drop down where the gear is located. Same thing from there, type the friend’s name in the box and you’ll be able to see what they have access to. This works for ANY friend by the way. If you’re concerned about what a particular friend can see this is a good way to check it out.

Keep in mind, if you’ve got your default setting for posts to Public everyone will see it… everyone on the internet who can find your profile. So if this concerns you, use that little drop down next to the Post button when posting an update. You can also post things to people ONLY on a specific list. So if you’re posting something controversial and don’t want to offend Grandma or start a fight with your Tea Party friends, make a list for only the people who will appreciate those things. Got a lot of friends who love cats? Got some who are dog people and have been hating on all your cat posts? Then make a list of the cat lovers and start posting things to only the cat lovers. Or post it only to the dog lovers to annoy them, the possibilities are endless.

Does that help you all? Any questions? I’m happy to answer whatever questions you have.

Happy New Year everyone, may all your Facebook friends be real and true friends!

In the past I’d hang decorations and trim my tree in an attempt to push away the bad feelings. This year I’ve decided there are no good feelings and no bad feelings. They are what they are and it’s important we accept them, feel all of them. If we keep repressing our feelings because they are “bad” they’ll just consume us. So, I’m going to allow myself to feel a little bit down, a little lonely. I’m going to embrace the sadness of missing my parents,  brother, and sister because I know that sadness could never exist if I had never felt their love. It’s by loving them and knowing how they love me that this sadness is here.

This year I vow to take comfort in the peace this solitude brings me, feel the sadness of loss and separation, and celebrate the love of my family and friends.

Happy Holidays everyone! My the new year bring you many joys and lots of love.

I made two slight changes, I wanted a spicier cookie so I added ground cloves and a bit of nutmeg, and the recipe called for shortening but I used butter. Here’s the recipe as I made it:

• 2 cups flour
• 1tbl ground ginger
• 2tsp baking soda
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup sweet cream salted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/3 cup cinnamon sugar mixture

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Sift flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and salt into a bowl and set aside. (I mixed it all up with a whisk.)

Place butter into another mixing bowl and beat until creamy (room temp works best here). Gradually beat in sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg and molasses until well combined. Gradually add flour mixture into shortening mix and stir thoroughly until well combined. Mix until a soft dough forms.

Pinch off small amounts of dough and roll into 1 inch balls. Roll each ball into the cinnamon sugar mixture to coat.  Bake about 10-13 min until tops are rounded and slightly cracked.

I reviewed several recipes until I decided on this one. Some say to refrigerate the dough for a bit before rolling and baking. I did not chill the dough at all and these turned out just fine. The original recipe does not say to chill it either. So if you want to chill the dough that could be something to consider.

I have a Pampered Chef baking stone, a Calphalon jelly roll pan and a Wilton cookie sheet. I found the baking stone made the prettiest cookies with the nice, cracked top (the ones in the photo). Calphalon came in second and Wilton came in last for the prettiness.  Just as a note if you’re trying to figure out why your cookies don’t look as cool as mine in the picture. Baking stones haven’t always been the best for me with cookies. This is why I have the other metal pans, because baking is so touchy. Did you follow the cookie fail link up there? Yeah, that was for EVERY pan of cookies I tried baking no matter what I used. I’m still not sure what went wrong there.  As a final note, there was an egg suicide while baking. It leaped right from my hand onto the floor. Eggs are hard to clean off the floor so if you can prevent egg suicide I’d recommend it.

A friend of mine shared a letter she wrote to someone. I was incredibly honored that she feels she can trust me with such a private thing. I’ve written so many letters since I started keeping a journal. As much as I wanted to share them with people (and not just the person I was writing to) I always held back. I haven’t even read any of them to my therapist, I always seem to “forget” to have the journal with me.

You don’t have to restrict yourself to just a letter. Try writing a dialog with the person where you speak not only for yourself but for him/her as well. This helps me get a better handle on both sides of the story. You can also try to rewrite the way the story ends for you. I find it empowering to have control over a situation that previously left me feeling helpless. I’ve also incorporated some people as characters into stories I was working on. This helped me to take out some aggression, get some sense of satisfaction, and move my plot along when I was all worked up over something that was distracting me from writing.

Remember, the unsent letter is just that – a letter you don’t have to send. If after a period of time has passed, and you feel this letter NEEDS to be sent, that’s up to you. But just because you wrote the letter, that doesn’t mean it has to be put in and envelope or copy/pasted into an email or anything.  You can tear it up, burn it or bury it. Hell, you can even mail it off to Santa if you want. If you really want you can write that letter over and over and over, writing it once doesn’t mean you can’t do it again.

If you’re interested in reading some unsent letters, all you have to do is type it into Google and you’ll get plenty of blogs, tumblrs etc on the topic. Just skip over the stuff with World of Warcraft, apparently it’s also the name of an old quest.

When I go on job interviews and try to explain to the hiring manager why I’ve chosen to move from media buying to web development, I don’t think I articulate just how amazing my online experiences have been and how much it means to me.

My internet journey began with a WebTV. I bought it because my brother told me we could use it to meet up and talk in the chat rooms and it’d be cool. (And it was way cheaper than buying a computer and a subscription to AOL.) But chatting with my brother ended up becoming secondary to chatting with all the amazing people I met online. We’d discuss how to build websites (on GeoCities) using our WebTVs, (not so easy when you have no way to upload images ) share our love of Science Fiction, and bond over hardships as well as celebrate joys in life. Almost 15 years later, I’m still friends with many of those people. I’ve even met some of them in person. They are all very dear friends.

Even now I’m still meeting fabulous people online either through social media or online communities. I’ve found soul sisters, mentors, coaches and an amazing support system through my online friends. The internet has helped me to build a community, a family, of people that I can turn to with all kinds of different questions and issues.  I want so much to be able to create and add to this resource I’ve found. I want to help other people see what I’ve seen and find the same kind of community that I’ve found. I want to help people see the power in the internet. I want everyone to know what I know. Social media isn’t just another way for businesses to sell you things you don’t need. It’s a way for you to reach out to others and connect. Give it a try!

I hoped my wallet had just fallen out of my bag and some lovely person would mail it back to me. I did call the credit bureau they said they’d notify the others and I got a letter in the mail saying they had. I also contacted my bank and put a super secret password in place on my account. Then I continued about my business.

Over the weekend, though, I got a letter in the mail from Sears telling me my credit sucks so I can’t get a credit card. I thought, WTF? I haven’t been in a Sears in YEARS. Why on earth would I want a credit card?  I then realized those bastards who stole my wallet thought I had decent credit. Did they not notice that I have no credit cards?? Hello Dumbasses!  Well, after talking to my brother and being told some horror stories, I went to the police station and filed a police report so I could cover my ass. I then called the FTC as well as Trans Union, the credit bureau listed on the letter from Sears.  Well, it turns out that although Equifax (who I called the Monday after  my wallet was gone) said they’d tell the others, they didn’t actually tell the other bureaus that my stuff was stolen. If you are ever in this position, call TransUnion first, you actually get a person on the phone. Equifax is all automated, never do you get a human.

I ran my credit report and I saw that these jackwagons went to Sprint and AT&T as well.   I called Sprint to make sure they didn’t give these people anything (they did not) and I called AT&T to be sure as well. Since I do have AT&T home service already I was worried they may have given these idiots a phone or something and then I’d be stuck with the bill. A very lovely woman named Elizabeth helped me and gave me the number to their fraud department (If you think someone is trying to get AT&T service with your info call 866-718-2011)  The thieves did not get anything from AT&T with my info, thank goodness.

If you lose your wallet or it gets stolen, or if you think your identity has been stolen here’s what you need to do:

Call your bank first – hopefully they’re awesome like my bank and you get a human on the phone without pushing buttons. I honestly have no idea if anything with my bank account number was in my wallet, so they put a super secret password on my account.

Call the credit bureaus – all three of them. Don’t believe them when they say they will contact the others for you.

TransUnion

Equifax

Experian

Each of them have a way to report fraud online. TransUnion was the only one that  I called and actually  reached a person. I’d certainly start with them. If you’ve got the option to make these places call you to confirm that you’re the one applying for credit, do it. Experian has it on their online form, but you’ve got to check the box to make it appear. I did not see anything like that on Equifax’s form. TransUnion asked me if I wanted the option.

Call the FTC – 1-877-438-4338 Make sure it’s on file with them that your information was stolen. It will help you in your fight to prove your identity was stolen.

File a police report – I know it seems like a hassle to go to the police. Especially in a city like Chicago where they don’t even pull you over for turning right from the left hand lane in front of a police officer (I saw it happen!!).  But, in Illinois if your ID is lost or stolen and you have a police report you don’t pay the fine to get your ID replaced. Also, it’s something you’ll need when calling the FTC – they ask for the police report number.

And finally, keep written notes of dates and times when you did all of this. Also write down who you talked to at each place, the officer’s name who took the report (if it is not on the police report you received), and everything else you deem worthy of writing down.  Put all of this in a very safe place. Check your credit report immediately and then check it each year. Keep an eye on everything you get in the mail. Even if you think it’s junk, open it and look it over. I thought that Sears letter was junk but something made me open it. If you see someone submitted your info to any kind of lender or potential creditor, call them and make sure no one got credit that wasn’t you. I feel that I’m lucky that my credit is completely shot or I’d be fighting with a few places right now.

Check your wallet and purse right now, what’s in it that doesn’t need to be there? Take it out put it in a safe place and make sure you know where that safe place is because you don’t want to lose it. Also, if you carry your money, ID and bus pass in the same place – that’s going to bite you on the ass. Keep each one in a separate spot. Luckily my bus card was in a separate pocket of my bag and not in my wallet. I was still able to get home.

Create an update

Next to the post button, when you update your status, is where you select who will see that post.  If you just mouse over the friends button you’ll get some extra info based on whatever defaults you have in place. If you’ve created lists they’ll be an option too.  When the Facebook changes went into effect they gave you a default favorite list of Close Friends. As you can see from the screen shot I already had a list previously called close friends that is why  there are two options. The one with the star is the one Facebook created for me. It is based on some algorithm of who I interact with the most. You may have noticed that you’re getting notifications all over the place when some friends post things and like stuff and comment on things, etc. Yeah, that’s from this list Facebook created. It assumes you want boxes popping up left and right when you’re logged in and people are doing stuff. I’ll show you how to turn that off later. Right now, lets set the default for when you post.

Previously, I had created a list for “limited profile” yeah, that’s right I was friends with some people that I didn’t want to see everything. We’ve all got those friends. Maybe the children of our friends, bosses, co-workers, parents, grandparents. You can’t unfriend these people without giant repercussions so, you just limit what they get to see.  So when you go to your privacy settings, you’ll see large in the middle of the page the default settings.

This is important, because if you use your phone to update to Facebook and you don’t see an option in the app for choosing whether or not the post is Public or Friends you’ll want this selected in advance. Mine was set to Custom because I had that list of Limited Profile folks I didn’t want to just randomly share stuff with.

Here’s the screen for the options when you select Custom

As you can see, under Custom you can even type specific names in that box. So if you haven’t made a list of people you want to keep out of your business, you can put just one person in there. Are you mad at your sister, want to post something on Facebook and not let her see it? Type her name in that box. Keep in mind that will be the default, you’ll have to go back and fix it when you’re not mad at her. Past posts do not change their settings if you change this. Also, keep in mind just because your sister wont see the post that doesn’t mean your mutual friends wont see it and tell her what you said. Don’t go all Junior High with this, you’ll be sorry later.

OK, so what are these lists?

There are three lists that Facebook threw in for you, but also they’ve created Smart lists based on some profile information you may have filled in. First is the Close Friends list, which I mentioned earlier, people on this list will always show up in your News Feed. Next is Acquaintances, anyone on that list Facebook will assume is someone you don’t want to see updates from all that much so you wont see all of their posts in your news feed. And then the last list is called Restricted. Anyone you put on this list will NOT see your updates unless you make them public. Also people on this list will only see items in  your profile that you’ve made public. This is a default Limited Profile kind of thing, pretty nice if you want to limit what certain friends see.

Other lists Facebook will have created for you are based on the town you live in, any schools you’ve listed, places you’ve worked, etc. It will automatically put any friends you have who have also listed those places on the respective list.  Where do you see these lists? Off on the left hand sidebar. Scroll down after your favorites and any groups you might be in, above your Apps (that’s where it is for me). When you mouse over the area the word MORE will appear on the right if you click the word more or the word LISTS it will take you to a page showing you all the lists. You can make new lists or add people to existing lists. You can even merge lists if you want. However, I tried to merge my Limited Profile list with the Restricted list and it wouldn’t let me. You can only merge lists you’ve created with other lists you’ve created.

These are the lists Facebook created for me. On April Fools day I entered that I was a researcher for Megadodo Publications so that’s where Facebook thinks I work. If you’re not familiar with Megadodo Publications, learn how to Google.

As you can see, the schools I’ve listed in my info have lists, where I live is a list below these are the other lists I’ve created and at the bottom of the whole list is the Restricted list.

Click on the name of any of these lists and you’ll get a news feed of just the people on these lists. You also have the option to send a status update to only people on the list you’ve clicked on.  From the list screen the update status box  will default to only friends on that list. You can add friends to the lists from there. However, the school and work  lists are what they consider “Smart” Lists. If a friend updates his status to include your high school he will automatically be added to the list. If she doesn’t have the school listed and you want to add her to the high school list, it will ask her to update her info page to include the school. She will then appear on the school list for everyone she is friends with who also has that school listed. Get it? If you add someone to your Close Friends list, it will not tell them because that is not a “Smart” list. It’s a dumb list that needs your help to curate. Make sense?

The pencil on the left of the list only allows you to add the list to your favorites so it’ll be on the top of your left sidebar, or always hide the list from your left sidebar. If you choose Always Hide it will never be on your left sidebar. You’ll have to go to the List menu screen to see the list. If you want to edit the list to either add or remove people you do that by going to the list menu, click on the name of the list, and on that next page off to the right you’ll see a button to Manage List.

From there you can merge the list with another one (but only lists you’ve created) add or remove friends, delete the list, rename it or Choose Update Types – we’ll get back to this one later. You can not delete the Smart Lists. If there is a smart list you don’t want all you can do is hide it from your main page. Sorry. Adding and removing friends from lists is pretty straight forward. Some people have suggested that you can create a list with every single friend on it to get your news feed back to the way it was. Showing you your friends posts without the whole Top Stories nonsense. This is an option, and easy enough to do. From the main lists window there is a button that says Create List. If you have a lot of friends, this could be tedious, I haven’t found a way to select more than one friend at a time. But once you name the list and add your friends you can then Manage the list to Choose Update Types.

When you select this the first time, nothing will happen. Click on Manage List again and then you’ll see new choices. Do you want this list to only show Status Updates. Uncheck everything else. Never want to see Games? Uncheck that. It’s a nice feature so that your feed for that list can be customized to only what you want to see. Then go back to the list menu and click the pencil on the left  to make it a favorite and the list will be at the top of your left hand side bar. Also, when you’re on a list page, that stupid ticker thing is gone.

These same options are available on a per-friend basis.

If you mouse over a friend’s name in your news feed you’ll see a subscribe button. When you click on the button a list of options will appear for you to subscribe or unsubscribe to. As you can see you can subscribe to all their updates, only the important ones, etc.  If you have a friend who is always playing new games you can unsubscribe to their game feeds so you’ll never see them again. I haven’t found a way to do this in one big swoop of all my friends but, knowing I can do it on a per-person basis is pretty sweet.

OK, I promised to tell you how to turn off all the extra  notifications you’re getting when your friends post stuff. This is from the Close Friends list that Facebook gave you. It’s based on people Facebook thinks you REALLY REALLY want to know what they do and post. Go to the page for the Close Friends List. At the top right you’ll see a button that says Notifications.  That is where you turn it off. You’re welcome.

Is there something I didn’t cover that you want to know about? Did I miss something? Still confused? Ask me in the comments and I’ll help you out!

I saw in my news feed and that stupid ticker on the right sidebar, full posts from people who weren’t friends of mine, but my friends had commented on these posts. At first I thought, “WTF? What happened to privacy!?” Then, as I looked closer, I noticed those posts were set to either public or friends of friends. Before the change, when a friend liked or commented on a post that was public or friends of friends you could see it, but usually you only saw it if you went to their wall and looked for it. Nothing really has changed it’s just that now you’re more aware of things because you’re looking for new stuff and now it’s in your stream and that ticker. If you’re concerned about this happening when you comment on a friend’s post, check for the globe at the bottom next to the date and time. If you mouse over the globe or the shadow people or the gear it’ll tell you what kind of setting they have in place for that post. That will let you know if your friend posted publicly and if you like or comment on it this will be sent to the news feed of all your friends. If you don’t want your comment or the post to go to the feed of your friends, don’t comment or send a private message instead.

Who sees public posts?

Everyone sees public posts. Everyone on the internet. It doesn’t go to everyone’s news feed, but if a non-friend finds your profile they can click on your wall and see any posts you’ve made public. As you can see here in this screen shot, when someone goes to your profile page, and they aren’t your friend there are other things they can click on than just seeing the “info” you’ve made available. You can click on Wall or Photos and if anything is made public, they will see it. These options are under the profile photo.

Now you may be thinking, I’ve got my Facebook on lock down, no one can find me if they search for me and aren’t a friend of mine. That may be true, but if you have a personalized Facebook URL and you post that anywhere on-line, people can find you.  If you don’t want those people to ask to be your friend or send you a message you can fix that in your privacy settings.

Where are my privacy settings?

Yeah, they’ve kind of hidden them again. Up on your top menu bar off to the right there’s an arrow next to the word Home. Click on the arrow and you’ll get the drop down menu. Go to Privacy Settings and from there look for the section that says “How You Connect.”  The settings in there determine how/if people can search for you  and what they’ll see on your profile.

Here’s a screenshot of how I’ve set up my settings. Only friends can search for me. You can only ask to be my friend or send me a message if you are friends with one of my friends, etc.  The three options for each of these settings are Everyone, Friends of Friends and Friends. Those are your only choices. To illustrate what people then see from some of these settings, below you can see that My Awesome Friend is OK with anyone sending a message or asking to be a friend. Not My Friend doesn’t want messages from just anyone, but you can ask to be a friend. And then there’s me, if you don’t know someone who is a friend of mine, I don’t want you talking to me at all. The gear on the far right lets you report/block the person or poke them (yes, that poke feature is STILL available.)

Tomorrow we’ll discuss the new lists feature and subscribing. Questions?