MOMETEK's Guide: Facebook

Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Yet Another Facebook Hack

So another hack is circulating around Facebook. Be careful on what you click on.

This is the second similar message I got this month. The last one I also missed. The owner of the account finally posted an update that she finally got her Facebook account back.

It appears that someone figured out her password and then logged into her account. I suspect the link installs a keylogger or it is a link to a phishing page that asks you to sign in again. This allows the hackers to get your password, so they can log in to your account.

Until I can figure out how they are getting in and how to prevent it, here are a few basic tips you need to remember for any of your online accounts.

Passphrases are more secure than alphanumeric passwords. Keep your credentials updated.

Courtesy: https://xkcd.com/936/
If you click on a link and it says that Facebook needs to verify your account, close the tab. The only time Facebook will ask you for your password is if you cleared your cookies, or never signed in that browser before. Any other time is probably a phishing site.
Don't give your password out to anyone.
Be careful when going on to public WiFi. Double check there aren't two of the same hot-spots in your WiFi list on your device. For instance, check to see that there isn't two “Walmart” hot-spots. It's likely one of them is a hacker.
And finally, If alarm bells go off when you see something out of character from a friend, it's likely your instincts are right. Find another way to contact this friend and ask.

Hope this helps a little and maybe I won't get a similar message from another Facebook friend.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Garbage (a.k.a. "Fake") News

Snapshot from a garbage fake new site:
http://usa-conservative.com

What you see is a fake news site. No sources, just a post that spews outright lies.

And yet, this garbage gets passed around as "fact."

You may think that this particular post isn't that big of a deal - but considering that this is supposed to be a "conservative site".

I've been through this before, but maybe I wasn't clear. So here are steps you can take to make sure you aren't spreading lies.

DO: Check to see if there are sources.

If fake news sites actually link to anything, it's usually to another site that it plagiarized. Usually, however, there are no links.

DON'T: Link to the page based on its title. Read the article first.

DO: Use Google. Just type the title into the search box. If you can't find anything to your satisfaction, then pick up some keywords. "Monica Lewinski Died" would be a good search parameter to use.

DON'T: Post something without doing your research. Don't have time to research? Then don't post it.

---

Now to get all religious (a heads up to non-Christians)

As Christians, we are supposed to Purveyors of truth. If you are not posting something that isn't true, then you are spreading a lie. Guess who the father of all lies is? Guess who you are helping by sharing lies?

Now, more than ever, we are up for scrutiny. Don't give those who hate us more fodder. They already have enough as it is.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Store Update

Items in the Store

Finally, the CafePress store is very close to the design of my blog. Okay, maybe not, but at least when you visit it, you can tell that it belongs to this site.

My next project for this site is to fix mometek.com. I don't think I will be able to do that until Friday since I have another site to work on.

I've also added more journals if you are interested. I will be buying a few for myself and the kids. Two of them want one for drawing. Since one of the options happens to be blank pages, they'll have their drawing journals.

I do have a lot more planned for MOMETEK. Like the MOMETEK Facebook page, subscribe to MOMETEK YouTube channel (soon!), and for updates for more than just MOMETEK, follow me on Twitter.

Friday, June 2, 2017

Make Sure Your Angry Rant is Grammatically Correct

Grammar automaton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Did someone make you so mad on Facebook that you cannot spell straight? Blogged a wall of text but when editing, you realize you are too tired to double-check your grammar?

You might want to check Grammarly. This addon is a step up from the standard spellcheck found in browsers.

The free version checks mostly spelling and some basic errors (like commas, etc.). It also has a premium version that makes you question your ability as a writer.

There are two ways to get premium access. You can either pay for it at low as $11.66 per a month, if you pay for an entire year at once, or if you invite people and they sign up for free and get this: you and the person that signs up gets a free week of premium.

Yeah, I'll get a free week of Premium if you sign up.

You can only see the advanced issues with premium.

I wouldn't be posting on it though if I didn't like it. To be honest, I've had some problems with Grammarly and Firefox up to about a week ago. It's why I hadn't posted it until now.

You can also download and install the Grammarly app, which allows you to copy-paste or import articles to edit. If you don't have Microsoft Office Suite, then it won't work in One Note. There's no plug-in for LibreOffice either. It also doesn't work on some sites like Twitter and Patreon.

I use the app for a lot of my posts on my story blog as it's easier to keep it all in one place on One Note. Eventually, I will be expanding on the story, and I will have a book to sell, soon.

In the meantime, install the app, and give it a shot. Don't let your anger make you look like an illiterate. Keep the Grammar Nazis from detracting from your point and the opposition on less thing to criticize.

Posts for this blog, Elusive Retrospection and related Patreon posts.

This post already corrected except for the "advanced issues". I usually use the plugin that works with Blogger but this makes a good example. FYI - I seem to love, the, comma, a, little, too, much.

Edit: I got my brother to sign up so that I can have a week to test premium. The good news is that I updated this article with the corrections. The bad news is that I didn't realize how bad my writing was until now.

I also used it for my book blog. The only shortcoming is that when you write someone's speech, some people speak grammatically incorrect. Grammarly cannot tell the difference. Fortunately, there is an ignore link.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

How to spot Real Fake News

In spite of all of the "safeguards" that Facebook had, someone linked to an "article" (which looked more like a blog) that set off a lot of alarm bells. The only source that it claimed to give was a video that was vaguely related to the article but had nothing to do with the article itself.

A quick search of the details given in the article, the place, the business that was mentioned and I only found links to other "news" sites that have the exact same story. None of them have any sources and it appears they were all copy-pasted from another site that no longer exists. I could not find the business in question or any local news source that had a similar story.

Unfortunately, I can't find the link anymore as the site seemed to have disappeared from the internet. So I can't link to it. However, the story is still on Snopes and labeled as False

I know that known legitimate sites have altered the news to fit whatever narrative that they are trying to portray (I'm looking at you CNN) or sensationalized a rare incident to get people spun up (just about every news outlet out there).

However, "fake news" gets posted on Facebook, still. When Facebook flags it as fake news, people got spun up and accused of Facebook mitigating free speech even though after my research, the article is indeed as fake.

This is nothing new. I don't know how many times I've had to explain that "No, your profile can't be hacked just by going to someone else's profile or friending them", "No, Bill gates will not give a dollar to some charity if you share this image", and "No, you are not going to hell if you don't post Obi-Wan Jesus or any form of Jesus on your wall."

I have not found the verses in the Bible to collaborate that last one.

The recent "Breaking News" articles are the most annoying. They are fairly recent and sound very plausible, even to a seasoned internet user like me. So how do we tell the difference? Here are some steps you should take (regardless of the source) before posting some sensational piece that turns out later to be misleading if not completely false.

Move your mouse to the link and actually click on it. Don't just assume the article is valid because it has thousands of shares and likes.
Check for sources. A lot of these articles either are a copy-paste from another news site, which is a copy paste from yet another site, which is a copy paste from a known satire news source. Some of these articles do not show any sources at all or link to something that isn't even related to the site.
Google the details. If the article doesn't have a whole lot of details, then check Snopes. Yes, it's supposedly biased to the left, although I have found a lot of left fake news debunked by Snopes. Even if you feel that way, Snopes usually gives more details and sources that you can use to do your own research. When I find a better fact-checking site, then I'll post a blog on that.
If in doubt, don't post it. You do not have to be a pawn in anyone's game. The fake news posts and heavily edited "legit news" are designed to get you spun up and to perpetuate a narrative that they want to "win". Take a deep breath. You are better than that. Skip it until you have more information.

In order for real change to come, we all need to be informed with real facts. This can't happen until a large percentage of people decide that they will no longer be manipulated like this. In the meantime, do your research and if you find an article that is inaccurate, do your research then say something and post the facts.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Facebook Pirates

I found this little gem on my Facebook feed this morning:

First off, she wasn't hacked. Hacking involves gaining access to an account. No one gained access to her account, they just downloaded the pics that they could see (easy to do) and made a new Facebook account. Then they tried to friend all of her friends.

Why do they do this?

Sometimes it's a ruse to try to raise money. Sometimes it's to troll the owner of the original account (usually accounts of people who are well known), and sometimes... Well, if I had to take a wild guess, some people are so desperate to be someone other than themselves, they have to steal other people's identities.

It's the same reason why someone would steal baby pics and come up with this narrative on how wonderful motherhood is... complete with a detailed birth story.

People like this need some serious mental help.

What do do when this happens to you?

First, if you are receiving a friend's request from someone that you thought you were already friends with, check your friends list. If they're not there, it is entirely possible that either Facebook glitched and removed your friend from your list. This has happened to me recently when I realized I didn't see a post from someone I knew for a while.

If they are in your friend's list, message them. Don't accept or deny the request just yet. If they message you back from the known account, let them know about the duplicate.

It's entirely possible that they got locked out of their account and started a new one. However, Facebook has made it easy to get back in while keeping it somewhat secure. It's not likely. There might be some questions you could ask that you know that only the two of you would know. In the end it will be your call whether or not to accept the new friend request.

Finally, if it happens to you, report the duplicate page. Your friends could report it, but for the most part, they really can only report the friend's request as spam. The only way to 100% prevent something like this is to not be on Facebook at all.

For more info on this, check out these links:
Snopes' take: http://bit.ly/2odZ9zH
Hoax-Slayer's Take: http://bit.ly/2o1MzRN

Digitally Kidnapped: https://yhoo.it/2nIbtE4 and http://bit.ly/2o1VtyJ

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Facebook and its Glitches?

Nathan got an error while trying to get onto Facebook. Something about being possibly suspended.

When he told me, he said that his account had been suspended. I asked if he knew what possibly could have caused it and he said that the last comment he made was on a popular post in response to "I can't wait until the Blue-Bell trucks come back." His comment? "They will when the military is done with them." It was a tongue and cheek humorous comment on Jade helm. Not a terrorist threat, not a call to arms, not a bomb threat, or any kind of threat.

He noticed that the comment had been deleted so he assumed that it may have been that comment.

I was livid.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with Facebook (and Microsoft for that matter - another post sometime in the future). Teetering on the brink of hate for how FB has sold out to the government, the love of keeping in touch with friends and family has kept me from going over that edge. I almost went over that edge when Nathan told me this.

It turns out he misunderstood the error. Another attempted login, and he was in - but not before I went on a rant and threatened to leave. I should have waited to make a second attempt, so that I wouldn't have thrown a fit online. Throwing a fit

I could chalk it off to a glitch. I could have been a glitch, but was it? Was his account was flagged because of an off-hand remark?

Will my account be suspended because of this post?

Monday, October 20, 2014

Why I Left Facebook and other Ramblings

Facebook logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week, I made an announcement on giving up on Facebook. By Tuesday, I realized that it wasn't necessarily Facebook causing me grief, but the entire internet. I found that I was tired of trying to time my online time on my laptop to when the internet was working, only to find that the internet connection wasn't there.

This would cause a problem with the rest of the day, as I try to do clean and check my laptop at the same time with hopes that the internet finally connected. This is terribly inefficient. Not only I wasn't getting anything useful done, I would only stick reading the news or browsing Facebook This wouldn't require much of an attention span. If I were interrupted by the kids, I wouldn't feel so guilty not finishing the news feed.

As a result, I started to become burned out. I guess I get burned out easily when I do things that are useless. No, keeping up with the family isn't useless, but watching the umpteenth cute and hilarious kitten/dog video is... So is passing on the umpteenth "idiot politician flavor of the day" picture meme, or watching the millionth poor sucker getting the tar beat out of him by some cop or other poor sucker.

To be honest, I didn't do anything useful in the limited time I did spend on the computer. I ended up playing Minecraft for a total of two hours in one week. Possibly less than what the average American spent watching TV.

Actually, I modded it mostly and reminisce on the days when I was capable of creating these mods. When was the last time I programmed anything? I think it was 4 or 5 years ago. Okay, if you don't count web design with a WYSIWYG editor, it's been longer than that.

There is good news. Rumor has it that the RV park changed internet providers with fiber optics. I hadn't asked yet to see for myself but I have noticed the change in speed. The WayPoints still cut out way too frequently, but we are a bit far from the nearest one. I'm not sure what could be interfering with the signal. It could be that our antennas are not strong enough.

We have considered buying our own repeater with a stronger receiver. In the meantime, I formulated a plan. After all, being offline has allowed me to formulate one.

I still WON'T be on Facebook until at least after the elections. Besides not wanting to create more enemies of people I would have otherwise gotten along with, I do have to retain my sanity for my kids - at least what's left of it.
I WILL be blogging on one of three blogs. This one, my family blog, and my new story blog.
I WON'T be deleting my Facebook. I do have a lot of family who want to keep up with what we are doing. So all of my blogs will post to Twitter, than to Facebook. This actually means more family updates as I will have a little more time for it.
I WILL be revamping MOMETEK (but not to the extreme). Since we have been cautious on how much money we spend, it's likely I will delve more into life tips for simplifying than on products.
I WILL eventually be vblogging again. Not sure if I'm going to wait for my new laptop, which I desperately need. My current laptop heats up too easily if I use anything graphic intensive. Since we are replacing the desktop (which is used by everyone else), it's likely I won't be getting one soon.
I WILL be checking in on Google+ comments to my posts, but not that I have a choice. My Blogger blogs are all integrated with Google+ so, if you want to follow me were you are more likely to be noticed, you can follow me there.

Google+ is a grey area. G+ seems to be a little more flexible on what I want to see. People follow me, but I don't have to follow them (there are a lot of people who follow me who don't put up any posts). The posts that matter most do end up in my timeline and I can choose what group I want to see.

For instance, I can choose just to see family, religious, or Tech posts (those are three of the categories I have for my circles).

So there you have it. Why I left Facebook (and most of the internet). It's not permanent, unless the world ends sometime soon.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Making a Website for Profit. Part Three

George dollar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

There's yet another blog site. Not that I recommend going away from blogger, but this might be best for those who don't want the bells and whistles that blogger provides. The same bells and whistles that could distract you from getting your thoughts onto the screen.

It's called Medium and it was created (surprise) by the original founder of blogger. It's also one of the apps that you can put on to you strikingly website.

The app allows you to either put your own profile on there, which will post your own unique content. Or, if you are not that creative, you can create your own category, and add your favorite story, or if you are lazy, you can just add a random category.

At the time of this writing, I don't have any content or categories of my own, but I did find a category called "Matter". Matter had a few interesting tech articles, so I figured that was the best choice.

Call me lazy, but really, I'm just impatient.

Okay, I was distracted. I wanted to get this article out sooner, but spent most of the time reading articles that had nothing to do with this post. This brings me to my warning: The articles are written by very talented people and if you are not careful, you will not be able to get anything done.

Anyway, Medium is fully integrated with Strikingly making it easier to get content onto your page. Getting fresh content onto your page will draw potential customers.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

More On CafePress

money (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

Okay, so I've been working on CafePress for the last couple of days. I think I would have been done sooner, but a few unrelated problems came up. Which I've been ranting about on Google plus lately.

CafePress has changed their pricing structure. This was a good change. Instead of having a free version vs a paid version, it's the same store with different ways of paying. The "no upfront costs" version is essentially free if you don't sell anything, but if you do sell something, they make a percentage of your profits.

If you make more than $50 (as what their site states), you might want to go with the monthly payment option, in which you pay a monthly fee instead of a percentage. It's cheaper to pay yearly, of course.

They have added more products making their selection quite large. Besides T-shirts, mugs and maybe a few bags, they've added some Waterbottles, thermoses, baby products and a lot more clothing. I don't know how many products I may be adding, but it's like a kid in a candy shop: exciting and overwhelming.

Their new pricing structure had brought down the base price on a lot of items, but to be competitive, some items you only can make pennies on. The Journal I have set up is only marked up about 50 cents to remain competitive, but the KOR Water bottle, at least on CafePress, competitive means I make a little more.

This is probably the easiest way to make money online. At least, there's no upfront costs. So you can still start a blog, and sell items without having any cash onhand... I think.

I have yet to sell anything. Next post: Attracting customers (or something like that).

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Thursday, February 27, 2014

Free Calendar Guide

It's a just a guide, right? Actually it's a calendar for March and A guide. It's a Calendar Guide... And it's free. There's no email required, which means, there's no potential for spam. You have a calendar with a section for notes.

It's in PDF format with click-able links so that you can visit some of the same articles that I have found interesting. You can also check out the recommended items (this month there's a couple of books)

The Calendar (click here to go to the download)

So, feel free to download load it and print it. You can even give a copy to a friend, or a friend of friends... Or maybe your sister's husband's cousin's Father's Mother.

Be sure to share this blog post, maybe someone else on your Facebook or Google+ page might be interested in it.

Each Month will have a theme. This month it's on writing your ideas down and creative writing. I did use the MOMĒTEK's Guide Colors this time, but it won't all be the same.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and download it.

Do you think there could be improvements? Let me know in the comments.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Blog Promotion with Zemanta

Image via CrunchBase

My experience with Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ had been awful when it comes to getting shares or even hits. I think it’s partly luck as my post gets pushed down by a wave of cute kitten memes, political rants, and timewasting, but very interesting videos. It’s also partly because I don’t feel comfortable spamming people with links to my blog.

I had better luck with a plugin called “Zemanta”. It inserts a sidebar that allows you to quickly find images for your blog as well as articles that are related. When you click on the articles, sometimes, you get clicked-back. Almost all of my comments came from these links.

I had stopped using Zemanta as it is a bit flakey with Windows Live Writer (WLW). WLW is something I use when I want to blog offline. I can’t get to blogger when I’m in the car and there’s no free wi-fi around. When I get home, I usually would connect to the internet, allow Zemanta to load, add all of the extras, then publish it to my blog.

At one point, WLW started to crash before I could type anything, so I finally just turned off the plugin. Sure enough, my legitimate hits went down.

A couple of days ago, I tried Zemanta again on live writer and found that it worked – somewhat. It seems that when WLW cannot connect to the internet, which happens frequently, it crashes.

That said, I manage to get a few more posts up using Zemanta (mostly on my newer blog) and sure enough, my legitimate clicks went up again.

Even if I have to edit my blog later in blogger online to include Zemanta content, I will continue using it.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Free Microsoft Office Stuff?

Windows Live SkyDrive (Photo credit: 阿國)

My mother's computer is old and probably could not handle Microsoft Word 2010, which is unfortunate, since some of the writing contests that she really wants to enter require a Microsoft Word compatible document. OpenOffice is a great program, but sometimes converting it to MS Word does not work out so well.

So, I decided to look into SkyDrive, again.

The last time I was on SkyDrive, I could not edit my documents online. So I had decided just to use it as a backup drive only. Handy, as I know full well what happens when you don't have a backup. I was fortunate enough that my husband had bought an adapter for laptop hard drives, allowing me to move my documents to the desktop. So when I heard of "SkyDrive" from Microsoft and how at the very least, OneNote can synchronize with the drive, I was elated.

I've switch computers twice since then (once from a netbook to the desktop, then from the desktop to my new laptop) and it was nice that I didn't not have to worry about my office documents.

After I had the discussion with my mother, I thought about trying SkyDrive again because I heard that they added new features that allow you to not only view your documents, but to edit them. I was not disappointed.

Now, you can create (or edit) a Word document, Excel workbook, PowerPoint presentation, One Note (my favorite), and an excel survey. The web version is missing some features, but for basic Word documents (such as typing up the next American Novel) or a paper that's due tomorrow.

For the purpose of the blog, I did a "test" word document and just typed up a paragraph. I was surprised on the fact that the look and feel was similar to Word 2010, it didn't lag at all, in spite of the fact that I have a lot of background programs running. Typically, I have to shut a few down to go onto Facebook.

I haven't used it enough to give a decent review, but I thought it was good enough to mention now as I do know there are plenty of people who cannot afford to shell out $100 for Microsoft Office, especially, in this economy. You will be hearing from me on SkyDrive again.

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