T4L Redux: Unhiding Friends on Facebook

For most people, I imagine the next two weeks will be pretty busy with traveling, shopping, baking, socializing, and myriad other holiday-related activities. So rather than write any new posts that may get lost in the hoopla, for the rest of the year my posts will link back to earlier ones on some of my most popular topics, with any current updates and links to other related posts that may be helpful. But don't worry—I'll be posting lots of new content in 2010, so do be sure to check back when the madness finally dies down!

I really should send the folks at Facebook a gift basket to thank them for all the traffic they've driven my way this year by virtue of their never-ending interface changes, confusing privacy settings, random bugs, and completely unwillingness to fix common user problems. Case in point: the nightmare that is trying to add a friends' posts back to your timeline after you've hidden them, whether accidentally or on purpose.

This post has the most up-to-date information I have on how to do this:

The Latest on How To Unhide Friends on Facebook

The thing that makes this even more frustrating is that they actually had a solution that seemed to work for most people earlier this year (adding them back on your Friends page)—and then they took it away!

The situation also became worse when they launched the latest home page design, where you have two different possible views: Live Feed and News Feed. For the Live Feed, Facebook added a setting to the number of people whose posts would appear on your page and set the default at 250. So if you have more friends than that, you could be missing some friends' posts even if you didn't hide them yourself. You can find a fix for this problem here:

Reader Question: When Your Facebook Posts Don't Show Up on Friends' Home Pages

Note that with the recent changes to Facebook's privacy controls, the screenshots in the above post (and way to get to them) may be slightly different. But the concepts are still the same.

If you're still having trouble seeing some people's posts and none of the fixes in the posts above do the trick, please let me know so I can see if I can track down another solution.

Mashable Open Web Awards Results

Yesterday, Mashable announced the winners of their 3rd Annual Open Web Awards aaand... Tech for Luddites wasn't one of them. :( The "Most Educational to Follow" title goes to Brother Eliseo Soriano, a religious leader in the Philippines. Congratulations, Brother Soriano.

I'm not actually disappointed at all. As the voting went on, I could see that many of the people who did vote for T4L were names I didn't recognize, meaning they weren't all just friends being friends. :) It was extremely heartening to see that the efforts I've been making with this blog since it began—not even a year ago yet!—have actually made a difference to so many people.

Thanks so much to all of you who did vote for me—I sincerely appreciate your support. And I hope to continue making Tech for Luddites a helpful resource for you all as we move into our second year.

Luddites rule!

The Good Part of Facebook's New Privacy Settings

In yesterday's post, I talked about the new way Facebook is managing privacy controls and pointed out a couple of issues I have with their new approach—primarily that there's no way to restrict some pieces of information that Facebook has unilaterally deemed to be public.

However, there's also one major improvement to the system.

Facebook's Latest Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Oh-So-Ugly

If you've logged into Facebook over the last few days, you were likely welcomed with this pop-up window alerting you to new changes to the site's privacy control settings. (And if you haven't been, you will be shortly.)

QuickTip: Change the Title and Blurb for Links You Post on Facebook

I share a lot of links with my friends on Facebook, and I'm always frustrated when the site I'm sharing from is coded in such a way that there's no useful or interesting info in the link text.

Facebook Announces Upcoming Changes to Privacy Settings

Over the last couple of days, you may have seen this notice at the top of your home page.

Twitter Lists: What Are They and How Do You Use Them?

Twitter Lists (note to self: Do not call them Twists... do NOT call them Twists...) were implemented a little while back, so I figured it's about time I try my hand at explaining them! At the most basic level, they're the same idea as friend lists in Facebook or groups in TweetDeck. They're a way to create groupings of people you follow based on whatever criteria you want. For example, you could have one for family members, another one for the funniest people you follow, another one for travel-related Twitterers, etc. Unfortunately, as with many Twittery things, it's a bit of a challenge to figure out how you actually use them.

Weirdest Facebook Bug I've Seen to Date

Update 11/30/09: Well, that was odd. I had JUST posted this entry then went back to my own Facebook account to discover this Mashable post in my news feed that explains what's going on:

5 Big Changes to Watch in Facebook’s Upcoming Redesign

*****

And that's saying something!

I'm used to getting questions from readers about annoying problems they're having with Facebook—privacy issues, missing friends, posts disappearing... But when reader Kim sent me a note last Wednesday saying that a bunch of thngs in her FB interface had moved to other positions, I had trouble imagining what she meant. So she sent me this screenshot (identifying info removed).

It's Cyber Monday! Do You Know Where Your E-Coupons Are?

Today is the day when Americans head back to the office after a restful and foodful Thanksgiving long weekend, fire up their computers, and get back to the serious business of... shopping. Cyber Monday is the traditional kickoff day for online retailers' holiday season and the discounts will be flying fast and furious. But no matter how great the listed sales prices are, you should always take a moment before hitting the Checkout button to see if there are any other special offers on what you're buying out there.

Thank You!

Tomorrow will be the first Thanksgiving since I launched Tech for Luddites a little less than a year ago. I'd like to take this occasion to express my sincere gratitude to all of you who have visited since then, left comments, asked questions, and shared your own tips. I really appreciate your support and I hope you'll continue to drop by as I have some exciting plans for the site that I'll be announcing in the new year.

In the meantime, I wish all my readers and their families a Happy Thanksgiving and the start of a wonderful holiday season. I have no tech tips this time, but in the spirit of the season I'm including a decidedly Luddite-friendly recipe I recently developed for a class I'm taking. Cheers!