Timeshare Forums Facebook group

[salpalaz]

thanks I just joined

[Sydney]

Sydney,

I've never used facebook. I think this will give me an opportunity to finally take the plunge. Can you explain how it works and how to get started with it?

Jim

FB is just a social networking site as you may have heard. You set up your own profile with as much or little info as you like. You set up your security settings so that only people you have added to your "friends" list (contact list) can access your info. It's a quick and easy way to keep up with what people are doing without having to contact or email them individually.

It's handy for keeping up with people you like but would rarely contact if not for Facebook. As people update their status, it appears on your "homepage" so at any one time, you can tell what a bunch of your friends are doing or thinking and then can comment if you choose.

You can put your friends into different groups and each group can have different levels of access.

If you join a Facebook group like the TS4Ms one, people in the group do not have access to your info unless you have added them to your friends list and they reciprocate. So you can be as safe and unsafe as you choose.

For example, I have very strict privacy settings. Up until yesterday, people couldn't even request me as their friend. I changed that to allow TS4ms people to request me. Even so, you need to approve a request before someone can have access to your info. And you can limit what info they can access depending on which group you put them in, e.g. photo albums, profile, your wall, etc.

You can also block out what your friends are doing. So if you have a friend who is on all the time and constantly using applications or updating their status, then you can click on them and show less of their activities so that you only keep track of people in your "homepage" of the ones you want.


This may all sound very strange, so once you get started and have specific questions, post here or PM and I'd be happy to answer them.

[pittle]

I am in facebook, but be darned if I know why. Now that I have it, what am I supposed to do with it?

Me too! I did at least join the group, but it shows up with my "real" name.

[bigfrank]

If you guys can will you please go back to the FB TS4ms page and post what your member name is here. Most of you we all know but some of the faces I have no idea who they are.

[taffy19]

What's this twitter thing, too? Everyone seems to be into becoming a twit.

I would read "Oh, You Vulnerable Twit! Why Twitter Needs Security" as it makes a lot of sense, especially since they use the tiny URL which I have clicked on a few times already as I wanted to know who the person was who wanted to follow me. The weird part is that most of the names were hard to pronounce nor did I know them so I didn't accept any luckily but is the damage done already? I only accept the web sites now that I trust or the people or forums I know.

Anyway, the article is good to read so you know what you are letting yourself into if you are not careful. I don't know which social network I like better but Twitter seems to be less cluttered than Facebook. Both allow you to post pictures which I enjoy looking at.

Has anyone heard of FLOCK which is a social web browser that ties many of these web sites together? You can read more below. It sounds interesting to me if you use a bunch of them. They are all well-known web sites we are familiar with. Has anyone used it already and what is your opinion about that?

http://www.flock.com/
Get the Award Winning Social Web Browser! Powered by Mozilla.

Personally, I find it all a waste of time and prefer getting the updates from companies by email so I can click on their web site and read it there. It may be great if you are part of a group for work or pleasure and want to stay in touch with all of you all the time. JMHO.

[Sydney]

I moved the 3 posts identifying TS4Ms members' real names on Facebook to the admin forum, due to privacy concerns. If people on Facebook want to reveal their TS4ms names there, they can do that, but I do not think it's prudent to reveal their real names here for all to see as this is an open forum.

[taffy19]

I can't agree with you more. I wonder why Twitter or Facebook makes you post your real name there rather than by screen or user name only?

I already deleted myself from Twitter because I got several requests from people wanting to follow me and I had no idea who they were. I didn't like it and was dumb enough to click on their link and saw some strange web sites. The article I posted yesterday wrote about this problem that you cannot see the links where they take you to so it made me feel even more uncomfortable.

Please, be careful.

[ArtsieAng]

I'm confused....Now that facebook is allowing user names, can you change from your real name to your user name?

[Sydney]

I'm confused....Now that facebook is allowing user names, can you change from your real name to your user name?

Personally, I think it's just become a lot easier for people to find out about personal info about you. There goes your anonymity.

The way around this would be to make sure you have very strong Facebook security options set, e.g. you can make it so people can not even search for you.

You still need to use your real name in Facebook but if you have a user name, people can easily locate you instead of searching through the 300 or so John Smith.

[ArtsieAng]

Personally, I think it's just become a lot easier for people to find out about personal info you. There's goes your anonymity.

The way around this would be to make sure you have very strong Facebook security options set, e.g. you can make it so people can not even search for you.

You still need to use your real name in Facebook but if you have a user name, people can easily locate you instead of searching through the 300 or so John Smith.

OK, thanks Sydney. I'm going to go and take another look at my security settings.