Coleman Technologies Blog

Business Printing

In the past, businesses greatly relied on the use of their printers, but it really can’t be said that this use is particularly monitored, even now. As a matter of fact, a survey conducted by Buyer’s Laboratory suggests that a full 90 percent of companies (yes, nine-zero) don’t keep track of their printing costs - a number that can regularly add up to over five percent of a business’ total revenue. If this seems high, take a moment to consider the different expenses that contribute to this total.

Naturally, you have to consider the resources you need in order to use a printer. You need the requisite paper and ink, but not many people would think to include the electrical costs of keeping the printer in operation. You also need to take the time (about 15 percent of it) that your IT department spends dealing with printer-related issues and the 23 percent of help desk calls that are made in regard to these issues.

This all impacts your operational budget, and there’s a chance that you weren't even aware of it.

What Can Be Done?

For starters, you need to begin tracking your printing costs, as it will be beneficial to find out how much of your budget is potentially being eaten away by unneeded spending there. Secondly, you should implement a print management solution to make it easier to continue this tracking in the future.

In order to really get the most out of your print management solution, you should have a strategy that allows you to do so. By granting you with greater insights into your printing, you can figure out ways to minimize or eliminate excessive costs, without negatively impacting the accessibility of printed materials.

When considering your options for a print management platform, we recommend that you look for the following features:

• Comprehensive Assessments - As we said, many organizations don’t use any tools to keep track of their printing costs. This tool in particular will give you a better idea of how much is being printed, where it is being printed from, and when your devices are due for maintenance.
• Print Management - A print management platform can provide you with precise controls over how your printers can be used.
• Paper-to-Digital Conversions - By transferring your printed resources into digital ones, you can evaluate the value that they provide when printed and better optimize your printing costs.
• Better Security - It stands to reason that your data security can improve when you have more control over this data. Hard copies inherently mean that you have less control, and a greater risk of a security issue.
• Tracking Capabilities - By tracking how much is being printed, you can help optimize your costs through implementing certain controls, like user limitations on how much can be printed in a set amount of time.
• Setting Print Policies - You can set up resource-saving policies like enforcing double-sided printing and establishing print quotas to prevent users from abusing the office printer.

If your business’ documents are resulting in excessive costs, reach out to our IT experts today! Coleman Technologies can help you keep your printing under control. Call (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

It had been a rough quarter at Thatcher-Jenkins. Sales were down as two of the company’s largest clients ceased doing business after they found suppliers that would offer the same services for less. In an attempt to stop the figurative bleeding, Parker had initiated a major overhaul to the management system the company would use. Much of the production staff, who is made up of a lot of people that had been working at the company for several years, found the new technology intrusive to production. Then there were problems with deployment which cost the company some time and a fair amount of capital. The IT staff that was in place at the time simply didn’t have the resources to cover a rushed end-to-end software implementation and their typical workload, leading to production interruptions and other inefficiencies.

So, as Parker stood with his hand on the glass of the window in his office, his thoughts weren’t of the impending holiday, his family, or how fortunate he was; they were firmly focused on the latest bought of downtime that took down production for half a day. Who knows how much money it had cost the company?

The phone rang. He walked back over to his desk, tripping over the exposed wire to his new VoIP phone that nobody bothered to hide. He snatched at the phone.

“Hello,” he answered, angered.

On the other end of the phone was his wife. Mrs. Parker was wondering when Parker would be home. After all, it was Christmas Eve.

“I’m just wrapping up here...Love you too.”

He hung up the phone, glanced aimlessly around his office, and slumped down into his desk chair. He sat for a few minutes before he got up, remotely started his car, put his coat on, shut down his computer, turned the lights off, grabbed his bag, and walked out the door.

As he slowly shuffled to his car, the snow was falling lightly, but it might have been just the ice in the air as it was a little too cold for snow. His car was the last car in the parking lot. This made him feel very alone. He got in the car and slowly drove away.

As he drove past all the houses lit up for Christmas, he started to cheer up. He stopped off at the liquor store to get some brandy and as he was walking out of the store he ran into one of his clients.

“Hey there Parker, Merry Christmas,” the stout man in a black pea coat said.

“Oh, hi there Jack, same to you,” Parker answered as he almost dropped the bottle of brandy he had just bought.

“Whatcha got there?” Jack asked inquisitively.

“We do Brandy Alexanders on Christmas Eve. Family Tradition,” Parker answered.

“Well that’s nice. Look, have a Merry Christmas. Give my best to your family. We’ll talk next week,” Jack said before he scurried away inside the liquor store.

Parker walked back to his car, wondering what Jack meant by the “we’ll talk next week” remark. He sat behind the wheel for a minute, before driving away. The uneasy feeling he had in his office was more like panic as he drove down the street toward his house.

Parker started talking to himself in his car, “What did Jack mean? If his company leaves, I’ll have to lay people off,” At this point he had worked himself up. He popped the top of the brandy bottle and started to take intermittent swigs. He drove past his house to the bridge on the outskirts of town. He parked his car on the side of the road and got out of his car and walked up the bridge.

Traffic continued to go by, but there wasn’t much of it to speak of, being Christmas Eve and all. He walked up to the center of the bridge with the bottle of brandy firmly in hand. He stood up and looked at the sliver of moon that poked out behind the passing clouds. He looked at the river. He took a pull of his brandy and put the cap back on. All of a sudden what seemed like a shadow approached him from the far side of the bridge.

“Not the Christmas Eve you planned on having, huh Parker?” the voice said as he came into the light. The man was short and older than Parker. He had a wool cap and jacket on.

“Who are you? How do you know my name?” Parker asked.

‘My name is Gary and I know all there is to know about you,” he said, “What are you doing up here?”

Where only moments before had Parker been engulfed in self-pity, now there was only fear. He moved away abruptly, but didn’t say anything.

Gary kept after him.

“Can I have a drink?” he asked.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Parker demanded as Gary reached for the bottle of brandy. Gary stopped moving toward him.

“Please?” Gary asked.

The three or four drinks that Parker had were now starting to kick in. He extended the bottle and Gary took it, opened it, took a drink, and handed it back in rapid succession.

“So, Parker, what are you doing out here on Christmas eve?” Gary asked rhetorically.

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business,” Parker replied.

“Were you planning on jumping off of the bridge?” Gary asked abruptly.

Suddenly, Parker realized that maybe he had gone up there to do just that.

“I don’t know,” Parker replied, “Sometimes I feel like everyone that depends on me would be better off if I wasn't the one making the decisions.”

“Well...There is a way to find out.” Gary said as he rushed at him. Parker, still clutching the bottle of brandy, sidestepped as Gary dove off the bridge into the river. Shocked, Parker dropped the bottle, took off his coat and ran to the other side of the bridge and jumped in after Gary.

As he hit the nearly frozen water, it sent a shock through his entire system. He grabbed Gary, who was thrashing around in the current and dragged him to the bank of the river.

Both men lay on the frozen bank of the river. Gary begins to laugh. Incredulous at Gary’s levity, Parker started to yell at him.

“What the hell do you think you were doing?!” Parker started, freezing and soaked, “If I didn’t jump in after you, you would have surely died!”

“Don’t be so sure,” Gary said, “I am your guardian angel, you needed to stop feeling sorry for yourself in order to know what it is that I know.”

“Guardian angel? You are touched, man!” Parker yelled as he got up and started making his way back toward the bridge.

‘There are no such thing as guardian angels. You are a crazy old man who just had his life saved by someone who didn’t feel like living ten minutes ago.”

“Parker, many people depend on you, and feeling sorry for yourself will never get you to where you want to go.” Gary said, scrambling after him.

“Look, friend. I’m going home. Tonight is Christmas Eve, and I need to be with my family...Not sopping wet listening to a crazy man.”

Gary stopped following him.

“I may be crazy, but I am here to tell you that you can’t lose hope,” Gary shouted after him, “We will meet again soon.”

Parker made his way back to the bridge, picked up his jacket and his bottle of brandy and started back to his car. He opened the door to his car, but before he got in looked around for Gary. He was nowhere to be found. With mixed emotions Parker got in his car and returned home.

---

When Parker returned home, he found a strange car in the driveway. He walked in the front door, still wet from his time in the river, only to find his IT administrator standing in the foyer of the house waiting for him.

“Where have you been?” the man asked

“What are you doing here?” Parker answered as his wife walked in the room.

“We’ve been hacked,” The IT admin started, ”I’ve got the team at the office now doing everything...wait a minute, why are you wet?”

“Yeah, what happened to you?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“What do you mean we were hacked?! I just left the office an hour ago!” Parker said helplessly.

“Yeah, Harold and Matt are at the office right now and Brett will be there soon. We should go.” The IT admin said.

“Wait a second, mister, you aren’t going anywhere before you tell me why you are sopping wet.” Mrs. Parker said sternly.

“I saved a man from drowning, Jewel, but now I really have to go down there to make sure we aren’t going to lose everything. Pete, let me get changed.”

After getting changed quickly and assuring his wife that everything is going to be okay, he rode to the office with Pete. Pete was the IT administrator for Thatcher-Jenkins. He had been working there for the past seven years and was Parker’s right hand man when it comes to IT. He had hired Pete at 23 to work in his IT department after Pete had been released from jail for hacking.

Pete was the son of one of Parker’s wife’s best friends and agreed to take him on as a favor, but had come to depend on his computer skills.

“What do we know about the hack?” Parker asked as they were driving.

“You know as much as I do right now, but when we couldn’t get a hold of you, I came right to your house. Your wife was worried.” Pete said.

“The craziest thing happened to me tonight. I was on the bridge and some crazy old guy came up to me and jumped in the river. I had to jump in after him so he didn’t drown.” Parker continued, “I had never seen this man before, but…”

“He knew who you were?” Pete said in Gary’s voice. Parker looked over and it was Gary driving the car, not Pete.

“What is going on?!” Parker bellowed with fear.

“Don’t be afraid, Parker. I am your guardian angel and I’m here to show you just how important you are to the people in your life.”

“Stop the car! Stop the car!”

“I’ll do you one better.” Gary said as he swerved off the road and into a building.

---

Parker woke up in his bed, but his wife was nowhere to be found. He jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, but the house was different. It wasn’t decorated for Christmas, it was like you would find in on any other day. He opened the front door and it was snowy and the streetlights had the Christmas ornaments hanging from them. As he stood in the doorway of his house, he noticed a well-dressed man walking down the unkempt sidewalk that ran perpendicular to the road. As the man got closer, he recognized him. It was Gary.

“What the hell have you done?! Where is Jewel?! Where are my kids?!” Parker yelled as Gary, now dressed in a top hat and a flawless waistcoat made his way up the front sidewalk in front of Parker’s house.

“Who are you and what have you done with my family?!” He continued as Gary walked past him into the house.

“I told you that I would show you just how important you are. Get dressed, it’s time for a tour.” Gary replied.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Parker adamantly stated.

“The faster we can get through this, the faster you will be allowed to go back to your old life.” said Gary.

“I hate my old life,” Parker yelled.

That’s when Gary said, “It’s up to you to change it.”

----

Parker got changed and got in the driver’s side of the car.

“Good, you can drive. I’m a terrible driver, “ Gary said sarcastically, “Let’s head over to your office.”

“What am I, Ebenezer Scrooge? Are you a ghost sent here to teach me a lesson?” Parker asked before starting the car.

“Nothing like that,” Gary started, “I’ve told you already, I am your guardian angel and I am here to show you just what life would be like for the people you care about if you weren’t a part of theirs.”

“Do you know how crazy this is?” was Parker’s retort.

“It’s no more crazy than your feelings of loneliness and frustration.” Gary said.

“Things just haven’t been going well at work. We’re trying to put in this new system and its messing with production.” Parker started, “There’s really very little I can do about it, either. We’ve lost two of our biggest accounts and trying to modernize is costing us a fortune. The world isn’t the same now as it was when I started working there. We may not have any choice but to lay off some people. It’s a really bad situation.”

“It could be worse,” Gary said as they took a left onto the industrial park.

Parker’s demeanor changed and immediately got more hostile.

‘What the hell do you mean it could be worse?! People depend on me to make good decisions and I’m letting them down! Don’t you get it?!”

“Oh, I get it,” Gary began, “but I know things could be worse. Just look at that.”

At this moment they came upon the Thatcher-Jenkins offices; or, more like where the Thatcher-Jenkins offices should be. The building, which sat just off the river at the north end of the industrial park was vacant. There were pieces of plywood over several of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the second-floor facade. The parking lot was unplowed, so when Parker opened the car door and got out, he crunched through the layer of cold-tempered snow.

“What the…” Parker trailed off as he crunched through the snow toward the building.

Gary got out and shouted after him, “I told you things could be worse.”

Parker turned around and glanced at him, “What is happening?”

Gary flashed a smile, “This is what happens if you aren’t the one making the decisions. 56 jobs are gone. The place boarded up and left vacant.”

Parker started back to the car.

“Where am I, then?” he asked sternly.

“Well you’re right here, of course. Get in, and I’ll show you more.” Gary said.

Parker got in the car and they made their way out of the Industrial Park and drove toward downtown. As they drove down Main street Parker noticed his wife, Jewel. She didn’t look like herself, however. Instead of the well-manicured woman, she was wearing a heavy wool coat, a wool hat with matching mittens and standing in the doorway of George’s Hardware ringing a bell. She was taking in donations for the Salvation Army.

“She always loves to help people,” Parker said as he started to roll down the window. They drove on by, causing Parker to watch her in the driver's-side mirror until she was no longer in sight.

“She’s wonderful, but her life is nothing like her life is with you,” Gary said, “Without you, she marries, but has a miscarriage and gets divorced. She never has the family that you two have created. She suffers each day with the loss.”

Parker started to tear up. Gary reached in his topcoat and grabbed a handkerchief and offered it to Parker. Parker took it, and blotted his eyes as the town passed them by.

“Where are you taking me now?” Parker asked helplessly.

“We have a couple more things to see before you make your decision,” Gary responded.

“What decision?” Parker asked several times. Gary gestured him to keep course. They came to a stop in a parking lot in front of Ophelia’s Diner, on the east edge of town near the interstate highway.

“Park the car here.” said Gary.

“Why are we stopping here? I’m not hungry.” Parker inquired with desperation in his voice.

“Good,” Gary said, “because we’re not going in.”

Gary led him around the side of the building to a camper that was set up about 50 feet behind the restaurant.

“What the hell is this?” Parker asked.

“Something you’ll need to see.” Gary responded.

They approached the camper. There was the faint smell of cigarettes and muffled noises coming from inside. Gary walks up and knocks on the door. After some rustling and audible muttering, the door swung open. The man standing in the doorway was Pete. He had a two-day stubble and had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

“What do you want?” Pete said, not taking the cigarette out of his mouth.

“Pete?!” Parker asked aloud. Pete looked as if he hadn’t bathed in a couple of days and was wearing a cook’s whites, but no apron. He wasn’t wearing shoes.

“Yeah. Do I know you?” Pete said with a twinge of hostility. The men just stood there and stared at each other for a minute at which time Pete had had enough.

“Well, I’m busy,” Pete slammed the door, leaving the other two men standing in the snow.

“Let’s go,” Gary said as he began to walk back to the car.

“I guess he had a rough time of it.” Parker said trailing after Gary, “Jewel got me to hire him after he got out of jail. I guess without me all his talents would have been put to waste. He’s one hell of an IT guy. He’s been with me for years; I was about to make him CIO.”

The two men reached the car and Gary got in and started it up. Parker looked back at the camper one more time and got in the passenger seat.

“I think I get the point,” Parker said softly when they were driving back toward town.

“Yeah, people depend on you, but I have one more thing to show you,” Gary said.

“Why don’t you just take me back?” Parker demanded.

“That’s not the way it works, Parker,” Gary responded, “Like I told you, you are here. I can’t just take you back. I’m just your guardian angel.”

“I understand why I’m so important now. I have you to thank for it.” Parker admitted.

“You need to see one more thing.” Gary said as he drove.

Parker was silent. As he watched the town drift by, he realized that it was getting late in the afternoon and it was starting to get dark.

“I’ll be able to pick up where I left off, right, Ghost?” Parker asked.

“I’m not a ghost and you are not Ebenezer Scrooge. If any of this helps you, it will be on you to get back to the place where you can make a difference.” Gary said.

“But how do I get back?” Parker asked helplessly.

“You’ll see,” Gary said, “the decision will be yours.”

Just then they arrived at the supermarket. Gary got out of the car and told Parker to follow him. He walked into the store and went to the aisle where you’d find Thatcher-Jenkins best-selling product. Gary pointed at the shelf. There were no products from Thatcher-Jenkins, just twice as many from their biggest competitor Capra Industries. Parker shook his head and smiled.

“Now you are ready,” Gary said with a smile, “Let’s go.”

They returned to the car and drove across town to the bridge in silence. Gary parked the car in the same place where Parker had parked it, what seemingly was a day prior, but that’s not the way this works.

The men walked up to the place on the bridge where they had first met. Gary reached in his coat and offered Parker an unopened bottle of brandy.

“Now go home to your wife.” Gary said.

“Thank you, angel.” Parker said and extended his hand. Gary didn’t shake his hand, he tipped his cap and abruptly walked away.

---

Parker drove home fast, much faster than he normally would have. Once he got home, he jumped out of the car and ran inside. Without taking off his shoes and coat he ran into his family room to find his children sitting on the couch playing on their tablets. His heart was filled with warmth, he made his way to the kitchen where his wife was.

“Oh, Jewel,” is all he said before he wrapped his arms around her.

“Wow, is everything okay?” She asked him.

“Everything is great. I love you so much.” He said to her stepping away and looking her in the eyes. He kissed her.

He placed the bottle of brandy on the counter.

Confused, Jewel asked, “What happened to you?”

“I just had a long day and I’m happy to be home.” he said.

Parker didn’t think about work for the whole next day. It was the longest he had actually relaxed in years. He spent the holiday with the people he loved, happy, and feeling as if anything was possible.

---

When he returned to work on the day after Christmas, he got there extra early. He noticed the Coleman Technologies business card that he left lying on his desk, so he went ahead and called Pete into his office. He was determined to find solutions to his business’ IT overruns.

“You asked for me, Boss?” Pete said as he walked in the open door.

“Yeah, Pete, shut the door.” Parker demanded. Pete walked in nervously and stood behind the chairs that were in front of the Parker’s desk.

“Have a seat,” Parker started, “Pete, over the Christmas holiday I had some harsh truths to face. It’s no secret that we’ve been having some technology problems lately and if they keep up, we’ll likely have to lay some people off.”

“Okay, we’re doing all…” Pete started before Parker interjected.

“I’m not blaming you, Pete. Like I said, I had some harsh truths to face. One of them is that I have to take a step back from the technology end of the business. My demands are some of the main reasons we’re having problems. I called you here to promote you, Pete. You’ve done one hell of a job for us and I was wondering if you would like to join the management team as CIO?”

Pete’s face was filled with surprise and pride, “How would it change the job I have now?”

“Do you want it, Pete?” Parker pressed.

“Yes, sir.” Pete responded.

“Wonderful, you are the right man for the job. The first course of action that you need to focus on is getting the resources in here to get our new system in place and get the people trained up on it. It is essential to the future of our company, and I think you are up to the challenge.”

“Thank you, sir.” Pete said earnestly, “I think the first thing we should look at is getting Coleman Technologies in here to help us cover our regular management while we finish the deployment.”

“Pete, if it’s in the budget, it is your call now. I’ll call a staff meeting later today to announce your promotion.“ Parker answered. “For now, though, I have some things I need to attend to.”

Parker walked around the desk to shake Pete’s hand and walked him out of the office. Once Pete was gone, Parker walked over to the window and put his palm on the glass. He hadn’t felt this proud in some time.

---

I’m glad to announce that Pete’s plan was implemented the very next day. The following week, Coleman Technologies did their first assessment, and soon after took over the management and maintenance of the computing infrastructure and network. For several months, Thatcher-Jenkins’ IT technicians, led by CIO Pete, implemented a system with Coleman Technologies supporting their technology. Now the two companies are full-time collaborators, and Thatcher-Jenkins continues their steady growth.

If you enjoyed this take and think that Coleman Technologies can breathe some new life into your business’ technology strategy, give us a call at (604) 513-9428 and one of our expert consultants can tell you how we can help you. Happy Holidays.

While we wish we could show you how to really accomplish true privacy on Facebook, the only way to actually reach that threshold would require you to have never signed up in the first place. This doesn’t mean, of course, that there is nothing that you can do now to protect your information - sharing more cognizantly and keeping it within circles you trust.

A Few of Facebook’s Issues

Like we said, Facebook has seen some pretty egregious security issues during its time. While we aren’t going to go too far into the weeds with these events, a quick summary might help to illustrate how careful users should really be as they use the platform:

• In 2007, Facebook introduced a feature that would allow companies to track purchases made by users and notify their friends of what they had purchased… without requiring any consent from the user.
• In 2011, the FTC charged Facebook for allowing private user information to be accessed by third parties, making this private information public without any notification.
• In 2013, Facebook introduced a Donate button that would allow users to make charitable contributions to such organizations. Unfortunately, a bug in the code allowed the email addresses and phone numbers of over six million users to be leaked.
• In 2014, Facebook actively experimented upon their users, testing their ability to manipulate their emotional states with the content the user is exposed to. Depressing content was prioritized to see if they could elicit depressed feelings. As it turns out, they can.
• In 2015, Facebook took action to assuage their users’ concern for their privacy, and rolled back the access that apps had to user data… but one has to wonder, just how much were applications privy to before this rollback?
• In 2018, Facebook suffered a massive data breach, losing the data of 50 million users. In response, Facebook did nothing… that is, until their reputation started to suffer. It was only then that they responded to the underlying issues.

Unfortunately, concerning events like these happen far too regularly to Facebook. There just seems to be difficulty in keeping their user data secure. This is why you need to pay particular attention to the settings on your own Facebook profile. Let’s go over how your information can most effectively be protected by ensuring these settings are configured properly.

Configuring Your Facebook Privacy Options

On your desktop, log in to your Facebook account. At the top-right of the page, there will be a small down arrow. Click it to access a menu, then click Settings.

You will be brought to another page, with Privacy in your list of options. Click into it.

From here, you can set your privacy options that restrict who has access to your information. For example:

Public - Setting your privacy to public is effectively turning off your privacy options. Not only can all other Facebook users potentially see your profile, even people who aren’t signed in could access it. Hypothetically, this means that the search engines could find you are well.

Friends - This setting restricts viewing privileges to only your confirmed Facebook friends.

Friends except… - If there are particular friends or members of a particular group who shouldn’t see certain information, you can prevent them from seeing this on their Facebook.

Only me - This means that (outside of Facebook) you are the only person with access to what you have posted. Just to be safe, we recommend that you still refrain from sharing anything that you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing publicly.

You also have the ability to choose the audience for each individual post. While this may give the impression of improved control over your privacy, the biggest threat to your Facebook security is probably Facebook itself.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t given plenty of privacy options to play with. Let’s go over some of them now:

Who can see your future posts? This setting establishes a default privacy setting for the content you post on Facebook in the future. This helps insulate you from sharing content out to those who shouldn’t see it.

Review all your posts and things you’re tagged in. By using the Activity Log, you can review the entirety of your timeline and manage the permission settings of past posts. You can also review posts you have been tagged in from here.

Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public. This is a semi-nuclear option when it comes to locking down what you’ve posted in the past. By clicking Limit Past Posts, you can change all of what you posted publicly or to friends of your friends to only be accessible to those on your Friends list. Fair warning - Facebook doesn’t provide any way to revert this, so you would have to go through your posts by hand to change them back if you so wished.

Who can send you friend requests? Depending on your preference, you have the option of picking between Everyone or Friends of friends. Unlike many of the other settings on this list, leaving this set to Everyone is probably okay.

Who can see your friends list? On the other hand, there is no reason that the rest of the world needs to see who you are connected with on Facebook. Setting this to Only me will keep this information between you and Facebook, nobody else.

Who can look you up using the email address you provided? Do you want someone who has your email to be able to find you on Facebook using it? Most likely not - so restricting this to Friends or Only me is probably in your best interest.

Who can look you up using the phone number you provided? Again, it’s really your call whether or not to allow Facebook users to find you via your phone number, but it really isn’t that necessary. You’re fine setting this to Friends or Only me.

Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? This one really depends on your situation. Facebook can work to prevent the assorted search engines out there, including Google and Bing, from indexing your profile (allowing searchers to find it). Most people will likely want to switch this off, but if your personal brand is part of your business, it makes more sense to turn this option to Yes.

Dictating What Others Can Do On Your Personal Facebook Profile

We all have embarrassing friends, and so you may want to avoid having them be able to freely post content to your wall - for instance, your college buddy Greg seems to have no problem with sharing candids from the good ol’ days… and tagging you in them.

Potential situations like this make it all the better that Facebook gives you control over who can post to your timeline, and who can see this content. You can access your many options to do so by clicking into Timeline and Tagging (which can be found on the left side of your Settings).

Who can post on your timeline? Naturally, you will definitely want to put a limit on this, as there is no reason that a total stranger should be reaching out on your personal profile. This is why it makes sense to only allow your Friends to do so - or, perhaps you alone with the Only me setting.

Who can see what others post on your timeline? This setting will largely depend upon who you have permitted to post on your timeline. If your Friends can post to your timeline, you definitely want your Friends to be the only ones who can see it - assuming you don’t want to maximize your privacy (and hedge your bets) with the Only me setting.

Allow others to share your posts to their stories? Ask yourself: do you want anything you post publicly to be shared by your Friends? If so, leave this one enabled.

Who can see the posts you’re tagged in on your timeline? Tagging can be an incredibly useful thing for someone trying to cultivate an image as an engaged thought leader, but it can also hurt your reputation, never mind your privacy. If people keep tagging you in assorted posts and you’d rather the public at large didn’t see these posts, you can keep these posts to your Friends, or even to Only me.

Review the posts you’re tagged in before the post appears on your timeline?
Alternatively, this is likely the best option for someone looking to be visible via tagged posts, while still remaining in control of which posts that are linked to them. Basically, you can be notified if you are ever tagged in some Facebook content, and can opt whether or not it will appear on your timeline. Fair warning - any mutual friends you have with the person who has tagged you will be able to see the tagged content before you have a chance to review it. Regardless, it is best to keep this setting on.

Review tags people add to your posts before the tags appear on Facebook? Again, this is something you’ll want control over, so set this to on as well.

Managing Your Public Post Settings

Again, from the Settings page, click into the Public Posts option on the left-hand side.

Who Can Follow Me - Rather than adding users as Friends, public figures can provide the option to just be followed by interested people. If you want to give the public at large this option, set this to Public. Otherwise, you can keep your posts among your Friends by setting this to Friends.

Public Post Comments - Or, who can comment on the posts that you’ve shared publicly. It is probably best to keep this restricted to either Friends, or perhaps Friends of Friends.

Public Profile Info - Some facets of your Facebook profile are generally available for anyone to see (like your name and profile picture). Who do you want to be able to comment on your profile picture? Keeping this capability restricted to your Friends or - maybe - Friends of Friends is probably best.

How Much Do You Want Facebook to Know About Where You Are?

Facebook has the capability to track your location history. While this information isn’t shared with your Friends or followers (beyond letting your Friends know that you are nearby), the only real reason we could come up with for Facebook to track this is to be able to target you with ads more effectively. Hopefully, that’s the reason, but even so, it is better to be safe than sorry. After all, Facebook has a history of data security missteps.

Again, starting from the Settings page, click where it says Location on the left-hand side. From there, you can see what Facebook already knows by requesting to View your Location History. However, to disable this, you’ll need to use the mobile application.

Using the Mobile Application to Turn Off Location

From the app, access the 3-bar hamburger icon (found at the top-right), and scroll down until you see Settings & Privacy. From there, you should access Privacy Shortcuts, where you’ll see a new area with various settings and documentation regarding Facebook’s identity controls.

Find Manage your location settings (you shouldn’t have to scroll to find it). Once there, you should:

• Turn off Location History (found in Location Access)
• Turn off Use Location (in Location Services)
• Find and disable Background Location

While you’re at it, you may as well delete your existing Location History.
Again, from within Privacy Shortcuts, select Manage your location settings and then View Your Location History. You will be asked for your password, and then you will see another 3-dot menu in the top-right. From there, you should Delete all location history.

Take note: if you post a photo with your location tagged, or check into some public place, you may be allowing Facebook access to your location data again.

Yes, this is a lot to take in.

Thank you for sticking with us for so long! We hope this helps you to secure your personal privacy on what is known as the social network. To learn more about protecting your privacy and information, geared more toward your business, reach out to Coleman Technologies at (604) 513-9428, and make sure to subscribe to our blog.

That’s why we wanted to make sure that you knew how to reclaim your personal data and make sure it is protected. We’ll start by protecting the information that you’ve shared.

To do this, you will want to access your Facebook account on a computer. This is going to be a lot to manage, and the mobile app would only be too much trouble to navigate.

Your Security and Privacy Options

From any page on Facebook, look for the menu, which will appear as a little downward-facing arrow. This should be at the top right-hand corner of the page. Click into Settings. This little arrow is your lifeline during this process, you can always find your way back to the beginning with that menu.

Verify the Accuracy of Your General Account Settings

Your first order of business should be to confirm that you still have access to all of the email accounts tied to your Facebook. If an account that you no longer have access to was used, account recovery becomes monumentally more difficult.

Find Out Where You’ve Used Facebook with Security and Login

On the right, you should see the Security and Login option. Click it, and Facebook will show you all of the devices where your account is logged in. Fair warning, this can be shocking - especially since it includes where and when you last used that device, and what browser you were using to do so. The longer a user has been engaged with Facebook, the more devices will likely show up here.

If one of these devices is one that you don’t recognize, you will want to change your password immediately - we’ll go over how in a moment. First, you will want to log out of Facebook on any device that you aren’t actively using. This can be done through the three-dot icon menus next to each device listed.

Change Your Password

While we’re on the topic, this is when you will want to make it a point to update your password. It will only take a minute and might just help keep your Facebook friends from being spammed and phished. You can do this using the process provided on the Security and Login page.

Remember, you should never use a password for more than one online account.

Using Two-Factor Authentication

After your password settings, you’ll see the option to set up two-factor authentication (2FA) to help protect your account. To set it up, select Use two-factor authentication and click edit, and Facebook will provide you with the instructions you need to follow. Click Get Started. 

You have two options to select from as your Security Method, either using an authentication app, or to receive a text message with an additional code. Between the two, the application is the more secure option, although it does mean you need to have access to the mobile device whenever you want to check your Facebook.

Setting up the authentication app option is pretty simple. Open your application (which, if you have a Google account, might as well be Google Authenticator) and, on the computer, select the Authentication App option, as pictured, and click Next. 

Facebook will display a QR code, which your authenticator app should allow you to scan when you add a new account to it. The app will then give you a six-digit number to provide to Facebook as a Confirmation Code. Simple.

If you decide to use the text message option, Facebook will simply send you a code that you have to provide upon login. It isn’t quite as secure as the app, but it will do. All you have to do to configure this is to confirm an initial code with Facebook, and you’ll be walked through the rest.

Add a Backup

Once you have two-factor authentication enabled, it only makes sense to add an additional means of 2FA as an emergency backup - in this case, whichever method you didn’t choose. Honestly, you might as well set up both, and make use of the Recovery Codes option, to boot.

Under the Add a Backup option on the Two-Factor settings page, there is also a Recovery Codes option. By clicking Setup, Facebook will provide a brief explanation, and the opportunity to Get Codes. Facebook currently gives you a list of 10 single-use 2FA codes. These are one-shot codes, but you can generate a new list whenever you want from the Two-Factor Settings page. Make sure you keep these codes in a safe place.

Setting Up Extra Security

Back on the Security and Login page, scroll down to find Setting Up Extra Security. This area lets you opt-in to alerts being sent via email or text, notification, or Facebook Messenger.

You can also Choose 3 to 5 Friends to Contact if you do find yourself locked out of your account. Make sure that these are people you truly trust.

Stay tuned for part three of this series, coming soon.

What Does Facebook Know About Me?

Consider how many opportunities Facebook has to collect information about you: there’s quite a few. For one thing, you literally tell the platform the things you “Like.” Semi-joking aside, there’s also the stuff you post, which advertisements attract your attention, and many other means for them to construct a pretty solid profile on you.

You can see this profile for yourself. In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal - where third-party users were granted free reign and access to Facebook user info - Facebook made a promise to be more transparent. This profile is part of that transparency.

Viewing this information is pretty simple, whether you’re on your computer or you’re using the mobile application.

On a desktop or laptop:

1. Log in to your Facebook account.
2. Click the down arrow on the top right and go to Settings.
3. On the left, click Your Facebook Information.
4. Facebook will present you with five options. Look for Download Your Information.
5. Click View, Facebook will give you a screen where you can choose the date range and format of the data. Since we want to download everything, we’re going to set the Date Range to All of my data and set Media Quality to High. This will give us a higher quality version of all of our photos and videos in the download.
6. Click Create File and Facebook will start building the download. This can take a while, but Facebook will give you a notification when your data is ready for download.
7. Once Facebook gives you the notification, click it and Download your data.

From the Facebook mobile app:

1. Tap the 3-bar hamburger icon in the top right of the app.
2. Scroll down and tap Settings & Privacy, and then tap Settings.
3. Tap Download Your Information.
4. Leave all of the options checked, and scroll down. Ensure the Date Range is set to All of my data and that Media Quality is set to High.
5. Tap Create File and Facebook will give you a notification when the data is ready for download.

The “data is ready” notification will probably come after about an hour - it really depends on how long you’ve been a user, and how active you’ve been. Most people will probably have a file that takes up a few gigabytes.

Now that the report is available to you, click on Your Facebook Information.

Access Your Information - Facebook provides you with an itemized and viewable list of your Posts, Photos, and Location history ready for viewing.

Activity Log - Consider this a comprehensive timeline recap - almost a scrapbook, prepared by Facebook.

Deactivation and Deletion - People used to complain that deleting a Facebook account was a difficult process. Not anymore!

So, How Much Does Facebook Know About Me?

When you do review your file, the information they have can be shocking, mainly due to the location-based aspect of it all. You can pull up a given day and find out exactly where you were and what you did. Facebook kept track for you.

Then, you need to consider the Ads. This section will show you all of the advertisers who provided Facebook with a contact list your name appeared on. It isn’t that Facebook gave away this information, advertisers already had it and gave it to Facebook to target you on the platform.

What Does This Mean?

While it completely makes sense that Facebook would know a lot about you, seeing it all laid out (and how much of it didn’t come from your profile) isn’t exactly comforting… Facebook has been too involved in a few major data breaches. Just think - there’s a profile just like the one you retrieved about you, for over a quarter of all of the people in the world.

This rabbit hole goes deeper, too. Make sure you check back soon for part two of three of this Facebook privacy blog series.

You probably had a notion that Facebook had a bunch of your information, but how much information outside of your general profile makes you nervous when they are accused of major data breaches. What’s scarier is that the service is used by over a quarter of the world’s population. 

This is only the tip of the iceberg of the information we will share about this social media giant. Check back for part two of our three-part blog series about Facebook privacy.