Ogawa Design Blog

Google Plus Circles Privacy Settings

July 20, 2011

The great thing about Google Plus now is that very few users are hiding their Google Plus Circles. This is allowing the number of G+ users to quickly expand their list of friends in their Circles. Today, I stumbled on a user that had completely disabled the viewing of people In His Circles and that have Him in his Circles. Here is information on the Circles Privacy Setting.

How to Hide Your Google Plus Circles
1. From your G+ User Name, click Privacy
2. Under Sharing, click Edit network visibility.
3. Under In your circles, the following box will appear.

Google Plus Circles Default Privacy Settings

google plus circles hide, how to hide g+ circles

Google Plus Circles - Default Privacy Setting

The default settings allows your friends to see people in all of your Circles. This may eventually not be what you want. However, it does not allow everyone on the web to see who is in your Circles.

Google Plus Circles Recommended Privacy Setting

Google Plus Circles - Recommended Privacy Setting - Uncheck selected Circles

Under In your circles, select the All circles dropdown and uncheck any Circle of people you want to keep others from viewing. This could include Clients, Vendors or Special Friends (you get the idea). I noticed some celebrities are starting to uncheck this option to hide the People in their Circles.

Google Plus Circles – Highest Privacy Setting

Google Plus Circles - Highest Privacy Setting

Uncheck all boxes if you want the Highest Privacy Settings. Unfortunately, with this setting, you won’t have many friends until the Google Plus Network grows.

Google Plus Circles – Least Private Setting

Google Plus Circles - Lowest Privacy Setting

Under In your circles, Who can see this?, the Anyone on the web makes your G+ Circle of Friends viewable to anyone. For Celebrities, this might add provide many Followers, but this might open you up to G+ Spammers and fake G+ Profiles. That said, this is how the default Twitter setting is. G+ is still too new to know all the consequences of this.

Filed Under: Google+

Google+ is Here! Beta Program is Live! – Installation Notes

July 11, 2011

Google+ just went to Beta and if you are the type of business that is an Early Adopter and wants to have the latest and the greatest, you should signup for Google+ (Google Plus or G+). Google+ might be categorized as Google’s competitive service to Facebook. It’s currently an Invite Only beta but unlike some Google Betas, existing Google+ users appear to have an unlimited number of invites.

Here are some observations:

Installation

Google Profiles — It has been deprecated or phased out and will become your Google Plus, About Page.
Google PicasaWeb — After you activate your Google+ Account, check the permissions on your Google PicasaWeb Albums. Any Photos that you might have uploaded without a private setting may have a default permission of visible and be seen by Google Plus users.
Google +1 — After installing Google+ it entered some very random URLs under go Google Plus +1 tab (similar to the Facebook Likes feature). This algorithm was a complete dart throw and possibly could contain private data.
Google +1 — Google is now displaying the 1+ button on their search engine results and the idea is that websites suggested by your friends are more relevant.
Google+ Hangout — You can open a Video Chat Window after installing the Plugin and chat with your friends (don’t forget to turn it off!).
Google+ Notifications — The default setting is to email you any time there is any activity on your Google+ Account. This would includes Posts, Photos and Huddle (Conversations). You can disable these notifications: Google+ Settings.
Connected Accounts — By default my LinkedIn, Twitter and Yelp Accounts were enabled. Facebook was not. After connecting this accounts, my postings appeared under the Google+ Profiles Page, Buzz tab.

Adding Friends

Invites – You must send a separate invite from the G+ Home Page. The G+ Invite button is on the bottom right hand side of the page. You can add a Friend to your Circles or Groups, but that will not automatically send them a G+ Invite.
Circles – Your Circles contains of list of Google Mail or Gmail Accounts and other Google+ Users. If a picture exists, then it is likely the user has an active G+ account. You can add friends to a Circle, even if they don’t have an active G+ account.
Following Circle – You can search for and find Individuals and Celebs using the G+ Search Box much like Facebook and Twitter.

Google Plus Extensions

Twitter – There is a Google+ Twitter client that adds another tab to the Google+ or G+ interface. I installed Google+ Tweet — unfortunately, it is very slow. It works with the Google Chrome Browser as a Chrome Extension.
Google+Facebook Extension — This Google Chome Browser Extension from Crossrider adds a Tab in Google+ with your Facebook Wall, although after I installed it, the Twitter Tab disappeared.

Impact on Businesses

Google +1 Button Code — Here’s the link with the code to add a Google +1 button to your website or blog. Once you add this button to your site, a list of the links will appear in your Google+ Profile Page, +1′s tab. Businesses should add the Google +1 button to their sites!
Google Plus for Businesses — This could be a future product. In the interim, you should not create a Business Account for G+. It is for individuals only.

If you are interested in a Google + Invite, please let me know.

Filed Under: Google+ Tagged With: google plus, Google+

Ogawa Design Agency becomes a BigCommerce.com Reseller

April 5, 2011

We recently setup an online store for a client using BigCommerce.com. We evaluated several e-commerce stores and went with BigCommerce. See the link below for more information.

Big Commerce Online Stores

Click here for a free trial and $0 setup (save $49.95!)

Filed Under: BigCommerce, Services

Using Google Apps Standard Edition – It’s free and very reliable!

February 19, 2010

Company Email for your business should be easy to setup and configure for new and existing employees, especially for mobile devices and employees working from home without requiring a large cost to support.

Google Apps Standard Edition

That said, the most important thing is that it should be reliable. Google Apps Standard Edition meets both of those needs because there are no licensing fees and the only costs incurred are for support.

Here is a summary of Google Standard Edition features and some tips on setting it up for your company.

* User Accounts: You can setup 50 user accounts or 50 email addresses with the Google Apps Standard Edition.
* Nick Names: The 50 email addresses does not include Nick Names or email alias for each user. For example a user can have firstname@domain.com, firstname.lastname@domain.com etc.
* Email Forwarding: A user can forward a copy of the Google Apps or company email address to another address using the Google Apps email interface which is the same as the Gmail interface.
* Email Storage: You get 7.3 GB of email storage per account.
* POP / IMAP Mail Protocols: Both Pop Download and IMAP email protocols are supported. (The default is off so you will need to turn them on.)
* Web Access: With Google Apps Standard Edition, you have Web access to your company email at http://mail.google.com/a/companydomain or http://mail.companydomain.com (you will need to add a CNAME record for this to work).
* Spam: If your current company email contains many spam messages, Google Apps Standard Edition uses the same high-quality spam filters as Google Gmail. You will notice a significant decline in the number of spam emails received. In addition, you can setup the Positini Spam Application for greater control.
* Mail Client: The Google Apps Setup Guide contains excellent documentation for setting up Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007, Mozilla Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Apple Mail and other clients for both IMAP and POP Support.
* Support: The Google Apps Setup Guide is an excellent piece of documentation.
* Mobile Devices: The Google Apps Setup Guide contains excellent documentation for setting up a Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android and other devices.
* Mail Service Setup: The initial mail server setup requires two major steps: 1) Adding a Google Validation HTML file to the root directory of your server, the same process required by Google Analytics 2) Pointing your MX Record to Google. There is an extensive list of specific MX record records.

For more information:
http://www.ogawadesign.com/services/concierge-webmaster/google-apps-standard-edition

Google Standard Edition Sign-Up (Free Edition)
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

Filed Under: Ogawa Design Blog Tagged With: google apps

Facebook Pages – How to Create a Facebook Page

November 2, 2009

Do you have a Facebook Page for your local business, brand, product or organization yet? Are you an Artist, Band or Public Figure that doesn’t have a Facebook Page yet. Here are steps to creating one.

Step 1 – Sign on to Facebook and go to the following link.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

You will need to select the category of your business from the lists below. Selecting the right category is extremely important since you cannot change it once you select one. In addition, selecting the right category is important for your to match your branding. You should browse (see step 2) some of the other Facebook pages first to find your competitors to ensure you are in the right category.

Facebook Local Page Categories
Automotive, Automotive Dealer / Vehicle Service, Banking and Financial, Bar, Cafe, Club, Convention Center and Sports Complex, Education, Event Planning Service, Grocery, Health and Beauty, Home Service, Hotel/Lodging, Libray / Public Building, Medical Service, Museum / Attraction, Park, Pets, Professional Service, Real Estate, Religious Center, Restaurant, Store, Technology and Communication Service, Travel Service.

Facebook Brand, Product, or Organizations Categories
Airline / Ship / Train Station, Communications, Consumer Product, Fashion, Film, Financial Service, Food and Beverage, Game, Government, Home Living, Hotel / Lodging, Non-Profit, Online Store, Pharmaceutical, Professional Service, Religious Organization, Rental Cars, Retail, Sports / Athletics, TV Show, Technology Product / Service, Travel, Website.

Faceboook Artist, Band, or Public Figure Categories
Other Public Figure, Actor, Athlete, Band, Comedian, Critic, Government Official, Model, Musician, Politician, Sports Team, Visual Artist, Writer

Facebook Browse Pages by Type or Keyword Search

Step 2 – Browse Other Facebook Pages

In the example to the right, I typed “Mansion Nightclub” a popular Miami night club that was listed under Local Page Categories – Club. Ogawa Design Agency is listed under Local Page Categories – Professional Service. A note that there are a few categories such as Politician that changes the default “Become a Fan” to “Become a Supporter”. Again, there is no Facebook feature yet to change your Facebook Category so don’t skip this step.

Step 3 – Create New Facebook Page

Return to Create new Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and:

Select your category
Name of Page (limited to 75 characters and spaces, you can use spaces rather than hyphens “-” or underlines “_”. )
Check Do not make Page publicly visible at this time if you want to publish it later.

Remember to read the disclaimer about creating unauthorized pages. If you violate the terms of service, you can be removed as an Administrator or even have your Facebook account disabled.

Step 4.

Your Facebook Page was sucessfully completed.

You should receive the page at the right if your page was successfully created.

You can go ahead and start adding content just like you add content to your current Facebook page.

Here are some general notes on Facebook Pages:

You can assign more than one Admin for every Facebook Page you create so it doesn’t matter which Facebook user originally creates the page. You can assign a Facebook Admin to your Facebook friend or if you are not friends, then by email address.
You can administrate more than one Facebook page with your Facebook account. As a webmaster, I manage several Facebook pages using the website address: http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage

Customize your Facebook Business Page

To Edit or page settings, in the left navigation click Edit Page.
There are a number of options to customize your Facebook Page. The main options that I have used are: 1) Discussion Boards – the options to remove the Discussion Boards for clients that did not want any open discussions on their pages which also removes the item from your Facebook Page tabs; 2) The feature to Add Admins; 3) The Events Application for my client’s with Business Events.

Step 5.

Don’t forget to Publish your Page if you selected the option in Step 3 to not make it publicly visible.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at http://www.ogawadesign.com/ or at 786-220-1295.

Filed Under: Facebook for your Biz Tagged With: facebook