Protecting Your Information on Facebook

I don't know if you have ever made changes to your privacy settings. But I think you should take a look at it. It is important to protect your personal information and your privacy. In this digital era numerous unethical things can be done via the internet and especially through social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster...

One social networking website that many of us visit daily is Facebook. Facebook is definitely one of the most versatile social networking websites around. But at one point of time, Facebook made an amendment to their terms of service that allows Facebook use any information in your account in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. You can read about the controversy surrounding this issue with Facebook here. However this issue was resolved when Facebook withdrew its changes to the terms of service after it was under pressure from users and legal groups.

In the first part of the guide, I will focus on Profile privacy settings. The next part of the guide will be on Applications privacy settings followed by News Feed and Wall settings.

Part 1: Profile Privacy Settings

To check your settings, click on Settings (next to "Logout")>Privacy Settings. In the screenshot below, it is enclosed in the red box.


Once you click on Privacy Settings you will be redirected to another page that looks like the screenshot below.


The two essential settings that you should check are in the Profile and Applications links circled in blue in the above screenshot.

Let us first look at the settings in Profile. You will be redirected to the page shown here.

I set mine to Only Friends. What this means is only the friends I added on Facebook will be able to view the content/information on my Facebook page. I highly recommend you to stay away from setting it to Everyone.

In addition to that, you can also choose Customize
If you select Customize, you will get the following options.

In this example, I selected Customize under Photos Tagged By You. As you can see from above, there a several options that you can choose from. The options pretty much explain themselves. Two options I want to highlight are Some Friends and Except These People.




Either one of these option will allow you to choose lists that you use to organize your friends (this can be done in Friends in the top toolbar on Facebook). I don't think a lot of people use this, but I find it useful to organize my contacts with lists.





Lastly always make sure you SAVE any changes you have made.


Part 2: Applications Privacy Settings

Click on Settings (next to "Logout")>Privacy Settings. In the screenshot below, it is enclosed in the red box.


Next, click on Applications. You will redirected to the page below.

Click on Settings next to Overview. And it should be toggled to the page shown below.

There are 2 things that you should be aware of. They are circled in blue above.

The first part are your information applications your friend added have access to. At the same time, it can also see your information that is already accessible by your friend. You should remove all the checkmarks.

The second part is another method for websites to publish stories onto your wall. To disable that, put a checkmark next to "Don't allow Beacon websites to post stories to my profile."


Lastly always make sure you SAVE any changes you have made.

Part 3: News Feed and Wall Privacy Settings

The next thing that may concern you is being featured on Facebook Ads. What this option does is show that you are a fan of a brand/person/group/food/etc. on Facebook. You may or may not want to disable this. Of course, to fully protect your privacy you should disable it.

Where to find this setting?

Click on Settings (next to "Logout")>Privacy Settings. In the screenshot below, it is enclosed in the red box.


Now click on News Feed and Wall next to Actions within Facebook and you will be redirected here

You should click on Facebook Ads to toggle the page below

Change "Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to.." No one.


Then SAVE any changes you have made.

There you have it, 3 essential parts to a more secure Facebook experience. Do share this with your friends. Feel free to drop me a comment if anything is unclear.

Disclaimer: Information in this post is provided only as a guide and is subject to changes. It's your own responsibility to protect your privacy.

Michigan Tech's Winter Carnival 2009

Cravings for.... Fish Head Noodles!

My favourite fish head noodles stall is from Woo Pin Fish Head Noodles in Taman Danau Desa. It has the most flavorful soup ever. I usually order mine with fried fish, sometimes with un-fried ones. I always finish mine and I would wait for my mom to say "Chung, I can't finish mine. Do you want to finish it?" Be careful when you order a large bowl at this shop as it can really turn a good meal into a bad one if you force yourself to finish it... I remember once I had the large and... I was greedy... finished it.... and finally I was way too full. My whole day I felt bloated... and up to dinner I didn't feel like eating anything. From that day onwards, it's a small + mom's leftovers :-p

With all that in mind... I thought of the ingredients needed for this dish. It's pretty simple, all you need are:

(for one serving)
1. Fish fillets (I used tilapia fillets)
2. Half a tomato
3. Pickled Mustard Green (Ham Choy)
4. Spring Onion 5. Ginger (i forgotten to put this when I was preparing mine)
6. Shao Xing Chinese Cooking Wine
7. Sesame oil
8. Evaporated Milk (Recommended: NESTLÉ CARNATION Evaporated Milk)
9. Vermicelli (meehoon/"mai fun") (Note: For Fish Head/Fillet noodles, thick vermicelli is recommended)
10. Soy Sauce/Salt to taste


For the soup, I'd recommend using some kind of fish stock. I made my own stock using "ikan bilis". To prepare the stock, just stir fry the ikan bilis untill fragrant/brown and add 2 medium sized bowl of water. Boil it for 15mins. When done turn the heat down and remove the "ikan bilis".

An alternative to making this "ikan bilis" stock is to just use fish sauce. Just bring water to boil and add adequate amount of fish sauce for flavor. Fish sauce itself is salty.

Now, to cook the soup base for the fish fillet noodles.

1. With half of the tomato cut it into 4 pieces. The green mustard green into thin slices. Ginger shredded. Spring onions into 1 inch stocks and the fish fillets into 1 inch cubes.

2. Turn the heat to high and bring the stock to boil. Add all the ingredients in the first step except for the fish cubes. Boil for 2 minutes then put in the fish. You wouldn't want to overcook the fish.


3. Next is to add the evaporated milk, shao xing chinese cooking wine and sesame oil. This is all adjust to taste. Some likes less milk, some likes more, some don't even want them in their soup. Some likes stronger wine taste and some likes lighter. For sesame oil, add about 1 tablespoon. That should be just right. I like mine with just the right amount of milk and shao xing wine. Once it's right, turn the heat down to low.


I realize in cooking, milk absorbs the taste of alcohol pretty easily. I remember when I was cooking my shrimp scampi in cream sauce, I needed to put quite a bit of white wine to make sure the full cream doesn't overpower the taste of wine.

4. To speed up the process for preparing the meehoon. I just boiled water and put in the meehoon. Usually meehoon is soaked in water till it's soften, but I have no time for that. Cook the meehoon until the softness of your liking, drain the water and run the meehoon under cold water. This is an essential process! This makes the noodles have better consistency.


5. Add the meehoon to the soup and bring to boil. Once ready, serve it in a bowl and top off with some chopped spring onions and a dash of white pepper.

My First Bowl


My Second Bowl

My version of this dish doesn't exactly use fish head. It's easier to eat with fillets anyways! Yeah I don't know how to enjoy eating fish head. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this post!

Sushi Weekend!

I had sushi cravings this week... So... It's time for a sushi weekend! The last time I made sushi was 2 months back maybe.

The method for cooking sushi rice is widely available on google... So I am gonna skip the ingredients part. Just wanna showcase what sushi we had for this weekend...

Maki-Zushi

Ebi (Prawn) Nigiri-zushi

Crabstick Nigiri-zushi

Tofu Nigiri-zushi
This was specially prepared for my vegetarian friend, Edward. I grilled the tofu and topped it off with teriyaki sauce.

Baked Chicken Teriyaki Nigiri-zushi
This is truly homemade! The teriyaki sauce was homemade, NOT bottled. My housemate, Shu Ting's brother is a Japanese cuisine chef, so Shu Ting has the secret recipe for the perfect teriyaki sauce. It tasted absolutely perfect baked with chicken.

World's Largest Temaki by - Nicholas!

Not bad huh? I try and make more fulfilling dishes during weekends.

Laksa Johor

Laksa Johor served with thin spaghetti

"Choi Sam", Prawns, Shredded Chicken and Homemade "Tau Pok"

Nothing really special here. I just used the ready made Laksa Johor paste which I brought from Malaysia. Added my own ingredients.

I can't get "tau pok" here. So, I made my own. The method is quite simple. Buy "soft" white tofu. Freeze it in the freezer overnight. Put it back in the normal refrigerator. This process creates the porous texture in the "tau pok". When ready to use, cut into desired size and deep fry it till it's golden brown. There is a lot of moisture in white tofu, so it takes quite a bit of time to get the desired result.