How to remote log out

If you headed home from office, without logging out of Facebook or Gmail, you can do so from anywhere using the ‘remote log out’ feature.

In Facebook, click on the tiny gear sign on the top right of the page, go to ‘account settings’ and then to ‘security’ on the left pane. Under ‘security settings’, click on ‘active sessions’.

No one else might be using your account, but you would not have logged out of Facebook, leaving the session active. Anyone can gain access to your account in such circumstances. To remote log out, click on ‘end activity’.

In Gmail, at the bottom right side of the page, you will see details of your latest email access. If someone else is simultaneously using your account, you will see a notification there.

Click on the ‘Details’ link below it. A new window opens, with a notification on whether the account is simultaneously open elsewhere. Like in the case of FB, you might not have logged out of the account, leaving it active. If so, you will see an option to ‘log out of all sessions’. It also shows you the details of your previous 10 accesses to the account.

How to declutter your Facebook news feed

If you have many friends or followers on your social network, it’s only natural that your news feed is cluttered. You are either swarmed with photos and videos; or you miss the all-important updates from the people you really care about. Social media makes better sense if you are organized.

Be selective while accepting friend requests. There is no obligation to ‘confirm’, since, even if you don’t, he or she will remain subscribed to your public posts.

Even if you have 1,000 friends on Facebook, you can still have your small private corners to share photos and status updates. They are called Lists.

Facebook, by default, provides three lists: Close Friends, Acquaintances and Restricted. A few others like family, your workplaces and schools, are automatically created, depending upon the details you add to your profile.

To see the lists, go to “Friends” on the left pane of the home page. You can create your own lists as well, like “Party pals”, “Teachers” etc. When you upload photos, make them visible to one or more lists, so that only people in those lists will see them. The same applies to your posts.

In Facebook, contacts added to ‘Close friends’ show up more often on News Feed.

In Twitter too, you can make Lists. Categorize people you follow like Celebrities, Friends, News organizations, etc. This will help if you are following too many people on Twitter.

How to know if your laptop is infected

We are living in an age of cyber attacks. Without your knowledge your computer might have been infected and remotely being controlled by a hacker. There's also the danger of data in laptop being accessed by cyber thieves.

Here are a few simple ways to know if your computer has been infected:

• The computer slows down, even when you haven't loaded lot of data in it. 
• Suddenly a browser or a popup window launches itself, without you having done anything. Even if you close them, they open by themselves. 
• Security ads pop up, warning you of your laptop getting infected and asking your to download security software.
• You are redirected to a site which wasn't your destination.
• Your friend tells you about an email that's unlike the one you usually send. Or social network shows posts you never posted.

How to be safe online

• The first step to being safe online is never use a pendrive without scanning for viruses.
• Two, never click a link unless you know it's genuine. 
• Treat forwarded emails and links on social networks with scepticism. The mails or the posts may be from your friend, but the attachment or the link may not be one that he or she created.  
• Test the link if it's safe by typing out the URL on https://safeweb.norton.com/ or http://www.siteadvisor.com/
• Test the attachment by downloading, and running a virus scan. Open only if it's clean. Or else delete it. Make sure your antivirus is updated to the latest second.

These procedures are painful. But worth it.