Google__ The Missing Manual - Kevin Purdy [35]
This stream is almost exactly like the notifications, just with a bit more room to maneuver. And just like any other Google+ stream, the Notifications stream will load more items if you scroll all the way to the bottom.
Notifications about posts include a little arrow button in their upper-right corners that’s similar to the button that appears in streams (Blocking, Muting, and Reporting Posts). It lets you report an abusive message, mute a post that’s too busy and keeps dominating your stream, or—if it’s a notification about a particular post—offer a “Link to this post” that opens the post in its own tab or window so it’s easy to copy that post’s web address. The More link near the top of the page lets you sort your notifications: Click it and then select an item from the menu that appears to see only circle-related notifications, photo tags, or whatever.
Text Messages
Google+ can send you text-message notifications, but that’s a good idea only if you have an unlimited text-messaging plan for your cellphone, and if you’re planning to use Google+ only occasionally. As explained on The Other Notification Settings, you can choose to have only very select notifications sent to your phone, but then you may as well just have them sent to your email or, if you have an iPhone or Android cellphone, install the Google+ app (see Chapter 8 for details) and receive the notifications that way instead.
That disclosure aside, if you really did want to have Google+ text you about certain happenings, head to the Google+ settings by clicking the gear icon on the right end of the Google toolbar, and then choosing “Google+ settings” from the drop-down menu.
On the settings page, you’ll see a whole bunch of options, which are all covered in the relevant parts of this book. Look for the “Set delivery preferences” header, and click the “Add phone number” link just below it. In the blue box that appears, select your country and enter your cellphone number, then click “Send verification code.” After that, check your phone—you should get a text message that reads “Your Google verification code is 123456.” Back on your computer, enter that code into the Verification Code field, and then click Confirm.
Now that you’ve verified your phone number with Google+, you’ll see an SMS radio button in the “Set delivery preferences” section of the page. (SMS stands for “short message service,” and it’s just a fancy way to refer to text messaging.) Turn on this radio button to tell Google+ to send all your notifications as text messages. If you’ve installed the Google+ mobile app for iPhone or Android, you’ll also see a “Push notifications” option for sending updates through those apps; Chapter 8 has the details.
There’s another option in this section: “Add SMS security PIN.” Click this link to add a numerical password to your account. Why would you want to do that? Because with your phone number verified, you can now update Google+ by sending texts to a particular number (33669 in the U.S.). Adding a PIN makes it so that text messages sent to Google+ won’t get posted unless the text includes your PIN. That prevents you from accidentally posting a text that you meant to send to your significant other (“You looked great after yoga today!”), and prevents your friends from playing practical jokes when you leave your phone unattended.
TIP
Once you’ve verified your cellphone number, you’ll see a “More sharing options” link in the “Set delivery preferences” section of the settings page that you should definitely click. It leads to Google’s help page for posting to Google+ by text message, which details some neat tricks. For example, posts you send via