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Posts Tagged ‘ Social Networking Site ’

Facebook Tips and Tweaks

By Fei on February 4, 2010

By Rick Broida
February 4, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – I like using Facebook to keep tabs on my friends, but I don’t like the endless stream of “so-and-so took this quiz” and “Joe became friends with Jane” messages. I just became a fan of Facebook Purity, an add-on that removes those notifications from your Facebook home page. Facebook Purity is a script that requires Greasemonkey. Once you’ve installed that and restarted Firefox, just install the FP script, start up Firefox again, and fire up Facebook.

The effects are subtle–don’t expect a major makeover–but definitely worthwhile. You may not notice any immediate changes, but you should see a “FB Purity hid” header like the one highlighted in this screen shot. The tally refers to the number of Facebook apps and “extras” hidden from your home page. If you’re curious to see what they are, just click Show for either category.

If you want to edit the list of apps and extras Facebook Purity blocks, see the developer’s FAQ page. Speaking of which, the script doesn’t cost anything, but the developer sure would appreciate a few bucks if you find it useful. (Click the Donate button on his page to make a contribution via PayPal.)

By the way, Facebook Purity is compatible with Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari, but using Greasemonkey scripts with those browsers is a bit more complicated. Again, see the FAQ page for details.

Download Photo Albums in a Flash

For a service as photo-oriented as Facebook, the simple act of downloading photos is annoyingly complicated. In fact, there is no download option; you have to view each photo in turn, right-click it, and choose Save Image As or Save Picture As (depending on your browser).

So what happens if a friend posts a bunch of pictures you want to download? Are you really supposed to go through and save them one by one? Not if you install the FacePAD plug-in for Firefox. Short for Facebook Photo Album Downloader, it does exactly what its name implies: downloads entire albums at a time.
After loading the plug-in and restarting Firefox, select Tools, Add-ons, find FacePAD, click Options, and choose your language. Click OK and you’re good to go.

To use FacePAD, just navigate your way into a friend’s photo library, right-click an album link, and choose Download Album with FacePAD. In a matter of minutes the plug-in will plunk every photo into your default Firefox Downloads folder.

It’s too bad you can’t specify a folder or do any batch-renaming; all the photos end up with cryptic numerical file names. Still, FacePAD works as advertised, and it’s a damn sight easier than retrieving each photo manually.

Add Facebook Chat to Your Firefox Sidebar

Let’s solve another Facebook hassle: When you leave the site, your chat sessions get left behind. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could keep a Facebook chat going regardless of what site you’re viewing?

If you use Firefox as your Web browser, you can add Facebook chat to the Sidebar, thus keeping it alive and active even while you browse elsewhere. (I also find it a more convenient location than the bottom-right corner of the screen, which is where Facebook shoehorns it.) Here’s how to make it happen:

In Firefox, press Ctrl-B to open the Sidebar in Bookmarks view. Right-click the bookmark folder where you want to add Facebook chat, then choose New Bookmark. Name the new bookmark “Facebook Chat,” then paste this URL into the Location field: http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php Check “Load this bookmark in the sidebar,” then click OK.

Now just click your new bookmark and presto: Facebook chat in the sidebar. Not too shabby, eh?

Simplify Your Facebook Experience with Brizzly

Brizzly provides a clean, simple, ad-free interface for Facebook (Twitter, too).
Getting started with this free Web service is a snap. Sign up for an account, then supply your user name and password for Facebook and/or Twitter. You’ll have to click through a couple “approval” pop-ups, which is normal for any outside service seeking access to your account.

Now you’ve got a simple front end for your Facebook news feed. You can update your status, comment on friends’ posts, watch posted videos, write on walls, and so on. You don’t get every single Facebook feature–you can’t “hide” a friend or play any games–but you do get a refreshingly streamlined interface.

Fake antivirus scam hits Facebook

By Fei on February 1, 2010

By Carrie-Ann Skinner
February 1, 2009

LONDON – Facebook users are being bombarded with fake virus alerts designed to encourage social networkers to download fake antivirus software, says PandaLabs.

Fake antivirus, which is also known as scareware, encourages web users to part with their hard-earned cash and download hoax security software.

Panda said alerts are now being distributed through Facebook’s messaging service and being forwarded on to friends or being published to users’ ‘walls’.

Web users searching for ‘un named app’ are being presented with malicious links

The message tells social networkers they can speed up Facebook by deleting an app called ‘un named app’ from the applications added to their profile.

The security vendor says that while no malicious link is included on the massage, web users searching for more information about the app could find themselves navigating through to malicious websites designed to encourage the fake antivirus software to be downloaded.

Panda advised social networkers not to forward on the message to their friends to prevent “the propagation of this fake virus warning”.

‘Fix’ Facebook’s new home page

By Jon on October 28, 2009

By Rick Broida
October 28, 2009

Hey, Facebook: Ever hear the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Guess not, because your recent front-page “fix” has many users fuming. (Maybe that’s because you sprung it on us without warning or explanation.)

Anyway, for those who don’t like the mysteriously disparate “News Feed” and “View Live Feed,” there’s a simple way to make Facebook work more or less like it used to. Here’s how:

1. Go to your Facebook home page, then click the More link at the bottom of the lefthand column.
2. Find the Status Updates option, then click and drag it to the very top of that column.
3. Now click Status Updates to load that view. Presto! You’ll get your feeds the way you did before last week’s unwanted change.

Note that the News Feed option is still there in the lefthand column; clicking it brings up the new view. Hey, who knows, you might decide you like it after all.

Facebook Buys FriendFeed: What Does It Mean?

By Jon on August 11, 2009

By JR Raphael

Facebook is acquiring content-sharing service FriendFeed, the two companies have confirmed. The entire FriendFeed team of 12 will transition to Facebook, with the four founders taking on senior engineering roles. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.

Inside FriendFeed
Despite strong buzz in the blogosphere, FriendFeed was never able to gain much in the way of mainstream appeal — in fact, your average social network user probably hasn’t even heard of it. It has developed somewhat of a cult following, though, with many tech insiders adopting it and singing its praises. And the team behind FriendFeed has quite the impressive collective résumé.

FriendFeed was founded in 2007 by four former Googlers: Bret Taylor, Jim Norris, Paul Buchheit, and Sanjeev Singh. Before leaving Google, the guys helped design and launch several well-known products, including Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Groups.

FriendFeed was their vision for a centralized sharing service — kind of like Facebook, only without all the extra stuff. It’s basically a content aggregator: You set up an account and connect it to all of your different online services. Then, anytime you post a new update on Twitter, vote up a story on Digg, or write a new blog, it automatically goes through to your FriendFeed stream. People who subscribe to your stream see the updates roll in in real-time and can comment on and discuss them.

The FriendFeed-Facebook Friendship

Over the past months, Facebook has little by little begun to emulate many of FriendFeed’s key functions. The ability to “like” items, for example, was a signature FriendFeed feature. Facebook’s introduction of a real-time news stream was also largely viewed as a response to FriendFeed’s own real-time stream.

Inside the Acquisition
So with the two services merging together, what will change? That part isn’t yet fully clear, but a few hints are being dropped. FriendFeed’s Taylor suggests that more FriendFeed features will eventually come to the Facebook platform, saying his team will “have the opportunity to bring many of the innovations [it's] developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world.” The FriendFeed service itself will remain independent and intact — for now.

“FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being,” Taylor explains in a blog posted Monday afternoon. “We’re still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team.”

Robert Scoble, a blogger and Internet developer widely regarded as FriendFeed’s most vocal cheerleader, conducted a phone interview with FriendFeed’s Buchheit (published, fittingly, to his FriendFeed stream). In the interview, Buchheit says the deal was completed only this morning. He calls it a “tremendous opportunity” that FriendFeed recognized might not come along again.

“We had no reason to sell the company,” he tells Scoble. “We could have continued for quite a number of years.”

Buchheit reiterates that no long-term plans have been finalized. He does, however, imply that FriendFeed’s current incarnation may not vanish entirely.

“We’re completely committed to supporting the users of FriendFeed. We obviously don’t want to leave them stranded,” he states. “In the long term, we’ll have to figure out some plan that makes sense.”

Scoble himself calls the deal a “huge win for both companies.” His own FriendFeed page is already peppered with more than 200 comments discussing the acquisition.