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Facebook Videos Finally Play on iPhone without Flash?

drew — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:32:44 +0000

Hey, not to make too much out of this (in case it’s old news) but did any of you iPhone users out there on the Internet notice something strange this weekend? I personally felt a great disturbance in the ‘Net, as if millions of Facebook videos were suddenly viewable on my iPhone for the first time in EVAR. I fear something very interesting has happened in the Great War between Apple and Adobe over Flash video. So. Am I late to this party or have I actually discovered something new?

Facebook Love

drew — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 03:19:27 +0000

For over a year now I’ve been using a neat plug-in for my web browser which hides advertisements on websites, cutting out the clutter and increasing my surfing speed. However, several weeks ago I realized that this marvelous plug-in was causing weird behavior whenever I tried making comments on Facebook so I disabled it and was astonished to discover what I’ve been missing out on all this time: women!!! But not just any type of women; these are women who are looking specifically for guys who are 42 years old.

Holy crap!!! I’m 42 years old!! What are the odds??!!

I never knew that such women existed! Just look at the attached valentines card I made from the army of women I am now considering for romantic liaisons. They’re sassy, sparkly, smiling and besides the fact they’re completely obsessed with men my age they all have one thing in common:

Bewbs.

Just look at ‘em.

Wow.
I don’t even know where to start.

Make Facebook’s NEW Status Updates Group Your Default

drew — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:03:27 +0000

Let’s face it, Facebook, you have managed to make me look like a fool twice this week and while that’s not terribly difficult to do, I’m getting tired of it. This time around I find out that you fulfilled my wish for a way to view status updates only. No application updates, no notes, no videos, no links to helpful articles like this one, just plain old status updates. So where did you put this fantastic new Feed View? Why, down at the bottom of my list of Feed Views. While this is probably not a big deal for most of your users, it’s a really big deal for me because I subdivide all of my users into different categories to help me wade through them a bit better. So, let’s see what we have to in order to see the Status Updates view as our default page view. (Thanks to Amber Ward and her list of friends for this tip)

Step One
Look at the bottom of list of Feed Views for the word “more” and click it.

Step Two
Locate the Feed View titled “Status Updates”.

Step Three
Move your mouse to the right hand side of the “Status Updates” Feed View item, then click and drag it ALL the way up to the top of the list, letting go of it at the very top.

Step Four
Now that the item is at the top of your Feeds List, CLICK IT!!

Step Five
Celebrate! Now you can see all of your friends’ status updates without seeing all the additional blather that they or their apps may be posting.

Mind you, by following these instructions and never looking back you many never run across good information like THIS ARTICLE again in your lifetime, so be sure to use the News Feed and Live Feed views from time to time to get a taste of what your friends are yapping about this week…. you never know what those crazy friends might be up to!!

Happy Facebooking!

Fix Your Broken Facebook Feed

drew — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:41:43 +0000

Jeepers, people. Has Facebook gone wanky (again) or what? Don’t worry though, it’s okay, I have a fix so that your Live Feed works nearly like it did before the weekend of the Great Facebook Flop of Late 2009…… but before I get to the fix let me first mention that I found these instructions on Facebook… and of all people, it was sitting up on the wall of our friend Hollis Gillespie, a well known potty mouthed Atlanta author with movie deals and book deals coming out her ears. While I admire and respect Hollis’ creative skills it galled me that I, a graduate of Georgia Tech with a double-secret minor in computer technology, had to rely on a woman whose cellphone is held together by rubberbands (no offense Hollis).

So the fix.

If you’re not already there, go to your Live Feed. If you’re on your News Feed you’ll see the link above the box where you can type your status update.

Once there, scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen until you see a bar which states “Older Posts” on the left and “Edit Options” on the right. (This is just above the site’s footer)

Click on “Edit Options” until a dialog box pops up featuring the “fine controls” for how you view your friends’ feeds. Note the lower area entitled “Number of Friends”. There is a text entry field located here which allows you to tweak the number of users that will be screened for appearance on your Live Feed.

For reasons unexplained this number is set at 250. If you have over 250 friends this is a problem… so change that number to something higher. Once finished, click the “save” button in the lower right hand side of that pop-up box and it will disappear, hopefully taking your new higher limit back to headquarters and restoring some normalcy to your friend stalking addiction.

Happy Facebooking!

Facebook’s NEW News Feed

drew — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:38:07 +0000

(note: be sure to read my newest post about Facebook’s undocumented transition)
I got tired of not understanding the NEW version of Facebook’s News Feed and went all the way over to their help section (tiring, this) looking for answers. Why they didn’t send the explanation out to its users baffles me (I’ve re-posted their answer below for you lazy people).

To quote Facebook’s Help Page:

What is the difference between News Feed and Live Feed?
News Feed aggregates the most interesting content that your friends are posting, while Live Feed shows you all the actions your friends are making in real-time.

How does News Feed determine which content is most interesting?
The News Feed algorithm bases this on a few factors: how many friends are commenting on a certain piece of content, who posted the content, and what type of content it is (e.g. photo, video, or status update).

So THERE!!
Annoying? Yes.
Weird? Yes.
But I still call this a win. The app spam is gone and now I can simply follow the most interesting of my friends without even needing to pick and choose.

Let’s see how well this actually works.

How to Make a Photo Album on Facebook

drew — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:59:35 +0000

Today I got an message from a friend over on Facebook saying that they couldn’t figure out how to create a photo album. From the description they left me I realized that they were confused by Facebook’s confusing interface so I decided to post an illustrated lesson here on my site. It’s really not as hard as you think!

First, look in the lower left corner of your browser’s window. See the icons down there? Those are shortcuts to some of the applications available to you on Facebook. Callout #1 is pointing to an orange icon with a person’s silhouette in it. This represents the Photos application (and will in fact alert you to that fact if you hover your mouse over it). Go ahead and click that icon….

Don’t ask me why, but when you click the Photos application button it doesn’t take you to your own photo album(s), it takes you to a common area where you can see all of your friends’ photo albums. Handy if you’re just wanting to go looking around, unhandy if you’re headed to go manage your albums…. meaning that there’s one more click we need to make. Look at Callout #2 which is pointing to a link that reads “My Photos”. That’s where we need to go, so click it!

You’ve arrived at the area where your own photograph albums are kept. This is the area from where you can go and edit existing photo albums or create new ones. Making new ones is what we’re after, so look at Callout #3 which is pointing to a link which reads “Create a Photo Album”. That’s what we want, so click it!

Making a new album is easy! Just give your new album a name (”My 30th Birthday Party”, for example), give it a location if you so desire (”Airport Hilton”), and provide a brief description (people really do read captions, so make them interesting!). Next, decide who you want to be able to see these photos. If you don’t mind sharing them with the world, then pick “Everybody” from the pop-up list at the bottom of the images shown with Callout #4.

The only thing left to do is to click the button “Create Album” as indicated by Callout #5. Go ahead and click it. If you decide later that you don’t want to keep this album you can always delete it (though I’m not going to show you how to do that in this article, so you’re on your own if you post anything that might get you in trouble!! LOL)

Since you’re about to open your computer to another computer you need some guarantee that Facebook is actually the entity with whom you’ll be dealing with, which is why they issue a Security Certificate to your browser. This little bit of digital handshaking is intended to establish that secure connection… and the only way you’re going to be able to post your photos, so your only real option is to click the button that Callout #6 is pointing to marked “Trust”. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to do it right now!!

After a few moments (the connection process depends on your connection speed and your computer’s set up) you’ll be rewarded with a “window” into your hard drive. Callout #7 shows all the folders on your computer, so use it to navigate to the folder containing the photos you wish to upload to Facebook.

Once you get to the folder containing the pictures you want to upload, you’ll see small thumbnail images of each photo with an empty box on top of them. Those boxes are checkmark boxes (Callout #8 shows one example of this). All you need to do is scroll down through all the pictures in that folder and click the checkmark box for each photo you want to post to your new album on Facebook. Once you’ve put a check mark beside all the photos you wish to upload you can click the “Upload” button identified by Callout #9.

Note that you can only upload 20 photos at a time and that the Upload button will remain dimmed until you click at least one image to upload.

There are plenty more tips about uploading photos to Facebook, but I’ve run out of time for tonight! I hope that this lesson has been helpful to you. Feel free to share it with all your Facebook friends by posting a link on your Wall!

Facebook’s Secret Control Panel

drew — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:52:55 +0000

NOTE: Facebook has made changes and this option no longer appears to work as of September 2009. It was neat while it lasted!

Are you tired of seeing how all your “friends” are goofing off on Facebook? Do you really care if Sam Fiddlefark just took the “Which Piece of Cheese Do I Smell Like” quiz? Did you actually want to know that Finellopi Twankshaft just bought 137 people a Sexy Cocktail From Her Bellybutton or that Lorna McDufflebagg just scored 835 points playing KittenSmash?

Thought not.

I suppose then that you aren’t especially all that interested in attending the “Drive Your Pet To The Mall Day” except, perhaps, as a masked assassin atop a nearby bell tower with a high powered assault rifle and a 5-gallon bucket of armor-piercing bullets.

Thought not.

Don’t you love it when I post 20 minute long videos of myself listening to iTunes at work?

Thought not. (though I must say it hurts to actually hear you admit that you don’t enjoy them)

The good news is that you’re not alone in being tired of all of the extra noise on Facebook these days, and that your lack of interest in exercising your constitutional rights to “Vote NO to Blue Typefaces on Facebook!!” doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.

A bit surly perhaps, but not bad (unless you actually wander off and do that whole bell tower thing).

Look, as cantankerous as you may be, you aren’t alone in your growing dissatisfaction with Facebook’s tendency to show you every burp, hiccup, and fart from the people on your Friends List.

If only there were some way to adjust the flow of information percolating from your friends’ fingertips…..

Oh, well, the good news is: YOU CAN!!!

The bad news is that the solution is HIDDEN.

Unless you click on Drewprops’ Secret Cool Facebook Control Panel Link Thingy {clicky here}.

Recent interface refinements to Facebook.com’s homepage are the first signs of hope that the massively popular site may eventually be moving to revamp the confusing and tangled nest of privacy, feed, and application controls that most users currently avoid. But until that day arrives, here is one solid action you can take to make your experience on Facebook a little nicer.

First of all, let’s start with something we can all appreciate (especially the older ones in the audience): an analog interface. In other words, buttons and dials, levers and switches. Lots and lots of knobs. Mechanical interfaces are, arguably, the most logical means for the human brain to interface with a device since we are in fact analog devices ourselves.

If you haven’t done so already, click the “Drewprops Secret Cool Facebook Control Panel Link Thingy” (above) or consult the image at the beginning of this article.

Look familiar?
Yep, it’s an equalizer, just like on your old stereo system.

An equalizer is a series of slide switches which allow you to increase and reduce the volume of any number of channels and frequencies. In the case of Facebook, instead of tweaking bass and treble, it’s used to control the frequency of posts you see on a range of topics.

Those topics currently include:

Events
Groups
Photos
Notes
Relationships
Friends
Wall Posts
Profiles
Status
Links
Videos

Want to see more photos from your friends? Slide the Photos button to the top. Perhaps you just got out of a relationship and you flinch every time you see your friends posting updates about their own love lives. To hide in your hole, just slide the Relationship slider down to the bottom, where your heart lies

Blacklists and Whitelists
Everyone has a friend or two that they “stalk” on Facebook, and everyone has a few friends they merely tolerate and would rather push to the back burner if possible. This is what the IT industry calls whitelists and blacklists and the lower portion of this control panel will afford you the opportunity to set up to 195 of your friends on either list (black or white), and like any name-centric text-entry field on Facebook, as soon as you begin typing in a friend’s name a list of ready-to-click names will pop up, based on your spelling. Get it right.

The powerful combination of controlling the volume of feed types and explicitly specifying certain friends’ importance-ranking will undoubtedly allow you black-hearted churls to begin to enjoy your Facebook experience once again. Trust me, I made 3,846 points in the “How To Write a Helpful Article About Facebook” game.

Didn’t you see that in your feed?

Understanding the New Facebook Home Page

drew — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:17:40 +0000

The older we get, the more resistant to change we become, however the recent (March 2009) interface update to Facebook rattled a lot of my friends, old and young alike. Some love it, some hate it, all will have to get used to it until it changes again. So until the next change arrives, I’m posting some tips to help you guys understand how to better manage your Facebook experience. Let’s start by looking at the left hand column on the home page (item #1 in Figure 2).

Facebook identifies this column as its “Filters”, and you’re going to appreciate the power of Filters, especially as your list of friends on Facebook grows.

By default, the Filter “News Feed” will be selected (note that in Figure 2 the item “News Feed” is highlighted in blue) and will automatically show the most recent posts by ALL of your many varied friends in the “Stream” of posts by your friends. In reality, Facebook will only show a randomly selected few posts from your list of friends.

This means that as you add more friends on Facebook you’re less likely to be shown every update from every one of your friends, and since Facebook is just a computer program it isn’t necessarily smart enough to show you updates which might interest you.

This is where Filters come into play.

For example, let’s say that I’m in a mood to catch up on the behind-the-scenes antics of all my famous friends. All I need to do is click on the Filter named “Celebrity Pals” and Presto! I’m up to date on why Jenn’s not dating that singer anymore (dude, all she wanted you to do was brush your teeth more often… you passed up on THAT action because you’re too lazy??).

Pretty cool, huh?

However, to enjoy the benefits of Filters you’re going to have to do a little work first; you’re going to have to learn how to create some Friend Lists, so let’s go make one now!

Take a look at the drop-down menu (item #2 in Figure 2) available from anywhere inside of Facebook. Note that this menu item will only be visible to you when are logged into your account.

Click on the word “Friends” at the very top, or on “All Friends” which is second down in the drop down list. This takes you to your Friends page, which is the central location for managing your friends (Lord knows nobody else can seem to manage them), take a look….

Since we elected to go to the “main” section of our Friends page you’ll notice that “All Friends” is highlighted in blue at the top of the left hand column (item #3 in Figure 3).

You can see from my example that I’ve already organized most of my friends into several Friend Lists, including: Film Friends, Sugar Mommas, People Who Spit When They Talk, Silent Farters, Supermodels Who Are Stalking Me, Church Friends, School Chums, Celebrity Pals, and Funny Old People.

But since that awesome day at spring training last week when I ran into the flight crew for the next shuttle mission I now have a lot of friends who are astronauts, so let’s make ourselves a new group called “People Smarter Than Me” (an admittedly vast list).

Underneath my existing Friend Lists you’ll see a boxy button labeled “Make a New List” (item #4 in Figure 3). Click it!

Up pops a box which states “Step 1: Choose a Name” and displays a field with “< New List >” highlighted inside (item #5 in Figure 4). Change this to read “People Smarter Than Me” (without quote marks) and hit the Return key.

Up pops another box, toward the top of the page, which states “Step 2: Add friends to this list and use it all around Facebook” (item #6 in Figure 4). Now I can add all of my friends who fit this category by typing their names into the field which follows the words “Add to List:”.

As you’ve no doubt already experienced, Facebook uses “predictive type” to narrow down your choices as you type in a name, making it fast and easy to add people to your lists.

Go ahead and make yourself some Friend Lists and when you’re finished, let’s go back to the home page and wrap this thing up….

Are you back on the home page yet? Do it!!

Aha!!
Did you notice?

Those “Filters” in the left hand column are nothing more than a way to use our “Friend Lists” to filter what we see on the home page. That’s right, they’re simply a way to sift through updates from certain subsets of our friends. Pretty handy!

But wait!!

There’s one more thing.

You can tweak the way that your homepage displays your list of Filters. You can make them all visible so that they’re handy, or you can hide them all away to have a neat and tidy homepage.

Look at the word “More” between your Friend Filters and your Application Filters (item #7 in Figure 5). When you click this you’ll see any Filters which aren’t already visible. Note that there is a double-line dividing the “seen” from the “unseen” (item #8 in Figure 5). To rearrange your Friend Filters all you have to do is to drag and drop the lists across that double line (item #9 in Figure 5). When you’re finished just click the word “Hide” and any Friend Filters you’ve set to be “below the line” will disappear. And you can get back to them quickly whenever you want.

So there you have it!

Friend Filters, not so bad now that you understand them!

Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to share this tutorial with your friends on Facebook!!! Stick around and read some of my stories!