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!

Related posts:

1. Fix Your Broken Facebook Feed
2. Facebook Love

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!

Related posts:

1. Make Facebook’s NEW Status Updates Group Your Default
2. Fix Your Broken Facebook Feed
3. Facebook Love

Before we begin I need to review the rules of Cardboard Costuming, namely:

The Fundamental Rule of Cardboard Costumes
If your cardboard costume looks really nice, you’ve done it really wrong. Your costume must look as though it were ripped from the inside of a garbage compactor. It should have strange, upside down logos. It should be hastily taped together with obvious seams, obvious mends and similar errors of construction. Basically: it should look thrown away.

Kids, get your parents and/or legal guardians to help you make your Chewboxxa costume because you shouldn’t play with sharp box cutters without adult supervision.

The Body
To build your Chewboxxa costume you’re going to need a rather large box, preferably a tall appliance box (in relation to your own size). If your first thought is “I know! I’ll use a refrigerator box!” you’re on the right track, but stop and think for a second: surely your body isn’t wide enough for your arms to comfortably poke out of the sides of a refrigerator box. Imagine how uncomfortable that would be. Consider taking a box that’s tall then cutting it open along one side then refolding it so that it keeps the height but reduces the side-to-side, front-to-back width. Arm comfort is always paramount when you’re wearing cardboard.

The Head
Booxiees are really, really tall. It follows then that their heads should be really, really way up their body, near the top… probably higher up than your own head. But what makes Booxiees funny is the fact that their head is part of their body, they don’t have a neck!

The Face
All you need to do is worry about your Booxiee’s face so go ahead and cut out some good looking eye holes way up above where your head will actually be. Your Booxiee’s intelligence will be inferred by its eyes. If they’re really close together it will look stupid. If they’re far apart it will look creepy and slow. I recommend trying different sized eyes and you should never, ever make the eyes square and even. Asymmetry is the window to a cardboard costume’s soul! Have fun with the mouth, which should be drawn with a fat, black marker.

Operator’s Vision
For you to actually see out of your costume you’re going to need to cut out some “practical” eye holes at the level at which your eyes will actually be located inside the costume. Better yet, I recommend that you cut a thin horizontal slit all the way across the front of your box, that way you’ll have a really good view of everything in front of you and the line might be lost to casual viewers in the cuts and folds and patches that make up your costume.

The Legs
The box should come down so far over your legs that you only need to create cardboard “spats” that cover your legs from the knee to the ankle. This should simply be a square cardboard tube big enough to slide over your lower leg. Do it with your shoes off then put your shoes back on. This will “lock” the spats in place on your leg.

The Arms
I’m going to do a write-up about how to make good cardboard arms in a later post. For now take a look at the drawing and you’ll get the basic idea.

The Bandolier
For a really “showy” look you might consider using Chocolate Pop-Tart boxes taped into place. But if you’re in a pinch why not just bend and fold your own clips and tape them in place. Remember, nothing on your costume should be glued on. A good cardboard costumer will always have a roll of duct tape with them, ready to be patched at any time. If your costume begins this way you won’t be surprised when something falls off and you’ll be much better prepared to repair yourself when the time comes.

Remember the Point!!!
This is to have fun! If you’re busy worried about tearing or staining your costume then you can’t have fun. Go on, eat, drink and spill all over your Booxiee costume, it’ll only get better!!!

I’d love it if some of you would like to post your comments below suggesting other costumes you’d like me to illustrate in subsequent posts leading up to September. I feel that this provides a valuable service to the fan community.

* Cardboardish: a term first identified by Alfeo “Lightspeed” Dixon, the “caution tape” trooper from 2006.

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STEP ONE
Let’s go ahead and remove the crank handle for the window. If you’re lucky enough to have power windows there are a few steps that are different from my situation and unfortunately I don’t know what they are. (If you have one of those and know the steps please post the instructions in a comment to this article.)

Here’s a photo of the removed handle and the crank post on which it fits.

The handle is held on with a keystone shaped retainer clip that I’ve seen referred to elsewhere as a kotter pin, though it doesn’t seem to be a true kotter pin. To remove this retainer clip you’ll need a hook tool which can be easily made from a wire coat hanger. Look at the photograph below for the shape into which you should bend your wire. The retainer clip you need to remove is slipped around a circular sheath built into the plastic handle, a sheath with cutouts along two sides that allow the clip to ‘pop’ into place, riding in a channel encircling the metal crank post. It’s very simple engineering and very simple to remove once you find the ‘fat’ end of the retainer clip. Note that there are two plastic ‘nibs’ on either side of the circular sheath built into the plastic handle, so the ‘fat’ end of the retainer clip could be slipped on from either of two sides. Once you find the ‘fat’ end of the retaining clip just slip your hook tool around the ‘fat’ end of the retaining clip and gently pull. Note that the retaining clip will want to ’spring’ off the sheath on which it fits so you might want to cup your free hand around the area so that you don’t lose the clip (something I almost did).

With the retaining clip removed the plastic handle will easily slip off the metal crank post. Set it and the retaining clip in a safe area.

STEP TWO
Now it’s time to finish loosening the door panel. With the door open, look beneath the mirror control stalk and you’ll see a plastic screw. Remove it and place it in your ’safe’ parts holding area. Note that the black plastic triangle is already removed in my pictures, in your process it will still be in place.

With that screw removed the door panel should be a little floppier, but you probably need to pop one more retaining clip which is hidden from view farther down the door panel. Just slip your fingers in place behind the door panel where you removed that plastic screw and start working your way down, gently tugging at the door panel until you feel it ‘pop’ out at you a bit.

Move back to the top of the door panel now and see if you can lift it up and away from the structure of the door. It doesn’t need to move away a lot. Just a bit.

STEP THREE
Time to replace the mirror!
Turn your attention back to the black plastic triangle where the mirror control stalk (mirror adjusting rod) is located, prying at it gently until the one and only retaining clip pops loose. Work it gently, ever so gently, away and out of place. You’ll need to manipulate the plastic element, the control stalk of the old mirror and the loosened door panel in unison to remove the black plastic triangle. A reader (Bart) suggests making this part of the repair easier by removing the plastic handle/knob of the control stalk. To do this, simply pop off the plastic end cap of that plastic handle/knob (make every attempt to catch the end cap so that it doesn’t go zinging off into oblivion) and loosen the concealed screw revealed beneath. Once done, move the plastic triangle to your safe parts storage area (also do this with the control stalk knob if you have removed it).

Ta Da! You can now see the three retaining bolts for the mirror. No, I have no idea what size socket I used because I didn’t think about writing an article until after I was nearly finished (thanks to reader Bart for letting us know that it’s an 8mm socket!!). Suffice to say that it’s small. I don’t expect you’ll be doing this unless you have some tools anyway, so I trust that you’ll figure it out. Feel free to post the bolt size in a comment if you’d like.

As you remove each bolt be careful to keep one finger on it to prevent it from falling down into the door panel. Carefully set each bolt aside in your safe parts storage area and be sure to keep the mirror from falling to the ground as you remove the last and final bolt. It might help if you tape the mirror to the car as a ‘helping hand’ in case you think you might not be able to keep from dropping the mirror.

With the third and final screw removed you can gently pull the old mirror free from the door frame and set it aside, preferably on the ground instead of the hood of your car since it can easily slip off.

Note that the OEM mirror has a gasket surrounding the three bolts to keep water from penetrating your door through the mirror. My new mirror did not have this gasket so I applied a bead of RTV silicon rubber around the same area on the new mirror. We’ll see how well that works.

Reassembly is simply the reverse of what we’ve already done. It took me less than an hour to make the swap and I’ll bet that it takes you half the time now that you know what you have to do!

IMPORTANT UPDATE
I made the mistake of buying an aftermarket replacement for my broken mirror and didn’t take the car out for a drive until six weeks later, whereupon I discovered that it was an inferior product. Once on the road I was dismayed to observe that there was a maddening vibration to the mirror element even though the mirror housing itself was rock steady. Worse than that, the mirror would not remain in position after adjustment.

I had no other choice than to buy a genuine Honda replacement part, at approximately four times the cost of the third-party replacement. It was worth the added expense.

Placed side by side you can see the difference in the quality of the manufacture of both parts. Also, the Honda part comes with a pre-attached gasket to seal the openings in the door frame that allow the mirror to be attached. I used RTV in the openings where the bolts run through for good measure but that was probably unnecessary.

I will say that it went a lot faster the second time around!

If you are reading this article in anticipation of performing this repair, I strongly urge you to spend the extra money on OEM parts because you will undoubtedly be very disappointed if you do not. I also recommend that you use a good search engine to look for “genuine Honda parts”. I found a dealer in Indiana or Illinois who would have sold me the exact same Honda part for $50 less than I paid at my local dealer, Willett Honda of Morrow, Georgia. If I had arrived earlier in the day when a manager was on duty I might have been given some sort of discount, but I was pressed for time.

More than anything, I hope that this information helps other Civic owners out there! (Which it apparently has already done since the article was first published)

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