Sebbie on the Webbie

Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

We all love Facebook, and a lot of us like Twitter, and now there’s the next one – I believe; FriedEggs.com. It’s kind of a combination of the two, and also updates both of the above if you wish it to.

Compared to Facebook

If you’re like me, you like to limit who sees your Facebook, but it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have anything public to say. That is where Twitter or FriedEggs would come in. If you want to address a larger audience and get followers that are not your personal friends, this is it.

Compared to  Twitter

You will have more room to write, should you need it, and you can add multi media straigth into your message, kind of like on Facebook. You can also comment on a… an Egg? directly, or just “like it” just like on Facebook.

Compared to Both

You get a front page list of the latest eggs with and without photos/videos. I really truly miss this feature on both Twitter and Facebook, but the Eggs has it. I really like Fried Eggs as an addition or link to both Facebook and Twitter.

Follow my eggs. XD

Don't let the evil crim use your innocent face as his cover

Most of us have  a Facebook account, and the more popular Facebook gets, the more attractive it is for hackers, who want to use your squeaky clean profile as their cover when doing something you would never do. Hacking these days is not too difficult. I’ve tried it once, (with a test account) and without any experience got through CAPTCHA image verification using nothing but an automated program, which some people still think is impossible for a computer to do. It’s not – it will take a computer more time and more attempts than it does for a human, but it can do it through it on trial and error basis. Back to Facebook then.

Picking a strong password

Facebook hacking is done simply by finding out someone’s login (your email) and then testing out a series of letter combinations, actual words  to start with, then continuing randomly, until the correct one is found. If your password is a clear English word, it’ll be amongst the first ones to be cracked. What you want to do is pick a word you can remember, then add some numbers (in the middle) and capitalisations to it. Something like “R4nD0M612″. Pick numbers that are special to you, but not special enough for anyone to pick, such as (not) your birth date so you can remember it, then type it up a few times so you will remember it with your fingers as well, so you won’t have to keep copying because you can’t remember it.

Hide your email address like it was your passport

For sites that are very popular, and the most likely to get hacked, such as Facebook, use a separate email address that you will not be using for any other purpose than this. If you are a domain owner, this should be an easy task for you as you can just add an email address that will forward stuff to your real account if needed, but if not, try something like http://sneakemail.com/to create an additional email addresses for this use. This way it will be harder for a hacker to find out your email address you used to sign up, and makes it that much harder for him to get to your profile – and with so many easier options out there will probably leave your account alone – unless he takes it as a challenge, which I doubt, with so many more tempting targets out there…

When you change an email address to your profile, remember to remove the email address you previously had in use, as all emails stored with your account can be  used as logins. Facebook will nag to you about adding an additional email, so do the same with another email – have two complete oddity emails (such as 82ldh03@yourdomain.com.) Also, then remember to hide it from others, including your friends, because you don’t want to get email to that account anyway. You might be tempted to add another “spam account” type of email to show to your friends, but don’t, since this will function as a login to your account and you don’t want a spam-account as your login email if you want to keep your profile safe.

Then you simply have to remember which email you used to sign up and log in. You can make your computer to remember your login information, unless you use a public computer, in which case you definitely should not.

Why would anyone want to hack my Facebook account?

In addition to identity theft, which might actually be in the minority of reasons to hack someone’s account, there are other reasons for it, for example an annoyed or jealous ex… If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a couple of crazy ones in your past. School bullies use this sort of tactic a lot, and if you’re a parent, I wouldn’t rule out possible bullies using your account to torture your kid. (Imagine the horrible things they could make you say to your kid if they could use your account!) Some people enjoy simply creating a mayhem amongst people so having the login information of someone… ANYONE with a bunch of friends, could be a fantastic source of entertainment – at your expense.

Applications

Applications on Facebook are a security risk, as every time you add one, you grant an access to all your data. What is worse, a lot of the applications can access your data if your FRIEND has added an application and you haven’t told Facebook not to allow access to third party applications. I learned this the hard way: Someone of my friends added themselves to a mailing list of some product specials, and apparently gave access to my information as well. Now I get spammed continuously about products I don’t want in a country I don’t live in. (Hiding your email will also hide it from applications.)

To make sure you’re allowing your friends to give out as little information as possible, go to this address to tweak your third party application privacy settings on Facebook.

Last of all, keep the number of installed applications as low as possible, using only those that are of absolute importance to you, or applications you trust. Use applications from well known developers, and avoid things like gift apps and personality tests and all those dodgy things. While most of these are harmless, it only takes that one…

I hope you will find some peace of mind knowing you’ve done your best to close the doors on your Facebook account.

If you know some more good tips about keeping your account safe, please add into the comments!

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Even though Facebook has a lot of fun little apps and games, you might want to restrict the use of them when you’re involving others. A lot of people are using Facebook in business purposes, and it’s simply not cool having friends constantly send you “cute gifts” or “nice things” or bug me to take in a lost pet or keep you updated on their latest Bejewelled Blitz score. While most people get this, there can be just a couple of people who keep doing this, sometimes several times a day – or an hour! And quite often, you don’t even know these people well enough to tell them to please stop doing it.

Gifts

Yes, you can block applications, but you’ll have to do that separately to each application. I WISH I could just block all gift apps at once! I am a Barbie collector, and you can bet I get Facebook Barbie gifts a lot, from more than one app and from more than one friend. I love Barbies, but I still blocked all Barbie gift -apps, because I like them in flesh and… sorry, in plastic and vinyl instead of pixels on the screen. So if I block a gift app of things I love, how do you think I feel getting a bunch of other “gifts” that just take up the space from the stuff I really like to see – my friends actual updates and their photos. (Yes you can select which type of feed you want to see, but if all these gifts are posted on your wall and you want to see if someone has actually sent you something worth while, you’ll have 3 pages full of gifts… ARGH!)

Games

There are few games I love on Facebook and that I play a lot… Too much in fact. Every time I get a personal high score, the game asks me if I want to post it on my profile. I select “no” 99% of the time. I post it if I score MASSIVE, which happens maybe once a month. I also played a game, Vampire Wars, which required some wall posts to work well, so I created a separate account for it, so I could only add people who also play Vampire Wars and wouldn’t be annoyed by the constant updates. Other games that can be annoying as hell: Farm games, the zoo games, pet games, Mafia, pretty much anything that does repeated public updates. Either don’t play them, only post sparingly or start a separate gaming profile and only add fellow gamers. (There’s Facebook groups where you can find strangers to play with so you don’t have to bug your co workers with it.)

Quizzes and “personality tests”

Most of these are so dodgy that I don’t know why you’d like to fill them. They may be entertaining for a few times but seriously? If you take the quizzes, consider if the response has enough entertainment value to be posted on your wall.

Let’s just say that if you’re over 15 years of age, and your friend is over 15, lay off the entertainment apps and only post them to people who you know very well or who you know enjoys that stuff!

Signing up for newsletters on Facebook

DO NOT DO THIS. Some of them not only add you, but your friends as well, so please, please don’t do this through Facebook! (You know how the app asks you to give a permission to access Yours and YOUR FRIENDS information through your profile?) I’ve been starting to receive a lot of “offers” to my email through Facebook, and there’s not a snow balls chance in hell I would have signed up for those, especially as they come from Finland and I don’t live there anymore!

I think a lot of us are a bit confused about the differences between a group and a page. Even though I administer both types, I couldn’t answer that off the top of my hat.

Official or casual?

The most obvious difference between the two is that groups are primarily intended for a more casual use while pages are intended for businesses, brands, products, organisations, artists, bands or public figures. Groups can be pretty much about anything, and there is a category “just for fun” which is probably the most used classification for groups, I would imagine. So definitely, if you are promoting a business, or other “serious” entity, page is your first option.

Pages are for authorised personnel only.

This means, that you can’t add a fan page for someone you really admire, even though they were an official public figure unless you are authorised to do that by that person or entity. However, you can start a fan group for that person without restriction. Say you love J.K. Rowling (who doesn’t?), you could start a group titled “J.K. Rowling fans” but you couldn’t do the same with pages.

Pages are easier to relocate

I don’t know about you, but I do think the navigation on Facebook is an absolute nightmare when you have to travel beyond your own profile. I don’t care much if they change the look of the site every 3 weeks, but the fact remains the navigation hasn’t improved – and the latest “simplified” one took away the bookmark-toolbar from the bottom which was the only saviour this far… Anyway, pages are easier to find again (ads and pages, one easy link on top of all the adverts on the right and one on the home page on the left), which is why I kind of prefer them more than groups… The path you’ll have to travel to find your groups again is:

- Go to your profile
- Select the info -tab.
- Scroll down to your groups -list and click the small link “see all”
- Then select from the drop down menu: “Groups you admin”.

(Was it REALLY necessary to make it a 6-step process, Facebook?)

Facebook Page to support your Website or Blog

A popular use for a page is to support / promote your website or your blog. Pretty much everyone who is online at all these days are on Facebook, so it’s a very handy place to remind people that your site is still out there. It works better than an email list for a lot of smaller sites, because it’s easier to fan a page than enter an email to an email list. Basically you’ll still get the same advantages – you can contact all your fans at the same time, but don’t do that too often or they’ll drop you like a hot potato. Use “message all members” -function very sparingly and with a thought!

It is worth while to have a fan box for Facebook Page on your blog or website if you have one… (Mind you I haven’t created one for this blog yet, I’m still considering some things, but I’m definitely adding it asap.)

Promoting a Group is more difficoult than promoting a page

For a reason or another, the most obvious difference between a group and a page is that you can add a fan box or “-badge” of a page to your website by just copying a piece of code. This option isn’t available for groups, and the only half-automated method for promoting a group is paid Facebook ads.

Page has more options

Groups are fairly limited when it comes to adding functionality to them. Pages will theoretically take any application that your profile takes, but I find adding them equally nightmarish as the navigation on Facebook. However, there are a handy set of default apps that you can easily add to the pages such as events and reviews, to name a few. These are not available in Groups.

Special Tip for Mafia Wars- type game group admins

If you are administrating one of these game groups for adding clan or mafia members or similar to games that require big teams, and you have these mass email lists, it is a good idea to sometimes clean up the discussion board a bit. This is because people will lose track on which groups they belong to and they might have stopped playing the game months ago, and still get invitations to join teams. What you want to do is shorten the message threads that list email addresses so that you only leave the first message explaining how it works and the last one, with the latest list of addresses. Also add these instructions; “If  you want to be removed from the list, simply copy the last email list and remove your address off it and repost it. (Reverse the process of adding your email.)” That way, you won’t be the reason for your members having to change their email addresses on their Facebook account for being too popular!

If you can, select a page.

Unless the limitations set by Facebook TOS of creating a page prevent you from creating one, I would recommend selecting a page if you’re half serious about it. If you just want to collect people under the same sentence, do pick a group.

A fan page of a doll

Even though pages are intended for more serious use, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t create a page for an art project or something a bit more humorous. Take a look at Elphie, the world travelling green Barbie doll.

Do they have other differences that I missed? Do share if you can think of something else.

KNPB3BWCDKA3

If you are a blogger, you would probably like people to read your blog posts. Maybe you have several blogs you would like people to read. You most likely have a Facebook account too, with people who are interested about what you’re up to on your friends list. Why not offer them your blog feed without having to teach them how to use a news reader?

And the How To:

If you have one blog

Facebook allows you to directly import one blog into your notes. Every time you update, a note is automatically created including your post in whole, notifying your friends. Your friends can then comment directly on Facebook or click a link to your blog (which you would probably prefer, but you shouldn’t get too demanding here.) Your friends are a lot more likely to comment than a random reader.

1 Go to Notes Import a blog -settings. (The link here should take you automatically there, but if not, you can find it on Notes-page on the side bar. Import settings.)

2. Find your blog feed and enter it into the entry box. (To find your feed, go to your blog, then look for the feed icon in the browser address bar or your side bar. If you’re on WordPress it is formed as www.yoururl.com/feed/ on Blogger it is formed as http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/)

3. Confirm

If you have more than one blog you want to import, here’s one way to do it:

1. Start an account with FriendFeed for blog entries only.

2. Enter the blog feed urls on the Custom RSS/Atom (Check above how to find your blog feeds.) Select the option “Include entry description as a comment”

3. Take that feed and follow the instructions on how to import one blog to Facebook. Unfortunately, FriendFeed will only import the headline and a link to your blog, but at least that forces people to actually visit your blog and is more likely they comment directly on it.

There are other ways to import blogs through Facebook applications, but unfortunately most of them import them only onto your profile and the updates are not included on the update time line on the Facebook front page. Because notes are Facebook standard apps, the updates will show up on the time line. In addition, some of the importers I’ve tried only update the feed if you manually tell it to update. To me that’s way too much trouble! :p

Computers, the Internet and social networks can be very confusing to new users. People wonder, if it’s professional for a teacher to be on Facebook at all, or if we can ignore friend requests from people we hardly know. Some people can’t see the difference between a business network and a dating site, which is not really that surprising as there are still people who don’t know the difference between an email and an Instant Message through MSN. (Or the difference between a book and a magazine for that matter.) It IS frustrating to those of us who have used all these things for years, but I think we have to be somewhat tolerant to the mistakes of an eager newbie, and just try to give a few tips here and there and hope the newbies find their way to them by accident because it would be too much to hope that they would actually google it… :p

If you have a newbie friend or relative who has just found the social web, you could find your favourite social network etiquette post and forward it to them through the medium they are most comfortable with.

Here are some of my tips:

1. Before you do ANYTHING find out what the site is MEANT FOR. Not all social networking sites are meant for the same purpose. The cultures between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and Match.com are very very different.

2. Once you know what the site is meant for, and you think it suits your needs, sign up and COMPLETE your profile. You will need a picture of yourself. It’s just nicer for everyone that way.

3. Before you contact a person, read their profile unless you already know them very well. Their profile will give you an idea what they are there for, and if they would like to know about you.

4. Before adding a person as a friend, consider your relationship with them. Is it appropriate for the site? Are you really interested in their daily antics? Are they interested in what you have t say? If you don’t know them personally, always tell them why you added them as a friend. (This rule doesn’t apply on Twitter though, you can follow anyone you like on Twitter.) Most of the time it is NOT the purpose of a social networking site to collect every other person on the site on your friends list. It doesn’t serve any purpose and it doesn’t make you look popular, it makes you look like an attention whore.

5. Don’t assume that people are using the platform in the same manner or for the same purpose as you are. (Related to #1, but not the same thing.) Especially on general social networks, like Facebook and MySpace it is possible that some people use it for dating and some for business networking. Find out what the person you are interested in is using it for and if you want to contact them for some other reason, be very respectful and make sure they know that you are aware that you have read their profile and that you are aware that you’re walking on thin ice.

6. NEVER invite people on a social network before you know if it’s worth it. Also, invite only selected people, not everyone on your address book! You probably don’t even WANT TO have everyone on your book as your friends so think for a bit. For example your happily married 60-year-old boss probably won’t appreciate your invitation to join LavaLife (a dating site).

7. (On Facebook & some others:) NEVER EVER invite people to use an application you haven’t tried out yourself. If the app doesn’t have “skip this step” on the invite friends -part, just leave it. It is probably not worth bothering your friends with! Also, consider who you send the invitation to when you do. The less you know a person, the less likely it is that they appreciate your invitation.

8. You don’t have to worry about ignoring friend requests or application requests. Normally these sites do not notify people about rejection. That would be a bad practise anyway if they did. The sites are not created to create drama but friendships. Of course, drama happens when there’s a lot of confused people around.

9. Don’t start a friendship by asking for a favour, like “Can you add me too” or “Can you retweet this” or “Can you visit my blog too as I visited yours?”

10. Remember that you are amongst PEOPLE, (who are not automatically your friends.) This may sound obvious, but it seems not to be. Consider what kind of message it sends to people if you select a screen name like “hugeDXXX76″ or “CheapAutoParts”. Speak to people online like you would speak to people offline. Don’t try to sell stuff to everyone you meet, especially not randomly. (Like I shouldn’t try to sell a wedding dress to a hetero sexual man for example.) Be respectful and friendly and at the same time, and do have a sense of humour.