Effective Facebooking with Organized Bookmarks and Managed Applications.

Although this post should have come a bit early but as the old adage goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention”. I would rather call it a discovery essentially because I needed it. Not that I did not know about it but just that I never felt the need. Fortunately, this is something that really helps me, with each day adding up to bouts of addiction to me on FB.

The next few lines are about all the ways you could enhance your social networking experience via your Facebook profile. Some of these features are known to us, some are not, and the rest, we never paid heed to. I am talking of Bookmarks on your Facebook homepage on the right panel and the Applications that you use to network or kill your time.

Organizing Bookmarks

It is quite obvious that we might miss out on lot of live/news updates (status/links/photos/videos/notes/tags) of our friends which might interest us. As per my observation goes, not all updates are LIVE in true sense. Some get hidden and get updated later when we scroll down again to the older updates that we have already seen. But seldom we do that, with Fb pouring in so many, every second on the homepage walls. So, the best way out is to organize our bookmarks for quick access to updates of our friends that we might have missed ‘recently’. Here are the ways:

1. Links/Notes:

In my previous post, few months back I had discussed how to view all the Links/Notes of friends or just anyone’s by manipulating the URL, even if the links’/notes’ tabs/boxes are not present in their profile page ( I will be discussing how to set them in your profile later in this post). But the post is quite techie, n wouldn’t interest the common mass.

As shown in the picture below, now you could arrange the apps as per your choice, preferably, Links/Notes on top than Applications & Games which are defaulted by FB. You can do this by clicking on “Edit” and then drag and drop the apps as per your suitability. The encircled ‘X’ image implies you could remove it completely from Bookmarks too. However, you could always set it back. (discussed below)

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2. Status Messages:

As far as my observations are concerned, not all status updates are caught by our eyes. Some just get skipped. So, all you have to do is click on Friends link-label and you get a drop down like this picture below:

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Can you see a link-label as “Status Updates”? Well, clicking on that will give you all the recent updates by your friends. Now you don’t really miss any & don’t give a chance to your BFF as to why you didn’t comment/like such a witty status. The only disappointment here is there should be a node-subnode (+) icon shown that will make is know that there is something I need to follow-up. But only Facebook Developers know why they haven’t!

3. Photos/Videos:

You will be amused to see so many tagged videos and photos of friends you have missed on the updates. Here, you can catch everything once again. (See picture below)

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Managing Applications

Now I feel you should take some time out to explore a bit on the Application Settings and trust me there’s so much of customization you could do! Here’s something to save your time. Better thank me for all the R n D done just to make you task easy! 🙂

1. Setting back or removing Bookmarks from Application Settings:

Click on Application Settings on Account. You see a page like this (image below)

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Now, Click on ‘Edit Settings’ for Social Interview (e.g.), go to Bookmark tab, you could select/deselect as per your preference from your homepage. (See below screenshot)

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2. Settings of Boxes/Tabs on profile page:

On the same Application Settings, you could do a bit more. By default FB provides Wall/Info on your profile page.
You have options to set your fave app as a tab or a box on your profile. Refer the screen-shot below on settings for Links.( A box appears on the right panel below your DP)

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Same goes with Notes and other apps that give you an option to do so. You also could shuffle (using the + symbol at the end of Tabs) between various apps but in total only 6 could be accommodated. You could have a look at my profile now. (For people not on my FB friend list, I meant like this)

Well, until Facebook launches any additional features, I think this should be more than enough to keep you glued to it 24/7 now. 😉

Please let me know if I have missed anything somewhere and if it did help you. Comments/Questions/Suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Go ahead and share. Facebook for life!! 🙂

All about Profile Info layout changes on Facebook.

As a developer myself, I am sure Facebook developers are suffering from Insomnia and love to work on graveyard shifts. And eventually making us sleep less with the addiction they offer each day! Some new changes, some more R n D to learn, and some more time to adapt to them. Whatever, Hail Facebook, Hail Zuckerberg! It’s simply redefining the concept on social networking.

If Google and Apple were known for innovations for what could have been well-nigh unthinkable for a common man…Fb is doing it to the social networks on the same lines.

So, here we go..the latest set of changes on your Profile Info. Looks cool? Looks yuck? Previous was better? I tried sticking to the older layout as much as I could, but I would not be allowed to edit unless I incorporate the changes by FB on my profile. So, I had to! 😦

However, I found the business rule/idea behind it to be pretty cool. Whatever you chose as your favorites stuffs (from the auto-suggest drop down) apparently are linked to the FAN PAGES which have a LIKE button instead of a BECOME A FAN button! For e.g. On ‘Likes and Interests’ segment, if you are fond of the ‘Television’ show Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, then clicking on it takes you to the fan page on Facebook!

This isn’t all! Other way round, if you haven’t put it as your fave TV show on your profile info, just hitting the LIKE button on the fan page you stumbled upon or were suggested by you friend, gets it added to your interest automatically!

Speaking on display of the thumbnail-icons: by default – your first choice takes the priority! However, you could choose your own just by clicking on the bubble and save the changes! Now the question is you LIKE-d a fan page but you don’t wish FB to show it among your favorite lists that’s visible to all (FB restricts it to 15). For eg. I join a news network/page to get the latest news feed but I ain’t really fond of Arnab Goswami ( he never pauses when he interviews others), so wouldn’t like it to be displayed on your list….

What would you do in that case? A. Hide it!

How? Click on the bubble, now drag and drop below the line (refer screenshot). However, once the user clicks on Show All(<No.>), the entire list would expand. The way to remove it completely is to UNLIKE the page or click on the bubble, then click remove.

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One thing to notice here is, if more than 15, certain bubbles might just be taken to hidden box by default! But you could drag it back to the top box area, so that our choices are visible to others! [Shuffle among 15] (image below)

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So, guys…what yall are waiting for? Choose your best fan page/show/interest and flaunt your choices! As an avid Facebook follower, I definitely would not love to see something like this when I stumble upon your profile info.! 🙂

Suggestions/Questions/Acknowledgments are always welcome!

How to recall/cancel a Friend Request on Facebook

Hi,

This is all about the ‘A’ factor for me. I call it atti-factor. So you sent out a friend request to a lady and she does come on Facebook as evident from her feeds appearing on your wall but neither accepts your friendship requests nor responds to your messages lurking somewhere in her inbox, here is what you could do to save your ‘dignity’:  Recall/Cancel the friendship request!!

How? Have a look below! (below feature is obsolete now – SCROLL DOWN)

On “Account” dropdown, choose “Edit Friends”. You could now interpret the below figure and explore on the encircled options. It’s straight and simple. Additionally, you can try entering the initial alphabets of the person bitterly concerned, and the auto-suggest makes your task easy.

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Hope this helped! Mind leaving a note? 🙂

Update – 09/29/2010

(below feature is obsolete now – SCROLL DOWN)

Is there an end to Facebook’s feature changes? 1st this got victimised now the current one obsolete!!! Arrrrg! Guys, FB has changed its “Edit Friends” page layout. But hey, don’t you worry. Recall is simpler now. A  small X button appears besides ‘Awaiting friend confirmation‘ on the requested person’s profile. Have a look below:

You can even make a list as “Pending” and keep amassing people you add. Releasing the “This request can’t be sent” post soon.

Update- 12/07/2010

(below feature is obsolete now – SCROLL DOWN)

Facebook Profile look and feel has changed again. Now it is more or less similar to the feeds w.r.t. the font size. As usual, recall friendship request has changed as well.  So, here’s how you do it: Navigate to Friend’s profile, scroll down to the left end and rest figure it out as per the below image (Cancel Friend Request is for pending requests. Unfriend is for people who are already in your list.):

Click to enlarge.

Update- 27/09/2011.

Yet another new edition. It’s tough to keep track on who you sent requests, so perhaps you can add them into a list for e.g. ‘Pending‘. Then you could visit the person’s profile to check if he/she has accepted your request. Hover your mouse on Friend Request Sent (as shown below) to see this dropdown. If your request is still pending acceptance (too much of EGO eh!), then it’s time you did some good to your self-esteem. Go ahead – DO IT! 😉

Visit the person’s profile you sent a request, hover your mouse to see this dropdown

How NOT to miss any news feed on Facebook Top News/Most Recent links

Hi,

Here’s something uncanny I figured out on Facebook quite some time back. It’s quite possible for you to get an update about your friend’s posted link/status/posts late, at times after hours of his/her post and not ‘live’ as touted by Fb on it news feeds.

There’s also a bright possibility that you never get an update about your fellow facebookie’s activities/posts (by apps e.g. Social Interview/Photo of the Day) which you would definitely not like to miss if you are a hard-core Fb addict.

And definitely for a big time Facebook addict like me, the height of addiction being to such a level that my relationship gets on rocks most of the times!!! But never mind, my face from Facebook will only be lifted away with another Social Networking site at par with Fb. After all I love socializing.

So, here’s the solution I figured out.

1. Click on the ‘Most Recent’ (previously Live Feeds) link, scroll down to the footer.

2. Now, click on ‘Edit Options’ & you get a News Feed Settings dialog box/modal window where in the there is a textbox control for ‘Maximum number of friends shown in Live Feed’ defaulted to 250.

3. You can increase this no. to 400/500. Ideally double the no. of friends in your friend list.

4. Additionally, there’s Show More & Hide boxes where in, you could enter the person/page you think is interesting to get frequent updates. And Hide as such for the one you wish to get rid of! 🙂

One thing to notice here, lest you put a big figure. say, 1000, then in that, case the feeds are updated pretty fast and when you click Edit Options you might end up getting a message on the footer by FB saying “No more posts to show”.

Voilà! Now you have all your feeds updated and getting displayed ‘live’ on your News Feed page or your profile page. Hope this helps!

P.S.  Please do post your comment if this works or other discoveries if any.

How to view the links and notes of people who are not on your Friend-list/Friends-of-Friends list on Facebook

To all my fellow facebookies…

With Facebook changing its layout every morning I wake up, sometimes it gets difficult for me to believe my most recent post just got obsolete!!! Yet, the Facebook exploration spree continues from my end, with this new post that hopefully helps the facebookies…(and is irrespective of the changes in business rules as of now… who knows what’s in store tomorrow with your homepage look and feel)

You remember a ‘Link’ that’s posted by your friend long back on his/her Wall, and wish to visit the URL/site once again, what would you do? Two options:

1. Hunt for the “Links” tab on the person’s profile or go to the “Boxes” located at the left panel (though not a panel exactly) like the ones encircled in the pic. below. But there’s a fair chance that both, Links Tab as well as Boxes aren’t present on his/her profile! Options now: ( please read on… 🙂 )

Click to enlarge

2. Go to the Wall of your friend or friend-of-friend (if they have been made visible) profile and keep clicking “Older Posts” right at the foot of the Wall. (but this is like a fool’s way of going about it..ain’t it?)

But we aren’t fools! We are smart enough, with our sneaky tactics to overcome the woes (let’s restrict to Fb as of now :D) right in front. So, even if the guy/gurl has set the Links/Notes entirely open to EVERYONE ,yet with the new Fb privacy settings(Friends in Network chopped off) they are just visible till Friends-of-Friends.

Say for e.g. you just saw the pic. above where I (Biswajeet Rana) have the  Privacy Settings for Links/Notes visible to Everyone and they are visible like the way they do on the pic above in tabs. But, wtf, it’s Everyone still when I visit my profile from another profile of mine which has a very distant connection to me i.e. only through FB Search, the profile looks somewhat like this:

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What you observe here is, neither the Tabs are visible nor the Boxes for Links/Notes. So how to go about it?

Solution time!

1. Get the facebookie’s ‘unique’ profile-id:

For Biswajeet Rana, it is “603790700”. How to get it? Just hover your mouse on the “Profile Picture” of the facebookie and look at the  browser’s footer (FF/Chrome/IE) as shown in the image below:

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2. Go to your browser’s URL bar, and type :

For LINKS: http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=603790700

For NOTES: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=603790700

Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I haven’t been able to check on the PHOTOS stuff since of late Fb changed it Privacy settings again. But then there definitely would be a chink in the armour, though this is just a friendly hack! 😉

And you are good to go here and check out the entire catalog of Notes and Links of your Friends/Friend-of-Friends/Stranger. Enjoy Facebooking.

Any comments/suggestions are welcome!

P.S. This research on the above post is relevant only on the Privacy Settings set by the facebookie. Lest it’s made entirely private, you better be contented with your own notes and links :D, else kill your time with mine.

UPDATE: 12/6/2010

With the new Facebook profile, to see your bookmarked/shared links type this URL on your browser:  http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?

This shows you all “My Friend’s Links”. Besides the link label, you can find My Links. Click on it and you are good to go.

Further questions are welcome.

 

How to publish your profile picture on Facebook wall

As an avid Facebookie as well as a techie,  I love fiddling around the features of Facebook that continue to delight me yet disappoint me but occasionally on the constantly improvised design changes (business rules in technical terms).

At times, the features  get so utterly intimidating for first time users, that with so many cool features they still want to stick to their good ol’ social networks. I feel I should have been the brand ambassador for Facebook already for encouraging so many of my friends, rather dragging them to use Facebook. After all who doesn’t like the LIKE to be hit and comments/compliments to be registered!

I thought of putting down the stuffs I discover, for there are times when I searched a few requirements on my Facebook profile on google and do not find the proper result to guide me.

So, here are few tips on how to publish your profile picture on your wall.

[Latest update – 06/30/2012]

Just change your profile picture, rest is taken care by FB. Your pic appears on other’s feeds/homepage with a bigger image as “[XYZ] changed her profile picture“. No publishing needed anymore.

[Update – 06/28/2012]

You don’t have to do any publish than just uploading you profile picture, and then add a comment/reply to someone’s comment beneath your picture. As soon as you comment, it goes onto others’ Tickers and appears on their homepage as “<Your name> also commented on his picture….(with the picture on their homepage/feeds)”

[Update- 10/22/2011]

At least now FB realized what pain in the butt it is for people to ‘Like’ ur DP by following FOUR steps:

1. See notification on homepage of DP change in thumbnails.
2. Go to his/her Profile.
3. Click on Profile Pictures to view the album
4. Click on the specific pic U wish to like…..There U go!

Now it simply appears on their homepage as you comment. So more likes. And u feel good. 🙂

[Update- 06/13/2010]

New profile pictures, right from the DP (Display Picture) do not publish anymore. This feature, I’m afraid has been called off by Facebook. (or may be a bug on FB’s part of late but highly unlikely)  This is noticeable after the  latest change on live-feed notifications on Profile Pictures change from your friends and friendship-requested ones.

However, there are ways to publish the same photo on your wall. i.e.

1. The “alternative” way given above – click “Post Album to Profile” (mentioned in the above pic.) (Now appears in the leftmost corner, at the bottom of the Profile Picture album)

2. Tag the Profile Picture with your facebook user name so that the update is instantly sent as a feed to your friends who are instead directed to your profile picture, once clicked.

How it was when it all started:

There are a couple of ways to set your profile picture on Facebook.

1. Set one right from your album

2. Click on “Profile Pictures” album> Change Profile Picture

3. Click on ‘Change Picture’ straight on your already set or to be set Profile Picture of your personal profile. Browse and upload.

While the first two options would work in case you already have photos/albums in your profile, the 3rd way is the one if you are new to Facebook.

And Voilà! The 3rd way is the only option right now to “publish” your profile picture on your wall. You can choose to skip as per your wish! The description for publishing is set as the caption!

Alternatively, if you wish to publish your entire album along with the Profile Picture, below is the screen-shot to refer but the picture on the post changes to your current profile picture set. So, your friends would have “liked” or commented on the post referring Pic A, but you would have changed to Pic B now. Hence, inapt comments for an apt picture 😉

Did this help? Btw, Happy Publishing! 🙂

Please do let me know if you have any questions or issues on this.