Note to Commenters

Spam and unintelligible comments will be removed. Please keep comments relevant to the subject of the post.

Friday 29 July 2011

How to Stop Spam on Facebook

How to Stop Spam on Facebook - Scameo
Here are instructions on how to deal with and help stop Spam on Facebook.
The first step when you see Spam posted on your wall:
Hover at the top right of this post. An X mark will appear. Click this x mark to remove the post or report as spam.

Read the link for further details.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Firefox add-on Fireshot update

FireShot - Screenshot tool - Capture and Annotate :: Versions :: Add-ons for Firefox
Today, Fireshot won't let you use it as an add-on for Firefox unless you update to the recent experimental version. Click the link above and Add to Firefox the Experimental version 0.92 and allow it to install. Once done, restart Firefox. Fixed.

Monday 18 July 2011

Facebook navigation bar scrolling

Scrolling Facebook Navigation bar for Greasemonkey
To keep the navigation bar visible at the top of the page, even when you scroll down the page, install this script. Note, you will need the Greasemonkey add-on installed to.
This works in Firefox 5 and earlier and in Google Chrome.

If you have the FFixer script installed, you don't need this - in FFixer, in Menus/Chat, check off: Keep the top menu bar on the screen always, even after scrolling down.

Saturday 16 July 2011

Facebook's new Sidebar Feature

Facebook has a new feature called The Sidebar. Some of you may have already bumped into it, while others haven't seen it yet. As usual, things like this are rolled out, meaning they release it to some people a bit at a time. Also, the Sidebar appearing depends on your screen size/space. If you have a widescreen monitor, you will most likely see the Sidebar sooner/more frequently.

I've checked it out and it seems useful and a good interface so far.

The sidebar is a new way to connect with friends you often connect with on FB. When it is open, it replaces the Friends on Chat list on the left.

from the help page:
The sidebar lets you quickly contact some of the friends you message most. Just clicking on a friend’s name opens a chat window. If your friend isn’t available to chat, you can still send messages for them to read later.

How you know a friend is available to chat:

Friends with a green dot next to their names are available to chat
Friends with a gray moon next to their names are available but inactive
Friends with no icon next to their names are unavailable

The sidebar is sensitive to the amount of free space you have on your screen, so it only appears if there’s enough room for it. If you don’t see the sidebar, just click Chat in the bottom right corner of your screen, which shows the same list of friends you’ll find in your sidebar.
...
The list of friends in your sidebar is based on who you’ve interacted with most frequently or recently on Facebook. Since it updates dynamically, you can’t manually add friends to the list.

The list shows both friends who are available to chat and friends who aren’t. Clicking on a friend’s name opens a chat window. If your friend isn’t available to chat, you can still send messages for them to read later.
...
To collapse the sidebar, select Hide Sidebar from the actions menu in the bottom right corner of the sidebar.

To expand the sidebar again, click Chat in the bottom right corner of your screen.

For more details:
Facebook Using the Sidebar
https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=194010440647624

Facebook Privacy for chat:
https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=130254323719420

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Facebook vs Google+

By now, you have probably heard of Google+, a new social networking system to rival (or not) Facebook.

There are a lot of similarities, and some differences are not much different.

Below is an excerpt from WXP News Social Networking Showdown: Facebook vs. Google+

I've been testing Google+ for the past week, and it has some advantages - and some disadvantages - when compared to Facebook. And there's a lot that was obviously lifted directly from its rival, including the "It's complicated" choice for relationship status (G+ also gives you a choice that FB doesn't: "I don't want to say"). The much-hyped Circles feature is undisputedly useful, but it requires a bit more work on the part of the user. Now whenever you want to add a friend, you have to decide which circle(s) he/she belongs in. You start with some default circles (Friends, Acquaintances, Family, Following) and you can then create your own custom circles (for example, I made circles for Tech industry professionals, fellow Dog Owners, Law Enforcement friends, Writers, and so forth).

If this sounds a bit like the Facebook feature that allows you to create Friend Lists, it is - with a big difference: in Facebook, that's an option and it's not a very obvious one; many FB users don't even know it exists.. In Google+, it's mandatory; every person you add has to go into one or more circles. Then when you create a post, you have to pick which circles will be allowed to see it. It does annoy me that a number of reviews of G+ erroneously say this can't be done in FB.

Otherwise, posting and commenting is pretty much the same as on Facebook. That is, you can share a photo, video or link along with your post. On G+, you can also share your location with the click of an icon beside the status update field. This works similarly to the Check In feature on FB, but is quicker and easier to use. To me, the bigger improvement that Google brings to the table is the increased level of control that you have over your own posts. In FB, if you decide you want to change a few words (or notice a typo and want to correct it), you have to delete the post and rewrite it. In G+, there's a drop-down arrow button by each of your posts that gives you the choice to delete it, edit it, link to it, or you can disable comments on it if you want to put something out there but don't want people posting their responses on it, or you can block resharing if you don't want others to "steal" your brilliant words and repost them with a single click (of course, they can always copy and paste it into their update box, but that's a little more trouble). I like this flexibility a lot; it can save perfectionists like me a great deal of time.

Another "big deal" in G+ is its video chat feature, but Zuckerberg fired back quickly on that one, partnering with Skype to provide video chat within Facebook, a week after the debut of G+.
http://www.wxpnews.com/110712-Facebook-Skype

The biggest difference between the two, at least at the moment, is that the FB/Skype combo allows you to conduct video calls with only one person at a time. G+ gives you more of a videoconferencing experience, with the ability to chat with a group of up to ten people.
http://www.wxpnews.com/110712-Google-Plus-Hangouts
...
As I wrote in a discussion (on Facebook!) about this, it seems most people today want things to be extremely simple, even at the cost of flexibility or quality (hence the popularity of locked-down Apple products). Even a small "hassle factor" deters them from adopting something new - but they will stick with something familiar despite its level of hassle because switching isn't simple. When I put out a message on Facebook telling my friends to email me if they wanted to be invited to G+, almost everyone who responded was a techie. The rest didn't seem to be very interested. They have something that works for them and although they might get frustrated with its quirks at times, they don't want to bother with starting over with something else.

Finally, I think the biggest obstacle G+ has to overcome has to do with trust. I hear from newsletter readers all the time who say they don't trust Google with their information. Now, I'm not sure why they think Facebook is inherently more trustworthy; my philosophy is "If you would be mortified to see it on the front page of your local newspaper, don't post it on any social network." But the problem with Google isn't just about security or privacy. Because they have come out with so many new services and products and then killed them, many people don't trust that G+ will still be around a year or five years from now, so they don't want to commit to it. Google has its fingers in a lot of pies, whereas Facebook does this one thing and does it, if perhaps not extremely well, well enough. People may not trust FB about privacy, but they do trust that it's going to stay around.


One issue that is left out of the article is the user base. For social networking systems to work, your friends and potential friends have to be using it too. If they are not, it's useless. Currently, Google+ has about 70 million users worldwide. Facebook has about 750 million users.

Sunday 3 July 2011

More ways to make old add ons compatible in Firefox and Thunderbird

If you have updated Firefox and/or Thunderbird and have found that some of your favourite add ons no longer work, there are a number of ways to make them work.
One way, that I have written about for Firefox and for Thunderbird, is to install Mr. Tech Toolkit. But, the problem with that add on is that it is outdated and incompatible and must be adjusted to be made to work. Also, currently, the forced-to-work version of Mr Tech Toolkit will also cause the Add-Ons Manager page to show in a way that makes it difficult to close it. If you want to switch from using that add on to using the Add-on Compatibility Reporter (see below), install the reporter add on and disable the toolkit add on and restart (in either Firefox or Thunderbird).

The Add-on Compatibility Reporter
This is an add-on made by Mozilla that will enable all old add-ons and will also let you send a report to Mozilla that a certain old add-on still works fine in the new version of Firefox or Thunderbird if you so desire.
Here is the version for Thunderbird.

There is an issue with forcing old add ons to work. Sometimes they don't work and can cause problems. The only way to troubleshoot this is to disable them one by one and restart to test things out. Sometimes an add-on can cause a very odd specific problem. Once you find out which add on is causing the problem, disable it and keep it disabled. If you don't need it anymore, uninstall it. But, if you would like to use it if it would work, keep it disabled but check once in a while to see if it is updated. If it is ever properly updated, it will usually stop being labelled as incompatible with the current version on the Add Ons Manager list. Once you see this you could give it a try again - enable it - and see if it still causes the old problem.

Here are a couple of articles from ghacks.net discussing the Add-on Compatibility Reporter and other methods of forcing compatibility and the issues around this.

Firefox Add-on Compatibility Reporter, Force Add-On Compatibility

Three Methods To Force Add-On Compatibility in Firefox