Eddie On Everything » facebook

RockMelt takes privacy seriously, but you can’t use it unless you share all of your personal data from Facebook

eddie — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:29:40 +0000

Well isn’t this just the most hypocritical thing I’ve seen all week.

Seems that Marc Andreeson, one of the brains behind NCSA Mosaic and its successor Netscape Navigator, is working on a new web browser dubbed RockMelt. With its integrated social networking features, RockMelt claims to be “Your Browser, Re-Imagined.”

First, I don’t want my browser re-imagined.

Second, didn’t Flock already do exactly what RockMelt claims to have dreamt up?

Uh, yeah, they did. And it was a colossal failure.

And doesn’t that thing look a lot like Chrome?

Still, I wanted to see what all the hype was about so I headed over to the RockMelt website to download the thing. Only I didn’t download it, because in order to do so, I’d have to turn over my name, gender, email address, profile pictures, a list of my friends, and a list of things I “like” by connecting with Facebook!

The real kicker is that they claim to “take my privacy seriously” in the same breath that they require access to my Facebook account!

From the FAQ:

Do I need a Facebook account to sign up?
Yes, right now you need a Facebook account to sign up and use the RockMelt beta.

Can I use my Twitter account to login to RockMelt?
You can add your Twitter account to RockMelt, but you need to use a Facebook account to login to RockMelt.

You know why you can’t sign in with Twitter? Because it doesn’t provide them with enough of your personal information!

The chutzpah leaves me nearly speechless.

Another Facebook Hoax – “Becoming a Father or Mother was the greatest gift of my life”

eddie — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:58:13 +0000

When will these Facebook users learn?

Pretty much anything you see or hear along the lines of “Don’t do this / don’t do that / this person is trying to get you” is NOT true.

The latest is a warning about a Facebook group of pedophiles purportedly trying to see photos of your kids.

Snopes has the rundown, but here’s the message I’m seeing in my News Feed.

ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!Do not join the group currently on Facebook with the title”Becoming a Father or Mother was the greatest gift of my life”. It is a group of pedophiles trying to access your photos. This was on Fox news@5. Please take time to copy and paste. Keep our children safe!!!!!

This one doesn’t even make any sense. Why would a group of pedophiles create a group to “gain access” to photos of your kids? Its not like it’s hard to find photos of kids on the internet. It’s not like children aren’t out in public everywhere, every day. It’s not like joining a group will give anyone access to your private photos. This is just dumb, all around.

Despite what the message may say about some news station reporting the story, it’s not true. No news station ever reported this. And if they did, they should probably lose their newsey-station license for being complete buffoons.

If you’re out there reposting this on the Facebook, or warning your friends about joining child-centered groups on Facebook, then I’m sorry, but you’re an idiot.

Your Phone Number is on Facebook – Who Cares?

eddie — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:01:59 +0000

A lot of my Facebook friends keep re-posting this.

Apparently people are outraged that their phone number is available to their Facebook friends.

Why is everyone so concerned?

The message:

PHONE NUMBER IS NOW ON FACEBOOK! Go to the top right of your screen,
click Account then Edit Friends. Go to the left side of yourscreen and
click Phonebook. Everyone’s phone#’s are now being published.Please
repost to let your friends know this is happening so they can remove
……their phone #’s by changing their privacy settings. (Pr…ivacy
Settings- Phone – Customize – Only Me.)

What, are you worried that one of your friends might *gasp* call you?

Yes, if you put your phone number on your Facebook profile, your phone number is on Facebook. Guess what? Your name and picture is on Facebook, too. And if you put in your schools, or hometown, that’s there too.

This is really much ado about nothing, especially considering that if you have your privacy settings set correctly, only your friends can see your phone number.

But even if you have your Facebook profile set to “world readable,” again, I have to ask: Why do you care?

If you’re still worried, I have some other news that might shock you into tomorrow. (You’re gonna want to sit down for this one.) Your phone number is also published in a publicly available directory, right next to your name and address – it’s called the phone book.

Opera changes third-party iframe cookie handing in latest release

eddie — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:58:11 +0000

The support requests for my Facebook-based application started coming in today:

“This application isn’t working in Opera!”

“I just keep getting redirected! I’m using Opera.”

“Your site is BROKEN! Please fix it IMMEDIATELY SO I CAN ACCESS MY ACCOUNT!! I’m in Opera!”

Odd, because it *used* to work in Opera. After some investigation, it looks like the latest Opera release contains a change in how iframe cookies are handled. In short – it stopped handling them. The new Opera (10.53 at least) seems to reject all cookies set by a remote server via an iframe.

Why? Who can say. I’ve heard the “security” and “privacy” rationales, and I don’t find them particularly compelling. What I do know, though, is that this change in default behavior is going to negatively impact millions of Opera users and website operators. It’s very bad software release practice when a new release breaks existing functionality. Shame on you, Opera.

Fortunately, I already had mechanisms in place to deal with this annoying browser practice – see, this is the exact same way Safari handles third party iframe cookies. I simply started sending my Opera users down the specialized Safari authentication pathway, and voila, problem solved.

It may not be as easy for other Facebook Application Developers, though. If they haven’t specifically dealt with the newer Safari problem, they’ve got some coding to do.

This is exactly why web-based software developers choose to only support specific browsers, usually IE and increasingly Firefox. You never know when an obscure web browser is going to make a major release faux pas.

Facebook Rolls Out “Master” Privacy Controls

eddie — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:56:19 +0000

Got this in the mail from Facebook today. Turns out the rumors are true. Thought I’d share.

Hi Eddie,

Facebook will roll out changes today that will make it easier for our users to understand and control their privacy settings. As this change will have an impact on our users, we wanted to let you, a valued advertising partner, know about it. Please note that this change will not affect your advertising campaigns and there is no action required on your part.  

Facebook is a company that moves quickly, constantly innovating and launching new products to improve the user experience. The feedback we heard from users was that in our efforts to innovate, some of our privacy settings h ad become confusing.   

We believe in listening to our users and taking their feedback into account whenever possible. We think the following changes address these concerns by providing users with more control over their privacy settings and making them more simple to use.  

Starting today, Facebook will:  
* Provide an easy-to-use “master” control that enables users to set who can see the content they share through Facebook. This enables users to choose, with just one click, the overall privacy level they’re comfortable with for the content they share on Facebook. Of course, users can still use all of the granular controls we’ve always offered, if they wish. 
* Significantly reduce the amount of information that must be visible to everyone on Facebook. Facebook will no longer require that users’ friends and connections are visible to everyone. Only Name, Profile Picture, Networks and Gender must be publicly available. Users can opt to make all other connections private.  
*
Make it simple to control whether other applications and websites access any user information. While a majority of our users love Facebook apps and Facebook-enhanced websites, some may prefer not to share their information outside of Facebook. Users can now opt out with just one click. 
I encourage you to take a moment to read our CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post and check out the new Facebook Privacy Page.

Thanks,
The Facebook Ads Team

How To Block Farm Town on Facebook

eddie — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:52:31 +0000

OK, people, you have a virtual farm. I get it. I don’t get why you have a virtual farm, but I get that you do. Good for you.

Please leave me out of it.

Thanks for the chicken, but no thanks.

No, I don’t want to unlock a golden thingamajig.

No, I don’t need a second chicken coop.

No, I don’t want to join your virtual protest about their not being enough levels.

To tell you the truth, what I’d really like to do is block all of these Farmtown requests. Funny how you never see a group called, “Join this group and never see another mention of Farmtown on Facebook again!”, isn’t it?

Here’s how to block the Farmtown Facebook Application:

Login to your Facebook account.
Type “Farmtown” into the search box.
On the results page, choose “View application”
Click the “block application” link underneath the Farmtown logo

There you go – the Farmtown application is now blocked from sending you requests.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t block Farm Town related group requests. Maybe some day…

What Is The # (Pound) Sign in Front of People’s Names on Facebook

eddie — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:52:01 +0000

I’ve been seeing this question popping up again and again.

“What is the # sign in front of people’s names on Facebook?” (Also called a “pound symbol” or “sharp sign.”

It’s what’s called a “hash-tag,” and it’s used to “tag” certain topics on the popular social networking website Twitter.

The thing is, Facebook doesn’t support hashtags of that sort, so it might be a little confusing to see them. (It does support hashtags, but more on that later.) If you’re seeing one of your Facebook friends posting a lot of pound signs before people’s names on Facebook, they are probably using an application that automatically keeps their Facebook status in sync with with their Twitter account.

Now, about hash-tags on Facebook. As I said, Facebook does support hashtags, only in a slightly different way. Instead of using the # sign, Facebook uses the @ (or at-sign) for tagging other users. It’s kind of like tagging your friends in photos, only it tags them in a text-based message.

To use tagging on Facebook, just type a “@” when entering your status message – an informational dialog will pop up, and when you then type a friend’s name, that name becomes “clickable” for other users. You friend will also be notified that you mentioned him or her in your status update. Tags are also indexed slightly differently in the Facebook database, so it shows up differently in searches.

Facebook Makes New Layout Changes in February 2010

eddie — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:25:56 +0000

I logged in to my Facebook account today and saw that Facebook has once again changed things up. Since the changes are being rolled out to just a few users right now, here are a few screengrabs of the new layout.

(Click for a larger version.)

It looks like they’ve really cleaned things up – most everything has been moved to the top navigation bar, and account functions are now available via a drop-down menu. Also, the search bar has been expanded, and now occupies the center of the menu bar. Finally, 3 notification icons have been added, ala the Windows system tray – “Friend Requests,” “Messages,” and “Notifications.”

Said one Facebook engineer,

“We’re releasing a set of products designed to improve your everyday experience,” said Facebook engineer Jing Chen in a blog post. “In keeping with our commitment to innovation, these product releases are part of Facebook’s ongoing efforts to streamline the site and make it easier to use.
“For example, when you receive a Facebook notification about someone writing on your Wall or tagging you in a photo, you’ll see a red bubble appear in the left-hand corner, near the search bar. When you click on the icon, you’ll see a drop-down menu with the most recent notifications.”

All in all, I think they succeeded – I really like the new look.

I have to wonder if they are taking aim at Google with the newly prominent search box placement. After all, you can search for literally anything in that box, and the results will show you not only Facebook pages, but internet-wide search results as well.

What do you think? How do you like the new Facebook look and feel?

Searching your Facebook page for “Automation Log” does not show you people who have “Hacked’ your account

eddie — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:53:59 +0000

A recent Facebook hoax reads like this:

IMPORTANT No joke! Apparently multiple people have had a hacker. I tried this and yes he was listed on mine too. The way to find them is to go into your settings, privacy settings, block list, and in the “person” box, type “automation log.” If someone pops up, block them because it seems they’re the hacker. I had 3 names in my block list show up!!!!

The problem is, this is entirely false.

Here’s what’s happening: When you search for “automation log” you are searching for all people with the words “automation log” listed as their employer. It’s as if you were searching for the term “Microsoft,” or “Comcast.” What you are seeing is a list of people who have written that word in their profile, not a list of people who have hacked your account.

As an experiment, I changed my Facebook page to contain the magic words “Automation lab.” Within 10 minutes I had received a couple dozen hate emails. A sampling:

“get a life dude. stop hacking my sh*t”

How the F*CK did you get into my friend’s list?
“I just reported you – LOSER”

“you fu*in freak get a job you fat fu**er specky tw*t!!!!!!!!”

FU* YOU AR** HOLE

“u bin tryin 2 hack me pu**yole?”

“okay so I have to ask you … there is this going aroung on fb. it’s saying there’s hackers…are you a hacker automation log. is what I was told on how to find you?”

You just pissed off the wrong people…

Wow, harsh! Hey guys (and gals), I’m only trying to help!

To be fair, I did receive a number of thoughtful inquiries as well. So the world isn’t all bad. :) One person even wanted to save my soul!

“They say y’all are hackers, and I don’t care what you are doing Eddie even if you are stealing information. I am worried about your eternal soul. did you know that you are on your way to hell unless you have asked Jesus Christ to save you? Eddie you should stop whatever you are doing right now and get on your knees and ask and beg the LORD Jesus to forgive you through His Blood. I am going to report you to Facebook and block you from my profile, but you can still contact God. I am truly concerned for you and where you will spend eternity. Please ask him to forgive you!”

How to remove yourself as a “Fan” on your Facebook profile

eddie — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:25:44 +0000

I’m posting this tip because it took me forever to figure out how to remove myself from being a “Fan” of something or other on Facebook.

Seems that it is really easy to become a fan of something, but when you decide that you no longer want to be a fan, it’s not easy to find out how to become an “un-fan,” or an “ex-fan.”

This is because the link is hidden away at the bottom of the page that you have previously fanned. That is, the link to “remove me” is not grouped with the other links on the page. Instead, it is hidden away at the bottom of the page that you previously became a fan of.

I couldn’t find out how to do it on Facebook, even after looking for over 10 minutes. Fortunately, I found this page from Yahoo Answers where someone reveals the technique.

The solution: Go to the page that you are a fan of then go to the bottom and press ‘Remove me from fans’ and that should do it! Good Luck!

Easy once you know how to do it, eh?

Update
Step by step instructions, courtesy of Warren:

Thanks. If you still cannot find it, the following are the five steps:
1. Click ‘Profile’
2. Click ‘Info’
3. Click the page you want to remove yourself from
4. Go to the bottom of the left hand side column
5. Click ‘Remove Me from Fans’

Eddie On Everything » facebook

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