Technology Guides

With news today that Facebook is now valued at a small chunk of change (aka $70 billion), I thought I’d take a look at it again.

My opinion of Facebook used to be very radical and I stubbornly refused to sign up. Then a couple years ago I decided to sign up and I have not looked back. Now I’m starting to revisit my opinion on it as Facebook starts to introduce more invasive features such as “Auto-tagging” which is based on facial recognition software. Why am I mentioning this you ask. I, like a growing number of Facebook users are starting to wean ourselves off Facebook because of this. It has been a trivial battle thus far and when I think I make progress I run into new ways to use this dominant service. It also doesn’t help that Twitter is becoming really popular and I’ve integrated the two, as well as Google is taking another swing with its recently announced social network called Google Plus (I will review this shortly). So without further ado, here are some useful Facebook tips and tricks to make your Facebook experience more useful, efficient and fun.

1. Download Facebook Photo Albums

There are some great photo albums out there that your friends have but it’s a pain to click on each photo and save it separately. That’s where Fotobounce comes in. It is a desktop application that allows you to download the photo albums. The great thing is it supports facial recognition so that saves time with the tagging. The difference between this and the Facebook feature is it does not have access to every other Facebook user so some random person who looks like your best friend will not be tagged in these photos.

2. Featured Friends

An underutilized feature on Facebook is the Friends tab on the left sidebar. You can customize this to only show certain friends (i.e. best friends, family…). To do this, click edit right by the Friends box. Under the Featured Friends tab, click “Create a new list”. Select all the friends you want on the list, and name it. Then click “Add an existing list or group” to add to it to your profile.

3. Remove Facebook Ads

This really should have been number one but I was too lazy to switch things around. This only works on Firefox and if you have the add-on Greasemonkey. Then you use that and install a script called Facebook Cleaner. Once it’s installed, and this takes seconds, go to Facebook and all the ads will have vanished. It reduces the clutter by a lot and makes the user interface a lot more pleasing although deep down inside I feel like something is missing.

4. Auto-Share Blog Posts

This one is only really for people like me, who own a website of some sort and would like to auto-share their posts. I just downloaded a plug-in called BlogUpp, and after following their instructions, my auto-sharing went on without a hitch. They also auto-share to all your Twitter followers which is great.

5. Access Facebook Chat on your Desktop

A lot of people have switched completely from MSN to Facebook chat (me included). Even though it is bare bones, it somehow has taken over a feature rich application such as MSN which is not something that usually happens in this world. Maybe simple is really better. In any case, if you are solely going onto your web browser just for Facebook chat, I highly suggest using a program called Gabtastik which is a desktop application that allows you to chat to your Facebook friends without opening a browser.

I will update the list as I continue to unearth the gems of Facebook but if you readers out there have any you’d like to share, comment away.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Everyone knows that Microsoft Windows Vista is pretty slow, especially when you have all the add-ons but there are a few things you can do to help speed it up. 

Sidebar

The sidebar is nice and all, but do you really need another clock, an RSS feed or some random stock prices? Not really. So right click the sidebar, and click properties. At the top, uncheck start sidebar when Windows starts. At the next boot, you’ll get rid of the CPU draining sidebar.

Visual Effects

In the system properties box, (from Control Panel–>System & Maintenance–>System–>Change Settings. At this point click the Advanced tab and then the Settings button. From here, you can choose which parts of Vista’s visual effects you’d like to take off. I personally have only “Enable desktop composition” and “Use visual styles on windows and buttons “. 

Always remember to take out programs you don’t need, removing them from the start menu so they don’t load when your computer boots. If you go to Windows defender, you can change the start up programs so they don’t load at the beginning. Virus software should always be loaded, but not Windows Messenger. 

Hopefully these tips will help you speed up your computer and if you have any more to share then please feel free to comment away.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Digital cameras have become better quality, cheaper and with more choice, it’s sometimes hard to choose which ones right for you. But in any case, more people have digital cameras and more people have the internet which is why there are more choices to edit your photos online, and for free. There are four sites that I highly recommend. Photoshop Express, Splashup, Picnik, and Fotoflexer.

Photoshop Express

Photoshop Express gives every user a fairly familiar interface. Some of the buttons from Photoshop are here, but only the basic ones such as touchup, resize and distort. They have just added a Beta Decoration tab which is nothing special at all. The reason I do like it though, is because of its huge and clean interface as well as the ability to save your photos in a library online. The drawback is you do have to make an account although you can take a test drive to see how it works. It doesn’t provide a quick job, as you have to sign in, but it’s one of the quicker sites to use.

Splashup

This site is new to me. I came across it while doing this review. I was surprised to see it uses the same core as Photoshop Express and that’s the new Adobe AIR. This lets websites work much faster and it shows on Splashup. The great thing about Splashup is it looks like a real piece of software as it has the toolbar on top with File, Edit, and so on. It also is heavily based on Photoshop as the layout is virtually the same. An interesting fact is that it is one of the only web editors that will allow you to select a portion of the image and apply an effect. Usually you have to apply the effect on the whole image. Splashup uses layers which is very helpful when you want to do some more creative stuff. The downside is it isn’t very intuitive, much like Photoshop. 

Picnik

PC World gave Picnik top marks but I’m not a total fan. Yes I admit that it is very intuitive and fun to go on, but it doesn’t have all the features I’d like it to have for what I normally do. To me it has very basic features except for it’s resizing tool which does a great job I must say. It’s much faster that what every other editer has and it does allow you to print, unlike any online editor I’ve seen. 

Fotoflexer

I’ve saved best for last, because that’s what I do. Fotoflexer I will say right off the bat is that it is slow. But it makes up for that in a massive amount of useful tools such as it’s form of magic wand as well as other unique tools. Surprisingly, Photoshop Express and Splashup which is heavily based on Photoshop, does not have. It has 34 effects and you can go in full-screen mode. You are allowed to upload more than one image at a time which is great for editing images heavily. The tools are seperated into different categories and the only problem I found with that, is it’s hard to figure out which one a tool may be in as you can only see one category at a time. 

What to download for Editing Photos for Free on Your  Desktop

If you want something special for your desktop that you’ll always have access to, I highly recommend Paint.Net. It’s free, offers a ton of tools comparable to Photoshop and it has a much friendlier interface, almost like a Mac. To download Paint.Net go to download.com. It is compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista and you can get it for Mac.

Popularity: 7% [?]

I’m a big fan of Hewlett-Packard (HP) and for good reason. They are forward thinking. On that note, I give you two new HP desktops that grace the green market. The two new desktops are called the Pavilion Verde and the Pavilion Phoenix Special Edition. HP claims that these two systems are 45% more efficient that comparable PCs and they come in special packaging that is recyclable and adds a bit of flair with a green design. Now recycling packaging might seem like something small, but really, if you think about it, it is so important in our world today. Technology moves so fast, that our electronics become obsolete in no less than 3 months, and where do you think that packaging goes? We need recycled materials more now than ever. 

HP Pavilion Verde

These desktops achieve a high level of efficiency without making use of any power management technology which is critical to reducing the costs for the consumer. They don’t just sip power, but they have great stats to back it up. The Pavilion Verde houses an AMD Athlon X2 4850e dual-core processor, a 500 GB hard drive, 5 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE graphics processor with 128 MB onboard video memory, a DVD SuperMulti drive with Lightscribe, and Windows Vista Home Premium.

HP Pavilion Phoenix Special Edition

The second green desktop, the Phoenix Special Edition, comes with the same as the Verde but with these few upgraded or extra features: an AMD 9150e quad-code CPU and a 640 GB HDD. 

The prices for these two are $579 and $659 respectively. 

Conclusion

My opinion on these two desktops can be summed up in one word: great. I think a 45% gain in energy effiency is amazing and it does it all with class and a low price. I’d personally pick one up myself if I had a home to store it in. For now I’ll stick to laptops, and small ones at that.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Now that the Zune is officially coming to Canada in mid-June Microsoft is spearheading an initiative to bring games to the Zune. With XNA Game Studio you’ll be able to do that. Now from first hand experience I know for a fact that the games officially suck. Some of them don’t end and some of them can end but it’s literally impossible. The 3 games I have on my first-gen Zune are Galactic Wars 3, Match ‘Em, and Alien Aggressor. In this post I’ll explain how you can get these games onto your Zune. First you’ll download the files, unzip them, open it as a project on Microsoft Visual Studio C# Express Edition which is free, connect your device with XNA Game Studio Device Center, and then deploy it onto your Zune. So first let me give you links to the download site of all three of these games. Focused Games
has all of them now except Alien Aggressors.
Alien Agressor (at the end of the post)
Now you know how to get the games, let’s figure out how to load them onto the Zune. After downloading those files, unzip them all to a favourite location like your Desktop. Now download Microsoft Visual Studio C# and then head over to download XNA Game Studio 3.0.

XNA Game Studio Logo

Now you have all the software you need to put games on your Zune. Once you’ve installed all the software open up XNA Game Studio 3.0 and click the green + button to add your connected Zune to the Studio. Close it after it’s done testing the connection and then open up Visual Studio C#. Once open you right-click the blank space next to the toolbar (file, edit,…) and click XNA Game Studio Management… Now go to the Recent Projects area and click Open Project. Find the location you saved the unzipped games and click open. Once it’s loaded go to Build which is now part of the Menu toolbar and click Deploy (insert game here). After a few minutes the game should be loaded onto your Zune.
Just a few notes though, these games I’ve supplied you with are for first-gen Zunes but can be easily played on the newer ones. There are better games out there for newer Zunes that can’t be played on the first-gen ones. If you have any problems, feel free to contact me or give me advice on rewording this How-To article.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Update: As of today or sometime slightly before, you can now be exclusive guests to Cairo’s alpha software. If you go to their homepage, you will see a sign up sheet for potential testers who preferably have previous testing experience.
Cairo is a new type of Windows Shell alternative that will be released as a free standing application. There is no word yet on when it will be released but we can all hope it will be sooner than later. Many, including me at first, don’t have a clue what a Windows Shell Alternative is; but let me dumb it down for you. When you install a WSA, it replaces explorer.exe. Explorer.exe displays the icons, folders, start menu, and taskbar but Windows has made it possible to change it in numerous ways only if you are good at computers or if you’ve downloaded something like Cairo.

I was told about this revolutionary piece of “software” by a friend and I decided to do some of my own research. So far though, Cairo’s official website is the only place with reliable information.
Even with an official website it isn’t sufficient enough to write a full article so this is just an article in development. There are 9 features on Cairo that are either new or improvements on Windows’ version. Some of them are:

• A start bar with easy access to all your files and applications.
• Slick and Stable, you never hear those words together
• Multi-Desktop lets you easily organize your workload by desktop
• Dynamic Desktop enables you to browse files and folders right there
• Make virtual file stacks to easily locate files with File & Application Grouping
• Launch applications that are more frequently used and hide the ones you don’t with LaunchCairo
• Preview files and folders such as documents, music, and images with File Explorer
• Configure Cairo just the way you like it by adding and removing features with Cairo’s unique plugin system

Popularity: 13% [?]