Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Facebook Series #1 - Organising Your Friends Lists






The Facebook Series is targeted at people who loves using Facebook but has no clue about the deeper details of Facebook. Facebook has become an integral part of our lives. It is important that we know what it can do for us and what it does behind our backs. Knowing Facebook well increases your efficiency of connecting with people and teaches you to guard your privacy. The Facebook Series will be touching on organising your Facebook account, privacy issues and controls and some easter eggs on Facebook. I'll add more stuff if I come across issues that are worth talking about.

The Facebook Series #1 is a simple introduction on organising your Friends. Actually, most people know about this feature. Majority are just too lazy to do up their Friends List. Having an organised Friends List can help you a lot. A well sorted out list can reduce the work you have to do when you send messages or when you set privacy settings. These will be shown below.


Click on Account on the top right hand corner and click on Edit Friends to go into your Friends List.



On the top right hand of the page, click on the Create A List button and you'll see this box pop out. Type in the name of your list where it says "Enter a name" and click to select which friends you want to include into a list. A Friend can be included in more than one list.




On the main Friends List page, you can also add people into lists by clicking on the Edit Lists button.



You can see which friends are included in a certain list by clicking on the Lists shown on the left side bar. Notice how I have a list of friends called "Ignored On Street List". Let's face it, not all your Facebook Friends are your friends. Some of your Friends are not really a friend, yet, at least. There are certain things you just wouldn't want the whole world to know. Thus it is important to have a list of people whom you feel that you aren't comfortable with letting them into your personal world.




What happens when you want to share a message or a photo which you don't want certain people to know? Before you Share anything, click on the lock button, choose Custom.



In the above option, type the person whom you don't want to see your stuff into the "Hide this from these people". Here's the convenient part if you had created your list properly. Instead of typing the long list of all your colleagues into the box when you want to share a message badmouthing a fellow colleague, you can just create a list and type in the name of the list into the box. You can choose who you want to "Make this visible to" too. Either way works.


IMPORTANT: The "Hide this from" takes priority over "Make this visible to". This means that if person X is both in your List in "Make Visible to" and in "Hide this from", X will NOT be able to see the stuff that you shared. This is good news.


NOTE: You should NEVER include your network unless you love letting the whole world know about what you think. More on this in the next Facebook Series.



Another way that Lists can help you is when you want to send out messages to a group of Friends. Let's say you are organising a gathering with your secondary school CCA friends, instead of typing everyone's names, you can just type in the name of the List into the "To" box when you send a message. The disadvantage is if there is someone whom you do not want to message, you cannot remove just that one person from the list when you send the message.


Organising your Friends Lists is troublesome especially if you have a gazillion Friends. However, take it from me that once you sit down and settle everything properly, maintaining your lists will become easy. Each time you add a new friend, you will be asked which Lists you want to put him in. Well organised Friends Lists will go a long way.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Ramblings: The Haze, My Productivity

Do you feel unproductive this week? Do you feel unhealthy?

Somehow, many NUS students feel this way this week. Some of my friends and I were just rambling about how this week was really sucky. Some of us didn't have any mood to study at all.

[caption id="attachment_439" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="NUS Engin Faculty, Block E1"][/caption]

Now, when this happens, we must blame of something. It's human nature, ain't it? And I blame it on the haze.

I can't even remember when was the last time the haze struck Singapore so badly. According to Straits Times, the PSI hasn't crossed 100 since 2006.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_593980.html

While I am glad that the government is urging Indonesia to do something about it, I feel that more can be done. And Indonesia should really think about how much effort they're putting in currently and think less about asking Singapore for help. Let's face it, its the Indonesians' fault, especially for cases of farmers burning out fields.

While putting all the blame on the haze for our deteriorating concentration to study is a little too much, I do hope that the haze will clear soon at least for the sake of our health.

Or stop school. Hooray!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Tech Speak: Switch Off Your Computer

http://lifehacker.com/5667662/do-you-keep-your-work-computer-on-after-you-leave

http://vimeo.com/15866184

I cannot understand why people always leave their computer on at the end of the day after work. Be it in school or at work, this is a common sight.

According to this article, in Germany alone, 14million PCs (44%) are left powered over the weekend. Assuming they are energy efficient, they consume the power generated by 870 wind turbines in a year. We all know that many PCs are not energy efficient in this day and age yet. Furthermore, we're only talking about Germany. If you count all the other countries in the world, this will make up a significant amount of energy.

Switch off your computer.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Brain Storm: It's Okay To Have A Personality

We were at our friend's 21st birthday. She had some activities planned out and one of them was to ask us a few questions about herself and test how much we know about her. As the emcee was asking, this seems like quite a thick skin thing to do, but yet I do not think she's thick skin at all. It's just so natural. On the other hand, I imagine being flamed and rotten eggs thrown at me if I had done this when I had my 21st birthday celebration.

I used to think that there are certain personality types which are plain annoying and I should just avoid them completely. But I guess I can't really avoid them for the rest of my life. Now, I try to open up a little more and be more accepting. I mean, I know I still judge people rather harshly  these days, but I'm trying already. I suppose its okay to have a personality. That's what makes the world more colourful, ain't it?

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

News: Bad Apples - But Some Will Still Bite Them

Straits Times Digital Life 22nd September 2010

- Oo Gin Lee

There is something about some Apple fans that I find really hard to understand.

Usually, when a gadget is less than perfect, consumers will scream, shout and swear they will never ever touch another product made by the same company ever again.

Not so with Apple fans.

Take the iPad, which has sold millions and has many fans swooning over its clean design and high-resolution screen which displays vivid images. Of this, I am in total agreement with my iPad-loving friends. But what about the fact that the 3G version of the iPad is "gimped", which means that your 3G speed is throttled by the the device? You can view YouTube clips in high resolution on the iPad through its Wi-Fi connection but have to put up with really awful low resolution versions via 3G.

Additionally, iPad owners cannot download apps larger than 20MB when they are on 3G. There is no such restriction over Wi-Fi.

If you ask me, it makes no sense to buy the 3G version at all. And at least two of my friends realised this too late. But it turns out that there is a workaround. Just buy one of the credit card-sized mini 3G routers, commonly known as a Mi-Fi device and create a portable Wi-Fi hotspot for the iPad to tap on. Devices like the iPad and netbooks cnoonect to the Mi-Fi device over Wi-Fi. The Mi-Fi device in turn connects these devices to the Internet via the dta link from the 3G SIM card inside.

When you use an iPad with a Mi-Fi, the iPad sees the connection as a Wi-Fi connection, not 3G and therefore lets you watch YoutTube videos in HD glory.

But when I asked my friend how she felt about her gimped 3G iPad, there was no sign of anger. She just whipped out her Mi-Fi device and proclaimed: "It's OK, I use this!"

Then there is the iPhone 4 "Antennagate" problem, which happens when you hold the iPhone at a certain angle. Your signal strength will do down a notch or two and sometimes you end up dropping your call entirely.

There is no problem, as some iPhone fans have told me. Just buy a case, problem solved.

Such forgiving reactions go against the rational and practical minds of Singaporean consumers which I have grown accustomed to.

I put it down to Apple's incredibly polished marketing savvy.

The the taxi-driving uncle whose cab I was in a fortnight ago. I was chatting over the phone to another friend in the cab about the pros and cons of the Sony Ericsson X10 phone. When I ended my call, the taxi uncle turned around and told me, apparently with years of experience as a user, that Sony Ericsson phones are lousy and would break down after three years.

I did not want to question his authority seeing that he was all fortified in his belief but I could not resist asking him - when I noticed that he was still using his "lousy" Sony Ericsson - this question: "So what phone are you changing to, Uncle?"

His answer: "iPhone lah."

"Why ah?" I asked again.

"It's the best lah," he asserted. Never mind he had not even owned one yet.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Brain Storm: Weakness

My teacher said this to be before, "I bet you cannot stand working under somebody." I don't know how she saw through me, since she was never in charge of me in school. However, I have to admit that it is true. I came back for a school event as an alumnus this one time. She assigned me under someone to help him out "just for the fun of it". Well, I scooted after 5 mins. My juniors have said this of me before as well. "It is impossible to make him work under someone."

I have a little experience as a leader in school. However due to my angst-y personality, I have never liked to be ordered around, or even carry out instructions given nicely. I wondered how I barked like someone's dog when I was in sec 1 to be selected as a councillor. I must have been pretty desperate. Many years have passed. I think I have mellowed a little. Being a freshman in university, it is expected of me to be under people in projects. It's been at least 5 to 6 years since I took orders from someone willingly. I wonder how long will it take before I fluster and scoot again.

Sometimes some things just don't change.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Ramblings: A Widow's Blog

I link hopped to this widow's blog. This sweet lady blogs about how she's living her days after her husband passed away with her 2 little girls. Her posts are really vivid and you can just feel the extent of her feelings. She talks about how she remembers her husband and how everything she does now relates to him. This is not a blog to read while playing sad music...

It makes you think, you know? Everyone and anyone whom you care may go anytime. Opportunities and accidents happened. We should realy cherish each and every moment.

http://letterstoelias.wordpress.com/

It's a really nice blog.

- a post which really touched me http://letterstoelias.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/filling-the-void/