More on fixing Facebook

I wrote about using the Firefox (Chrome works too) add-on Greasemonkey and the super script BetterFacebook and I have been getting loads of requests for people asking me to go into a little more detail of how to use it. You should read that first here.

I am amazed at how well I was able to ‘un-muck’ my Facebook pages!

Here is what my Facebook home page now looks like now after setting up and using the BetterFacebook Greasemonkey Script in Firefox:

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Here are the options as I’ve selected them. Once installed and you restart your browser then ‘re-login’ to Facebook, cancel the set up wizard. Then go to the ‘new’ Options button near your User Name and click on it.

The options I selected give me virtually the same/old layout I’ve been used to and added the ‘feed’ to the right; which I actually find useful so long as it doesn’t try and take over the whole page. Also removed are ads and other garbage I never use – applications being the major one.

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Note above that I selected the ‘Stech the Layout…’ option

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Note that above I selected the ‘Force the main news feed to be ‘Most Recent’..

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And that’s all the settings I chose and hit ‘Save’.

I hope that helps those that asked. You’re all grown ups. I hope that you can take the time and a  chance to experience some ‘pain’ and learn how to do this.

Fix the ‘new’ Facebook feeds

Let’s try and fix some of the ‘new’ Facebook enhancements.

As some of you know I recommended that to get Facebook back to normal. You could Go Account Settings -> Language -> English (UK). And it seemed to work. But Facebook is pushing the crap out globally, so that may only work for a short time if at all now.

I have written many times previously about how to improve your browsing performance and productivity using Firefox and add-ons. Read here please  with special consideration of the Firefox add-on Greasemonkey.
Greasemonkey is a hugely popular add-on for Firefox browsers.
To me this is my most used add-ons the first being AdBlock Plus – Get that here. A GreaseMonkey script could be anything from blocking ads, to adding several different things to Google search, to a bot which basically browses the internet for you. Greasemonkey is most known for Firefox, however many scripts can now be run in the latest version of Chrome!
Get Greasemonkey here.

So on to the Facebook issues. We all now know how Facebook has made radical changes to the way the feed and news are presented, and more are on the way! And it has many in a tizzy. There are a few things that can be done to try and regain some functionality that many of us had been used to. That involves using Greasemonkey scripts and by extension the Firefox or Chrome Browsers.
The first script I would get is one:
BetterFacebook you can read about it here. Note that there are many options you should consider looking at once the script is installed. They will by up in the right hand corner in a drop down menu. I really like this one!
The script install for Firefox is here.

The next is FFixer, you can read about that here. I have noticed that this one requires loads of settings and you my not like it. If you installed it and don’t like it in Firefox go to Tools>Add Ons>User Scripts>then Disable FFixer.

The script install is here.

I also use Facebook Cleaner

As the next few days roll on I am sure that there will be many updates to these scripts and the addition of others to ‘fix’ Facebook. I will keep an eye out and let you all know what I find useful.

I hope this helps some of you.

Here are some articles on using Greasemonkey to improve other browsing:
http://findtricks.com/2011/08/24/top-25-best-facebook-greasemonkey-scripts/

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ultimate_greasemonkey_guide_google_chrome

Amazon Prime, Roku and saying goodbye to Cable TV fees

I have been happy with my high-speed internet from my service provider – Comcast for my internet. I pay for and get very high speeds up and down and get a lot of bandwidth.
I am not however, happy with being butt raped for the cost of my TV services. Recently, after three years my TV services portion of my bill went up $75.00 (U.S)!! Above the $80.00 I was already paying to begin with.
So time to end that!

Obviously I am a techy, so I have watched TV via my computers through the use of TV Cards and streaming services etc. for over a decade. Both on my computer monitors and ‘piped’ to the TV. And in the past few years there have been so many awesome services for watching movies and TV shows that saying goodbye to cable/satellite TV services has never been easier.

To watch streamlining media on your PC or TV you can use an HTPC (home theater PC as I’ve written about before connected to your TV or use many of the ‘set top’ boxes available to ‘stream’ movies and shows from different providers. Heck even some new Blu-ray players and TVs are set up for using these services [Hulu, NetFlix, Amazon Prime etc.]

To be able to ‘stream’ video content from the Internet you will still need a high-speed internet service provider with sufficient speeds and bandwidth allotments. Cable, FiOS and the top level DSL services will usually suffice. For me I’m still stuck with Comcast but I am OK with that, their internet, for me so far, has been great.

Services and devices I use.
Services first.
Amazon prime is great for streaming TV, movies and music and my top pick.
I already pay for Amazon Prime ($79.00/year see here to insure I almost never pay any shipping charges and get 2 day shipping on most items ( buy hundreds of items a year and the savings in shipping alone is well worth it!), but this is just great!

With Amazon Prime you also get to watch thousands of movies and TV shows, included with your Amazon Prime membership at no additional cost!!
Here is some information. And if it isn’t available for free on Prime you can still find it for ‘rent’.

Amazon Prime members will still pay $79/year to access those 9,000 movies and TV shows, but now even non-Prime subscribers will have access to purchase or rent titles from the entire library.  New release movies will cost $3.99, and new TV episodes will stream the day after they air for $.99.

Another plus for Amazon is that you can stream your music too! I posted an article about getting loads of free storage from Amazon; you can read that here. You can purchase AND upload your music to your ‘cloud storage’! Effectively providing you with the ability to stream you music to any device that can access Amazon’s sites!

Netflix is another service that has been fairly good but has recently seen about 1 million uses leave because of some pricing and service shenanigans. They are still a good service and if you already have them you might as well keep them.
Just know that a month ago, Netflix raised the prices of its subscription plans by almost 60%, effectively signaling that it would be charging customers separately for DVD plans vs. streaming plans.
AND Netflix Inc is separating its movie streaming business and its DVD by mail service, which will be called Qwikster, Chief Executive Reed Hastings said in a company blog post on September 09, 2011.

Still, Netflix’s on-demand, unlimited streaming for one price subscription model can’t yet be beat by Amazon’s pay-as-you-go system, although Amazon’s on demand options now dwarf Netflix’s streaming catalogue.

Now for some devices.
If you don’t already have an HTPC as I mentioned above you can always get a ‘set top’ box for accessing TV/Movie and other media content.
I am now a huge fan of the Roku box! This thing is amazing! Simple, easy to operate and able to get virtually everything I need.
With this device you can access pretty much any service such as Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, news shows, TV networks (CBS, NBC and so on), Network streaming services like History Channel, SyFy etc.. AND as with any of these devices – YOU OWN THEM! No rental fee for a box to the cable company. NO monthly fee for TV channels etc.

Here is a short, but by no means complete, list of the most popular devices around.

Roku http://www.roku.com/

AppleTV http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Google TV http://www.google.com/tv/getit.html

Boxee Box http://www.boxee.tv/

Xbox 360 http://www.xbox.com/

PlayStation 3 http://us.playstation.com/

Wii http://www.nintendo.com/wii

So there you go. I hope that some of you will check them out and I hope you are able to break free and truly watch what you want when you want and where you want it.

Stopping spam tip.

1st. USE GMAIL. Then enable ‘SmartLabels’ in Gmail’s labs portion of the ‘Settings’. This alone will cut bulk and spam to next to zero!

You can set up Gmail to retrieve just about any other type of email account you have. Read about that here.

If you don’t want to use Gmail the next part is still just as important.

2nd. DO NOT click on the ‘unsubscribe’ anywhere within a spam email. That just lets the spammer/scammer know that your email account is not only active, but you actually took the time, read and acted upon the email they’ve spammed you with!

Doing that only means your email address just got put onto the priority confirmed working spam list!

Facebook news feed settings update

Facebook has changed its News Feed, so that by default, you can only see updates from people you’ve "recently interacted with." If you don’t change this and aren’t that active, then only a few of your friends will actually see your posts and vice versa.

YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO CHANGE IT AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR HOME PAGE, CLICK EDIT OPTIONS AT BOTTOM AND ADD "ALL FRIENDS" TO MAKE THE CHANGE

So Here is how to do that:

Login to Facebook:

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To Search for ‘Options’ link at the bottom of the page. The best way to do this is to

Press Ctrl F (if you are on a Windows PC) or Command F (if you are on a Mac) this will open a ‘find’ dialog box. The box will be located in the upper right, upper left or lower left depending on your Browser.

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Type in ‘Options’

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You will find it at the bottom of the page. Click on it to bring up the options:

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Open the drop down menu

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Change and then save and you’re done.