Helping Techie

How To "Friend" Someone On Facebook & Hide It From Your Status Updates

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I’m sure that this has happened to you before. Someone you have ties to, whether it’s a co-worker, your boss, or even worse, a parent, has finally discovered social networking and wants to be your newest Facebook friend.<br />
For me personally, that’s no big deal. I’m fairly open about my online activities. Everything I write, Digg, or otherwise share goes through myFriendFeed to my Twitter then ultimately onto my Facebook (my, that sounds naughty). Besides that, just about everyone I’d consider a co-worker is already <em>on</em> Facebook, and would have little issue about my other Internet activities.<br />
Putting all that aside however, imagine for a moment that I worked at Domino’s Pizza and that I don’t want my boss to know that I just became a fan of Papa John’s (writing this one’s gonna make me hungry). Here’s what I would do to hide Facebook status updates and keep that fact confined to my closer friends:<br />
On your Facebook home page, you should see the ‘Settings’ menu close to the search field on your upper-right. Open that menu and go to ‘Privacy Settings’.<br />
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On the next page, you’ll have four choices: Profile, Search, News Feed, and Applications. What you’ll want to edit here are your Profile privacy settings.<br />
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By default, everything on your profile is limited to your Friends and your Networks (your first Network is likely your city of residence, but you may have joined more). From the screenshot above, you can see that I’ve limited everything on my profile to my Friends and <em>their</em> Friends. Anyone else who visits my profile will only see that I have a profile, but will not see what’s on it.<br />
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In my example, you’re going to want to edit the setting on your Status Updates, since you don’t want your boss to know that you’ve “fanned” the competition. Click that dropdown menu and then select ‘Customize’.<br />
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You may want to tweak your overall privacy setting here, but what we’re aiming for is the “Except These People” list at the bottom of this dialog. Type out the name of any of your Friends to restrict that person from viewing anything in your Status Updates.</div>

How To "Friend" Someone On Facebook & Hide It From Your Status Updates

I’m sure that this has happened to you before. Someone you have ties to, whether it’s a co-worker, your boss, or even worse, a parent, has...

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How To Place Facebook Chat On Firefox Sidebar

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<img alt="facebook chat" border="0" height="281" src="http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/fchat-title.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 640px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="500" /></div>
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Facebook Chat is cool, at least it allows you to send instant messages to online Facebook contacts. However I’m not really a fan of the chat bar being at the bottom of the page, what if I’ve left Facebook but still wants to remain chatting with my Facebook contacts? If you are using Firefox, you can place the Facebook Chat at the sidebar.</div>
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Step 1</h4>
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Look for <strong>Bookmarks</strong> on the top navigation. Select <strong>Organize Bookmarks…</strong><br /><img alt="facebook chat" border="0" height="117" src="http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/fchat01.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 640px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="500" /></div>
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Step 2</h4>
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Click <strong>New Bookmark..</strong>. tab and enter the following:</div>
<ul style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.15em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.65em; list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Name: Facebook Chat</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.15em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.65em; list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Location: http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.15em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.65em; list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Check <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Load this bookmark in sidebar.</em></li>
</ul>
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<img alt="fchat02.jpg" border="0" height="272" src="http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/fchat02.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 640px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="447" /></div>
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Step 3</h4>
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Launch the Firefox sidebar, click Facebook Chat and start chatting with your Facebook contacts within Firefox.</div>
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How To Place Facebook Chat On Firefox Sidebar

Facebook Chat is cool, at least it allows you to send instant messages to online Facebook contacts. However I’m not really a fan of ...

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Hollywood's players back in the game

<strong>A BIG American studio movie was always going to win the Academy Award for best picture.
    
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After five years of wins to "independent films" <em>The Artist, The King's Speech, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire </em>and <em>No Country for Old Men</em>, it was time for a big studio to return for the final gong of Oscars night.<br />
That it was Warner Bros, which last won in 2006 for <em>The Departed</em>,
 didn't matter so much. What mattered was Universal, DreamWorks, 20th 
Century Fox, Columbia and Sony were back in the game with best picture 
nominees.<br />
Not that this was a token lurch back to the mainstream 
by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All nine best 
picture nominees had, in their own ways, serious merits as the best 
picture of the year.<br />

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But they represented a shift towards some sense of quality within 
Hollywood after so many years in which it felt as if the major studios 
were playing safe with familiar sequels, bland high concepts and 
bombastic or earnest comic book adaptations. Independent filmmakers 
continued to hold up the bottom end of budgets and the smaller cinemas, 
as we hope they always will, while the studios deserted the middle, that
 area of filmmaking that supports the <em>Argos, Silver Linings Playbooks </em>and <em>Zero Dark Thirtys</em>.</div>
Not
 that they are cheap films but they sit in the multiplex in a place that
 doesn't seem reserved for 15 to 35-year-old males. The success for a 
number of this year's best picture nominees augurs well, one would hope,
 for more production of smart, interesting adult dramas by the US 
studios. At least until we're swamped by <em>Iron Man 3, Star Trek 2, The Hangover III, Man of Steel</em> and <em>The Wolverine </em>this winter and we'll all forget these Oscars ever happened.<br />
Nevertheless, the game is shifting. Of the best picture nominees, all of them, perhaps other than <em>Lincoln</em>, will be considered commercial successes of one degree or another. And <em>Life of Pi </em>is another case altogether.<br />
Ang
 Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel's novel, which was widely considered 
unfilmable, has earned $US113 million in the US and another $470m 
globally. Once the ratio of international box office returns relative to
 US returns was always 50-50. The hunt is now on for more global tales.<br />
<em>Life of Pi</em>'s
 four Oscar wins was a mild surprise with Lee again upsetting the 
usually snubbed Steven Spielberg. (Lee won his first Oscar in 2007 in 
this category for <em>Brokeback Mountain</em>, defeating Spielberg for <em>Munich</em>.)<br />
Spielberg was favourite in the director category, particularly after <em>Argo'</em>s Ben Affleck and <em>Zero Dark Thirty's </em>Kathryn Bigelow weren't nominated. Spielberg has been nominated seven times as best director for two wins (<em>Schindler's List </em>and <em>Saving Private Ryan</em>).<br />
The
 spread of awards reflected the merits of the major contenders. Some 
technical categories offered minor upsets but, overall, in total the 
numbers were about right. <em>Les Miserables </em>won three awards, including the lock for supporting actress Anne Hathaway, and <em>Django Unchained </em>won
 two major awards including one for screenwriter Quentin Tarantino. 
Christoph Waltz's supporting actor win -- his second -- was on the cards
 but contentious given he is the lead actor in the film. The highly 
successful James Bond film <em>Skyfall</em> also won two awards, including best original song for Adele and Paul Epworth, and best picture nominees <em>Zero Dark Thirty </em>and <em>Amour </em>picked up one each.<br />
Spielberg's heavy but accomplished<em> Lincoln </em>had
 two wins, including the best actor prize for Daniel Day-Lewis. 
Day-Lewis was lifted into his own pantheon, becoming the first person to
 win thrice in the lead actor category (previously for <em>My Left Foot </em>and <em>There Will Be Blood</em>).
 Day-Lewis should win a separate award for a sustained period of novel 
and entertaining acceptance speeches through what is now a relentless 
blitz of cinematic self-congratulation from December through to 
February. The actor remains an easy butt of awards ceremony jokes for 
his method acting yet he repeatedly deliveres warm and insightful 
acceptance speeches while other winners hurriedly garble a tedious list 
of thank yous to mum, dad, Harvey Weinstein, the director, co-stars, my 
agent and publicist, though not so much to God any more.<br />
Day-Lewis
 joked that "before (presenter Meryl Streep and I) decided to make a 
straight swap, I was committed to play Margaret Thatcher and Meryl was 
Steven's first choice for Lincoln". By the end of another insufferably 
long Oscars ceremony, a touch of levity from Day-Lewis was required.<br />
The academy received what it signed up for with host Seth MacFarlane. The creator of <em>Family Guy </em>and last year's unlikely smash comedy <em>Ted</em>
 (and an Oscar nominee in the song category) delivered a wobbly show 
full of pop cultural references and the gay, sexist, fattist and racist 
jokes his fans expect and love. Yet he tempered it with an obvious 
respect for old Hollywood and cloying attempts to convince us he was a 
credible crooner. His singing was able, his jokes polarising. His 
over-long opening routine was typical, all sequins and tuxedoes with 
dancing from Charlize Theron, Daniel Radcliffe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt 
before he resorted to type with the puerile song We Saw Your Boobs and a
 fitfully amusing sock puppet version of Flight. He was saved by the 
ceremony's theme: music. It provided the ceremony's razzle-dazzle 
highlights and only a few queries.<br />
The 50th anniversary of James Bond was celebrated by Shirley Bassey smashing out the theme from <em>Goldfinger</em> and later Adele delivered a stirring rendition of her Oscar-winning <em>Skyfall</em>.<br />
An always emotional In Memoriam segment was topped by Barbra Streisand singing <em>The Way We Were</em>.<br />
Missteps included Catherine Zeta-Jones miming to <em>Chicago's All That Jazz </em>and Jennifer Hudson's over-wrought song from <em>Dreamgirls</em>. The cast from the film <em>Les Miserables</em>,
 including Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, reminded us why the musical 
is so brilliant on stage. But it was a wonder anyone could sing in key 
given the orchestra was beamed in from a studio kilometres away.<br />
Also
 beamed in, this time from the White House, was first lady Michelle 
Obama, who wowed the room by announcing the best picture winner, <em>Argo</em>.<br />
There were some faux pas. Two of the <em>The Avengers </em>cast, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr, had a minor on-stage spat while presenting an award, and <em>Life of Pi's </em>visual
 effects winner Bill Westenhofer was aggressively played off by the 
orchestra while acknowledging the 250 people laid off by the film's 
visual effects firm, Rhythm and Hues. The theme from <em>Jaws</em> wasn't the best choice.<br />
That early warning set the tone for the night. Even Hathaway and Tarantino delivered mercifully brief acceptance speeches.<br />
If you watched the telecast and suffered, spare a thought not for the losing nominees but only for Greg P. Russell. The <em>Skyfall</em> sound mixer missed out on an Oscar again -- for the 16th time.

Hollywood's players back in the game

A BIG American studio movie was always going to win the Academy Award for best picture. After five years of wins to &quo...

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Parveez Rasool in Team India: Omar SAYS NO

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Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today sharply criticised reports that promising all-rounder Parveez Rasool should be fast-tracked into the national cricket team with an eye on defusing the tense political situation in the state following the execution of Afzal Guru.<br /><br />Abdullah said that Rasool, the 24-year-old Jammu and Kashmir all-rounder who has performed consistently this season, should play for India when he merits a place.</div>
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"Parvez Rasool should play for Team India when the selectors think he deserves to be there. Don't destroy everything he's worked this way," Abdullah wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.<br /><br />Rasool, who has been the highest run-getter as well as wicket-taker for his home side in the recently concluded Ranji season, dished out an impressive performance by bagging seven wickets for Board President's XI in a warm-up game against Australia.</div>
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After his performance against Australia, a newspaper report published on Thursday said that the Indian government is understood to be pushing for Rasool's inclusion in the national side.<br /><br />Such a move, the report claimed, would be exceedingly popular in the Kashmir Valley where cricket has a huge resonance.<br /><br />The report said that the Central government's stock is very low in the state following the execution of Afzal Guru earlier this month for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament.</div>
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"It's insulting to Parvez and his entire life-long effort and it's insulting to the people of Kashmir who don't need artificially created icons," the chief minister said.<br /><br />"Of all the hair brained stupid ideas to now suggest that Parvez Rasool had to be foisted on the Indian Cricket Team is deeply insulting," he added.</div>
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Parveez Rasool in Team India: Omar SAYS NO

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today sharply criticised reports that promising all-rounder Parveez Rasool sh...

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