Suggest a Profile Picture on Facebook

Facebook introduced the new homepage yesterday, which was in works for quite some time. People have been complaining about the live news feed ever since it was released.

The latest homepage features separate feeds for news feed and live feed. You can switch to whatever you find more appropriate for yourself. Even this design hasn’t been received well by the Facebook users.

I noticed that the new Facebook homepage sidebar now let’s you suggest profile pictures for people you ‘might’ know. Under Suggestions, it now shows options to write on friends’ walls who are not very active on Twitter.

To suggest a profile picture for someone, just click on the Suggest a Profile Picture link and it will take you to the person’s profile page and will prompt you to upload the new profile picture. Once uploaded, Facebook will send a request to the person whether it’s the correct/appropriate profile picture for him or not.

This feature still news to be matured, because for now, it shows suggestions for people who are not related to me in any way and don’t even have any mutual friends with me. But this is just new, and hopefully will get better.

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Facebook 3.0 iPhone App Features & Screenshot Tour

A couple of hours ago, the Facebook 3.0 app for iPhone and iPod Touch finally made it’s way to the App Store for download.

The UI has been completely revamped to support a number of new features that can be seen in Facebook 3.0 iPhone app. This app is getting mixed reviews from everyone, but for me, it’s the best Facebook for iPhone app release till now.

I’ve compiled a list of the best features along with screenshots of Facebook 3.0 iPhone app.

Menu View and New UI

The main interface gives you access to news feed, profile, friends list, messages inbox, chat, friends requests, events, photos and notes icons. You can open those applications from there. If you swipe your finger, you will get additional space to save your favourite pages and friends for quick access to their profiles.

Revamped News Feed

The news feed in this Facebook 3.0 app shows everything just like you see on the desktop version of Facebook. Earlier, activities of some Facebook applications wasn’t shown, but now they are also included. Plus you can Like/Comment on stories just like you do from a computer.

Profile View

You profile also shows all your Facebook activity along with your information and photos. This area is pretty much the same except a slight change in the interface.

Friends and Page List

If you open the Friends list from the menu, you will now also see the option to browse your fan pages along with your Facebook friends. A much betetr feature to manage them separately. Previously we had to search for pages.

Call Friends

Image Credits: @MystaKool, @ellipsis3

iPhone users having the Facebook 3.0 app can also call their Facebook friends directly from within the app. This feature is not available for iPod Touch users.

Facebook Chat

The chat feature in this app now shows your online and idle contacts in alphabetical order and you can easily find an online friend by jumping from different alphabets. Previously, you just had to scroll up and down to find online/idle friends.

Notifications

The notifications area is also pretty much like what you see on your computer. Although, I personally liked the previous Notifications better in this app as it also showed thumbnails for photo comments.

Requests Panel

The requests feature still doesn’t show requests for groups, fan pages or any applications so that you can easily ignore the unwanted ones ;) And it would have been nicer if they supported Friends Lists while adding friends.

Events and Birthdays

Yep, the events feature is back from where you can check details of an event created on Facebook along with details on who’s attending, may be attending or or won’t be attending. Plus, you can also check for any upcoming birthdays – No more excuses of forgetting birthdays just because you use Facebook on iPhone!

Notes Feature

You can now read notes on Facebook 3.0 app and also create new ones to quickly share it with your friends.

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Add Facebook Friends to Windows Live Messenger

How many of you have more friends on Facebook than Windows Live Messenger (WLM)? Atleast, I do as I’m more active on Facebook than Windows Live.

Since the launch of the new WLM, many services have been integrated to it, like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc. Now you can even add contacts from these services in your WLM contact list.

It’s better to use the Connect tool in Windows Live Profile, rather than going through each of your Facebook friends’ profile for their Windows Live address and adding them individually.

How to Add Facebook Friends to Windows Live Messenger

Wondering how to do this? Just follow the steps below :)

1. Visit the Connect page from Windows Live Profile from here.

2. Next sign in with your Windows Live ID and proceed.

3. Select Facebook and press the arrow button next to it.

4. Sign in your Facebook account and choose the friends you want to invite.

5. Add a personal message to your invitation, once they accept your invite, start chatting.

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Get Emoticons List in Facebook Chat

I personally don’t prefer Facebook chat much and have almost put it on offline, but this tip could be helpful for those who use it a lot to chat with friends on Facebook.

I’m sure none of you would be aware of the entire list of emoticons available in Facebook Chat, but this little Greasemonkey script will display all of them like in any IM chat window.

How To Get Emoticons List in Facebook Chat

Follow the simple steps below to get your

1. Close any Facebook tabs/windows if they’re opened.
2. Get Greasemonkey addon for Firefox.
3. Now install this script for Greasemonkey to display Facebook Chat emoticons.
4. Sign in Facebook and open a chat tab to check emoticons.

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Best Facebook Desktop Applications for Windows

Facebook is now the most popular social network with over 300 million active members. Even being this big, Facebook has no official application for desktop to manage their updates and account without opening the Facebook website.

I have managed to compile a list of (almost) all the desktop applications available for Facebook, and I’m sure people like me who are very active on Facebook would love to try them out.

Best Facebook Desktop Applications

Let’s kick off with the list!

Facebook Desktop

Facebook Desktop is a Windows program that, with a small memory footprint, provides updates to the users Facebook profile, such as messages, pokes, wall posts, and friend requests. You don’t need to refresh your profile a hundred times to keep track of your Facebook! And just cause you’re not on the website doesn’t mean you’re not on Facebook. Download Facebook Desktop

FBQuick

FBQuick is a quick and easy way to get all your Facebook notifications right on your desktop without having to open the website. Download FBQuick

Bloom

Bloom is a multi-platform desktop app that let you upload your photos and videos easily and efficiently to Facebook, download albums and view your friends’ photos. You can upload photos to a new or an existing album, you can tag them and you can view your friends photos. [Download Bloom

FaceDesk

FaceDesk is an Adobe AIR application to use Facebook as a standalone application, instead of having to open it in a web browser. This app acts like a browser and only lets you browse Facebook on it. You won’t be able to view any other sites on it. Download FaceDesk

FB Photo Uploader

Upload photos to Facebook using a Java-based desktop application, including tagging photos before you upload. It looks more like a stripped down version of Bloom. Download FB Photo Uploader

FB Tray Notify

fbTrayNotify is a small Windows application that sits in your taskbar, providing balloon style alerts when you receive new messages, friend requests, event invites, group invites, pokes and shares. Download fbTrayNotify

VisualSage

Visual Sage for Facebook is an innovative Facebook chat and desktop application implemented by VisualSage, an innovative software technology company. This app is built upon Microsoft’s new technology WPF which shows all our friends at Facebook in a network. Download Visual Sage for Facebook

ScrapBoy

Scrapboy is a free desktop client for some of the popular social networks like Facebook, Orkut, and MySpace. It is a very useful app that brings all the features of social networks right on your desktop. Download ScrapBoy

Gabtastik

Gabtastik is a WebKit based app that lets you chat with your Facebook buddies from your desktop. You won’t have to open the entire Facebook page in your browser, just to chat with those friends, thus, saving system resources. Download Gabtastik

Zebr

Zebr lets you keep tabs on your Facebook friends from your desktop and see what they are doing. It is an AIR-based app. Download Zebr

FBLook

If you are an Outlook user, you probably have it open all the time. Now you can update your Facebook status, see your friend statuses and see notifications of new requests without having to open the browser or any other applications. FBLook seamlessly integrates Facebook into Outlook. Download FBLook

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Facebook Introduces Prototypes, Apps In Making

Facebook’s engineers thrive on innovation and experimentation and work on projects that inspire them and build on new ideas, but not all of those features and improvements make it to the main site.

For such applications, Facebook introduces Prototypes, an application directory which brings all the usable product experiments built by Facebook engineers for everyone to try.

Facebook Prototypes

You can test any of the products and features launched by Facebook Prototypes and then provide feedback directly to those who built them. So far, the Prototypes directory shows only five applications, but more will be added soon. Applications available in Prototypes are:

• Desktop Notifications – For Mac OS X, Adds Notifications to your desktop, alerting you when interesting activity happens on Facebook.
• Similar Posts – Gives you an easy, one-click way to find similar posts right from your homepage.
• Enhanced Event Emails – Includes an iCal file as an attachment to your Event Invitation emails, enabling better integration with external calendaring solutions (Outlook, Google Calendar, etc).
• Photo Tag Search – Search for photos that your friends are tagged in.
• Recent Comments Filter – Add a filter to the homepage that shows what your friends are commenting on.

A detailed review about these Prototypes and other tips will be done later.

Try Facebook Prototypes

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How to Find Orkut Friends on Facebook

We all know how dominant Orkut was in social networks back in the year 2003. Still many people have friends on Orkut whom they haven’t been able to find on the current in thing – Facebook.

This is an old trick, but you can easily find your Orkut friends on Facebook by following the steps below.

How to Find Orkut Friends on Facebook

1. Drag this Facebook bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmarks bar.
2. Now login to your Orkut account, and click the Facebook bookmarklet. If that doesn’t work, you can alternatively try opening this link.
3. The Friend Finder tool in Facebook will now looks for your Orkut contacts that are not in your Facebook friends list.

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