10 Facebook Tips for Power Users

By Ian Paul, PC World

Thought you knew everything about Facebook, didn’t you? Here is how to take your Facebook account to the next level.

So you signed up for Facebook, added friends and photos, joined a few groups, and updated your profile status. But now what? Isn't there more to Facebook? There is.

Here are 10 tips to tweak your profile and get more out of Facebook. These tips go beyond the typical and include ways to stay better connected to your friends and look good doing it. To compile this list, I searched high and low and even called on Facebook for the best tips. Most are easy to do and all will add some Facebook pizzazz to your profile.

Tip 1

Dig up demographic dirt on your friends with Socialistics: If you want to know the demographic breakdown on your Facebook universe of friends, this application does a nice job at breaking it down. Socialistics can show you information about your friends' ages, the languages they speak, their country of origin and lots of other interesting information all within Facebook.

Socialistics data do not show up on your profile pages and you are not able to share Socialistics information with your Facebook Friends through your Wall. However, if you want to take a look at the trends for your personal network, then add Socialistics to your profile and you can access it privately.

Tip 2

Power search tips: Just like Google and other search engines, Facebook has some built-in power search tools and terms to help you find people. Want to search your Facebook network or friends list, but you want to narrow the results to fall within an age range? Just enter a term using the "name," "y1" and "y2" search filters. For example, I wanted to find my buddy Colin from college, but I can’t remember how old he is. To find him, I just entered in “name: Colin Bauer y1: 25 y2: 40” and voilà! The search string asked Facebook to look for people named Colin Bauer between the ages of 25 and 40.

You can also use two search terms at once by dividing the terms with the "pipe character" (|), which pipe is found on the same key as the backslash.

If you want people to find you easily when they search, fill out your profile as much as you can. That way your profile interests -- music, books, movies and so on -- will move you closer to the top of Facebook search results for those keywords. Check out Facebook's help page for more handy search terms.

Tip 3

Integrate Facebook information with Gmail: The Firefox add-on called Xoopit is designed to streamline browsing and sharing of files, photos and videos with friends on other social networks via Google's Gmail service. One of Xoopit's handy features (seldom touted) lets you see who among your e-mail contacts is a Facebook member and displays their profile photos and status updates. The Xoopit add-on also lets you update your status inside Gmail via a nifty little Xoopit box that integrates into the Gmail interface.

Here is a Xoopit video that walks you through how it works.

Tip 4

Personalize your Facebook URL: SocialToo allows you to create a custom domain for your Facebook profile page such as username.socialtoo.com. This allows you to share your Facebook site with other people without requiring them to search for you on Facebook to find your profile. Granted, you might have to explain to your friends that even though Facebook.com isn't in the Web address, it still takes you to your Facebook page. The domain is much easier to remember than an eight-digit profile ID.

Signing up with SocialToo is quick and free. You can set up your Facebook settings under “preferences” on SocialToo’s Web site. Just remember to choose your SocialToo username wisely.

Another way to create a custom domain for your Facebook page is go to your profile page in Facebook and copy the Web address that appears in your browser's address bar. Then head over to Tiny.cc. Now paste your Facebook profile Web address in Tiny.cc's "Enter a long URL you want to make tiny" form field. Directly to the right you'll see a Custom option. Here you can create a custom URL that follows the convention http://tiny.cc/username.

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CONTINUED: Get back the old Facebook look (more or less)
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How to Make Your Computer Boot Faster

By Erin Scottberg, Popular Mechanics

Why can’t a computers start up like a television? In short, it is all about the operating system. And contrary to common sense, the newer the operating system the longer it can take. But you can do something about it. Here are tips to get your tortoiselike boot time to hop like a bunny.

Why can’t a computer be more like a television? When you push the power button on a TV, it just turns on. Computers, on the other hand, boot — as in, they take so long to get started that you want to stick your boot into them.

You would think that the march of technological progress would have reduced boot times over the years, but newer operating systems can take longer — Microsoft Vista actually tends to boot more slowly than its predecessor, Windows XP. (Microsoft claims its next-generation operating system, Windows 7, should provide drastic improvements in boot time.)

Additionally, boot times increase with a computer’s age. As you use your PC and more programs and devices are installed, the startup process gets even longer. And these slow boot times can lead to bad behavior. Many users become so frustrated that they leave their computers on constantly, wasting electricity and delaying valuable OS security updates.

But take heart: There are steps you can take to speed things along. Depending on the configuration of your computer, many of the various system checks and processes that take place during boot-up may be unnecessary or irrelevant to you. A variety of tricks of varying sophistication can reclaim valuable minutes or seconds of get-up-and-go time. We tested expert tactics on three well-used computers in PM’s tech lab.

Ditch dusty programs

As a general rule, an uncluttered computer is a fast computer. The easiest step to speed startup is to remove software that you no longer use. Many of these seemingly fallow programs are running active background processes that launch every time you push the power button. This doesn’t just slow down your startup, it chews up RAM and drags down the overall performance of your PC.

To get a full list of installed software, check Control Panel in Vista and select Remove Programs (in XP go to Add/Remove Programs). If you find programs that you’re not using or that support equipment you no longer own, eliminate them.

One of our test computers, a 3-year-old XP machine, had more than two dozen programs that hadn’t been used in years. After we removed them, the machine’s boot time was reduced from 2 minutes 45 seconds to 2 minutes 21 seconds. Across all three of our computers, the biggest offender was AIM instant-messaging software. Removing it shaved an average of 8 seconds off boot time.

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