vChatter – Facebook Video Chat

Chat with your Facebook friends via video.


vChatter is a Facebook application that enables video chatting in Facebook’s instant messenger.

Head to vChatter and connect the application with Facebook. Once in Facebook, enable chat and you can then ping any of your friends who are online at that instant. Allow access to your computer’s web camera and start chat.

Related Reading: More on Instant Messaging

6-Month Free Subscription To McAfee Antivirus Software

If you are a user of Facebook, then you can try McAfee’s Antivirus Plus for 6 months. For free.


Facebook and McAfee have partnered to give away a free 6-month subscription to McAfee security software.


All you are required to do is become a fan of McAfee’s page on Facebook to obtain your complimentary subscription to the software.

You can also share it with your friends, and spread the message on Facebook.

Share Music on Facebook and Twitter

Feeder.fm – A useful free service to share music with your friends on social websites.


Feeder.fm helps you discover music and share it instantly with your friends, on Facebook and Twitter.

The free service is a great way to find music and post it directly to Facebook and Twitter. You can also use Feeder as a website to listen to free music.

All you need to do is search for music you like and feed it to your Facebook account. It will appear on your wall, after you’ve connected the two websites.

Related Reading: More Tips on Free Music

Flickr Tab – A Facebook Application To Share Flickr Photos

Flickr Tab is a Facebook application, which helps you post your public Flickr photostream as a Facebook tab.


To post your Flickr photostream on your Facebook profile as an additional tab, use the application Flickr Tab.

Through Flickr Tab, your Facebook friends can view your public photos set within your profile itself.


You can also add Flickr Tab to a Facebook Fan Page, in case you are the owner of one. Flickr Tab would appear as shown in the screenshot above, in your profile.

Related Reading: More Flickr Tips | 9 Useful Facebook Applications

Reply To Facebook Comments Via Email

Respond to comments on posts through email.


Facebook has introduced a feature that allows you to reply to Facebook comments via email.

Simply reply with your comment to the message you’ve received from Facebook notification and that would be posted on the particular post.

Related Reading: More Facebook Tips

[Via Facebook Blog]

9 Useful Facebook Applications

Nine Facebook applications, that provide a lot of uses.


Facebook applications are useful tools created by third-parties that you can use in the social network to do more stuff. Listed below are 10 very useful applications that you must use:

1. Twitter


Link your Facebook account with your Twitter account through the Twitter application. With this application, whatever you tweet in Twitter would be posted as your status in Facebook. Access the Twitter application now.

2. Muziic


Muziic is a great way to listen to music playlists while browsing Facebook. It is a simple application, that looks like a multimedia player, and is also easy-to-use. You can also use it to watch music videos from YouTube. Get Muziic on Facebook now.

3. Picasa


You can upload photos from Google’s image sharing tool Picasa directly to Facebook by getting the Picasa application that inserts a Facebook link in the freeware. Access the application here.

4. Zoho Online Office


Share and access your Zoho Online Office documents, spreadsheets or presentations from Facebook itself. The Zoho Online Office application allows you to share and collaborate or edit your documents that have been created from Zoho, the popular online office service.

5. Files


Files is a very useful Facebook application. With Files, you can use Facebook to save, share and access any documents, photos or videos within the social network. The service is powered by Box.Net and offers upto 1 GB space for free. Access Files now.

6. my Lists

Create and maintain To-Do lists with the my Lists Facebook application. You can create useful lists that remind you of work to be done. Access the my Lists application here.

7. Facebook Mobile


Facebook Mobile is a service to access your Facebook account from your mobile. It provides a decent, mobile-adapted interface that allows you to perform many of the Facebook functions from the web service. Visit Facebook Mobile to do that, from your GPRS browser.

8. Calendar

Facebook Calendar is a useful application to maintain schedules, dates, meetings and everything else on the social network. You can use the application to keep track of events and birthdays also. Access Facebook Calendar now. [Note: There are also other Calendar applications in Facebook]

9. My Flickr


My Flickr connects your Facebook account with your Flickr photo stream. Friends on Facebook can view and comment on your Flickr photos without having to go to Flickr. Activate My Flick here.

Related Reading: More Facebook Tips

Download Facebook Videos With A Firefox Add-On

Facebook Video – a simple tool to help you convert and download Facebook videos.


Users of the Mozilla Firefox web browser can install a simple add-on, Facebook Video, that offers options to convert, embed or download Facebook videos.

The add-on was famous as a Greasemonkey script, but is now a full-featured independent extension.


The add-on offers options at the bottom of any video that you would come across in Facebook. Internet Simplified had written an earlier post on how to download Facebook videos.

Related Reading: 5 Firefox Add-Ons That Enhance Facebook

A Guide to Facebook Privacy

Facebook’s new privacy settings, simplified. 

 
Users of Facebook have found the above privacy note popping up when they log in to the social networking service. There is a chance you might have skipped this, for later. If you continue, you can instantly set your desired settings which are explained in detail below. 

Facebook has basically decided to let you control everything you share on it. You decide who can view what you share and who can’t.

Sharing Links, Images and Videos 


Facebook has changed the way people are sharing links, images and videos with their friends and others. A survey ranked it as one of the top link-sharing services around.

Now, you can configure whether anything you share is visible with three sets of people – your friends, friends of friends or anybody who comes across your profile in Facebook.

Just find the Lock symbol near the right-bottom of the post sharing text box, and select your preferred option (as shown above in the screenshot).

If you click on Customize, another screen would pop up that additionally allows you to hide posts from specific people in your friends list. 

Profile View

With the changes in Facebook, most profiles have now been opened up to Facebook prowlers and stalkers. With users unlikely to extensively define their privacy settings, most Walls, Photos, Albums and profile information is now available for anybody to view and save.


To change the same, you can head to Privacy Settings at the top right-corner of your Facebook page. Once there, head to Profile Information and individually set options for what you would like to make visible to friends, friends of friends or everyone in general.


You can also click Preview My Profile on the same page, to take a look at how your profile would appear to specific people. See above screenshot.

Photos and Albums

To set privacy in Photos and Albums, head to the Photos privacy page here (you must be logged in to Facebook). Set your preferred options for mobile uploads, Wall posts, albums and Profile pictures on this page.

Contact Information

If you are keen on protecting your contact information written in your profile (like email addresses, IM usernames and phone numbers), then head to the Contact Information page here.

Indexing in Search Engines


If you would not want your Facebook profile link to appear as a search result in Google and other search engines, then head to Search in Privacy Settings and un-check the Allow indexing option (as shown in the screenshot above) to ensure your profile link does not get indexed and appear in search results.

You can also decide whether you want your profile result to appear in searches within Facebook itself.

Related Reading: More Tips on Facebook

Update Facebook And Twitter From Your Browser

Lu.ly Toolbar lets you update your favourite social networks from your web browser.

A simple alternative to updating your Facebook status and Twitter timelines from their websites or secondary applications is to update them from your web browser itself.

Install a simple toolbar, Lu.ly, and you can not only update your status or tweet but can also get updates as they happen.

Related Reading: Everything else about Facebook and Twitter on Internet Simplified

Access Facebook From Your Desktop

Get Facebook for Adobe AIR - a free standalone desktop application.

Facebook for Adobe AIR is an excellent desktop application that allows you to access the popular social networking website without having to visit it on a browser.

Read your Facebook news feed, publish on your Wall and communicate with your friends through this simple application that can be downloaded in minutes.

You would require Adobe AIR installed on your computer. Get it here.

Download Facebook for Adobe AIR. [Size: 824 KB]

Related Reading: Feedalizr - Desktop Application for Facebook and Twitter

Use Twitter from Orkut, GMail or Facebook

Twitgether - a Twitter Client for other Social Networks

Twitgether is a simple Twitter gadget that can be added to social networks like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, GMail or iGoogle to make them a one-stop place for all your tweeting needs.

Simply, select the service in which you want Twitgether and authorize your Twitter account to be accessible within that service.

No idea about Twitter or don't use it? Check out our collection of posts on Twitter.

5 Firefox Add-Ons That Enhance Facebook

Simple add-ons that can help you do more in Facebook, than what you actually could.


If you use the Mozilla Firefox web browser, then you can do a lot more in Facebook than you actually are doing. Get these add-ons to have more fun in Facebook.

1. Archive Facebook

With the Archive Facebook Firefox add-on, you can archive the contents of your Facebook account to your hard drive. Save photos, activity streams, notes, messages and everything else permanently. Download the Archive Facebook add-on.

2. Facebook Dislike Button

Get that much-wanted Dislike button (there’s a huge community in Facebook that has petitioned for such a button) in Facebook with this experimental Firefox add-on. The plugin adds the Dislike button next to Facebook’s Like button. Download the Facebook Dislike Button add-on.

3. Boost for Facebook

Boost for Facebook allows you to customize your Facebook homepage by offering options to add themes, personalize the look, download videos and do much more. Download the Boost for Facebook add-on.

4. FacePAD

FacePAD allows you to instantly download all the photos in your friends’ Facebook photo galleries with a single right-click. Read our full post on other ways to download Facebook albums.

5. Facebook ChatBar+

Facebook ChatBar+ is an add-on that offers a host of emoticons you can add while chatting with your Facebook friends in Chat. Click and insert an emoticon from the selection provided. Download Facebook ChatBar+ add-on.

Related Reading: 10 Must-Have Firefox Add-Ons

10 Must-Have Firefox Add-Ons

Simple Firefox add-ons that improve productivity. By a mile.

 
1. Video DownloadHelper

A simple tool that allows you to instantly download videos from YouTube, Metacafe and many other video sites. You can also use it to download those seemingly un-downloadable Facebook videos. Learn that here.

2. PDF Download

Save any webpage as a PDF document instantly with the PDF Download add-on. You can also email the web page as a PDF document and even convert files.

3. Wisestamp

The Wisestamp signature add-on inserts a customized signature into your email messages automatically. Define your signature (personal or business) and allow Wisestamp to do the rest.

4. Shareaholic

Share a web page instantly on several social media sources like Facebook or Twitter with the Shareaholic Firefox add-on.

5. SkipScreen

Skip pages that contain those irritating ads on websites like RapidShare, by installing the SkipScreen Firefox add-on.

6. FoxTab

Manage your Firefox tabs in 3D with this brilliant add-on called FoxTab. Choose your favourite 3D layout and switch between tabs easily.

7. Ubiquity

Bring more functionality into Firefox by installing Ubiquity, an add-on from Mozilla labs. Ubiquity will change the way you send or read email, tweet, use Flickr and surf the web.

8. Xmarks

Xmarks is the best Firefox bookmarking add-on around. Synchronize bookmarks and passwords and back them up easily with Xmarks.

9. FacePAD

FacePAD is a simple add-on that helps you download Facebook photo albums of your friends with a single click. Read more.

10. FastestFox

Speed up repetitive tasks, improve Firefox speed and search across various websites like Google, Twitter and Wikipedia with a single-click.

Related Reading: 7 Must-Dos before you start using Firefox

How To Download Facebook Photo Albums

A Simple Guide.

Instead of right-clicking and saving photos from Facebook albums, you can use these simple and free tools to save them for offline use or as a collection.

1. Fotobounce

Fotobounce is a freeware you can download that is basically for managing and sharing photos. It integrates easily with both Facebook and Flickr. Fotobounce has a simple drag-and-drop interface for you to easily organize your photos and also tag them.

Download Fotobounce.

2. Facedown

Facedown is basically Facebook Photo Downloader. It offers straightforward downloading for Facebook albums of your friends, as well as organizing them. Facedown even creates a webpage with all your downloaded photos and links to the Facebook photos page.

Download Facedown.

3. FacePad (Firefox Add-On)

FacePad is an add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. You can download Facebook photo albums with a single right-click. Install the add-on in Firefox and start downloading photos right away.

Install FacePad on Firefox now.

Related Reading: How To Download Facebook Videos

Feedalizr – Desktop App for Facebook and Twitter

A neat desktop application to update your social profiles easily.


Feedalizr is a simple desktop application using which you can update your Facebook, Twitter or Friendfeed profiles.

You can also view and reply to your news and twitter feeds in the networks.

In addition to that, you can upload photos to Flickr with this useful, light-weight application. It requires Adobe AIR.

Related Reading: Brizzly - Change the way you use Twitter

Access Everything that is Blocked at Work

Some tips and tricks to pass the ‘Access Denied’ barrier at school, college or work.

There are various techniques you can use to access your personal web-based email, Facebook, Orkut, Twitter or instant chat clients at work. Read our guide.

Google Talk 


- To access Google Talk at work, one thing you could do is (shown below) add the following Google Talk gadget client URL - http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client - to your Firefox bookmarks and select the option to load it in the sidebar.


- Try an online instant messaging service like IMO, Ebuddy, KoolIM1, KoolIM2 or Meebo to access Google Talk when provided with net access. Chances are these websites may have not been blocked in your office.

- You can access Google Talk in iGoogle. On your left sidebar in the iGoogle page, the Chat section is your Google Talk. iGoogle is basically a Google startpage you can use as a portal.

- Try the KoolIM extension in Firefox. Type this URL - http://www.koolim.com/koolimsidebar.xpi – in your address bar. An option to install the add-on will pop up. Install it. Please note that this extension doesn’t work the latest version of Firefox.

- Yoono Firefox add-on is another tool you can install on the web browser to instantly access Google Talk.

- Google Desktop has a gadget for Google Talk. Try installing Google Desktop and access Google Talk within it.

GMail


- To access GMail when you dont have access, simply try the mobile version http://m.gmail.com.

- Use https –> https://gmail.com, https://mail.google.com

- iGoogle has a specific GMail gadget from which you can access GMail.

- Register on Netvibes reader to access GMail as a gadget. You can check new email from Netvibes.

- There is a paid service available to use GMail. It’s called GMail From Work. If you are willing to pay money to access GMail at work, you could try this out.

- Again, like Google Talk, there is also an add-on gadget for GMail in Google Desktop.

- Access it from a mobile web simulator, like Opera.

Yahoo Messenger


- Try online IM services like Meebo or IMO. Refer the similar point above in ways to access Google Talk.

- Yoono Firefox Add-on allows access to Yahoo Messenger.

- Try Yahoo’s online messenger service to use it if it’s unblocked.

Facebook


- There are various stand-alone Facebook applications that are available, which you can probably download at work if allowed. These are independent, desktop apps that one can use to access it – like the Facebook AIR app. Download it now.

- You can access Facebook through Firefox add-on Yoono.

- To access Facebook chat, you can try web-based messengers like IMO.

- Try Facebook Mobile in your web browser to access Facebook at work.

- Facebook’s new Lite version might still be unblocked at work or school, considering that it’s newly released.

- Access it from a mobile simulator, like Opera.

Orkut


- Try Orkut India’s website to access the social network – http://orkut.co.in. Chances are this one’s not blocked by your admin folks.

- Like Facebook Mobile, you can access Orkut on your office PC at Orkut Mobile.

- There is another trick to get to Orkut. Try http://images.orkut.com. Now this one actually leads you to your Orkut homepage, provided you are logged in to your Google account.

- Access it from a mobile simulator, like Opera.

Twitter


- Users of Mozilla Firefox web browser can try various Twitter add-ons. (TwitterBar, Echofon, Yoono)

- Internet Explorer 8 users can try the Cloudberry Twitter Plugin. This one also works with Firefox.

- You can tweet from your office email address. Simply, head to TwitterMail and obtain an email you can send your tweets to and start using it right away.

- You can tweet from Gmail by using the Twitter gadget. Head to Google Labs features in GMail, enable the ‘Add Gadgets’ feature and simply add this URL - http://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml – to find the Twitter gadget added to your GMail account. For Twitter from GMail, you would have to obviously have access to GMail first.
 
- To tweet from Microsoft Outlook, you can get the Twitter Outlook Plugin.

- You can tweet from this website to make it look like your actually working on a spreadsheet, but actually tweeting.

- Use Google Desktop’s Twitter gadget. 

Other Blocked Websites

- Access the website through a proxy server. Proxies basically allow you indirect access to a network with your identity made unknown. Check out this list of proxies. All you have to do is type the URL of the website you want to access to use proxies.

- Web2Mail is a great service that sends you web pages by email. Learn more here.

- Type the IP address (computer-understandable) of the website instead of URL. An example of an IP address is 74.125.79.85 (Orkut’s IP address). To obtain the IP address of a blocked website you are trying to access, visit here or here. Type in the URL and the service will fetch you the IP address.


- Search the website in Google. And find Google’s cached version of the website. Click it to access a stored version of the website (usually the span of a few days). See image above.

- You can always read a website’s content by accessing it’s RSS feed address. Learn more in our post on Google Reader.

- Try the Firefox add-on for proxy management – FoxyProxy.

- Add https (Secure HTTP) ahead of the URL instead of http and see if the website can be accessed. 

- A really cool way of accessing almost any website online (including above mentioned ones like Facebook, Orkut or GMail) is to use a mobile simulator. Opera’s famous mobile web browser can be used to access any website. You can also try the DotMobi mobile emulator. Just head to these links and start using any website, from a mobile phone view of course.

Related Reading: How To Bypass Compulsory Website Registration

How To Download Facebook Videos

Download Facebook videos that appear to be only viewable or shareable.


Social network Facebook offers videos that are exclusive to the network. The only options you get on those videos are to view them and share them with your Facebook friends.

These are different from Facebook users who post YouTube links which you can download. Read the later paragraphs of this Internet TV guide to know more on that.


To download Facebook videos, all you need is the Video DownloadHelper add-on in your Mozilla Firefox web browser.


When you want to download a video, just start playing it. The DownloadHelper will automatically detect the video that is being played and will offer an option to download the same, with the link provided from the add-on as shown in the image above (the clicked button with red-blue images is the Video DownloadHelper). Click the link of the video to download it.

Not a user of Firefox? Well, it is a must-use web browser that can make your internet life easier. Download it now.

Related Reading: 7 Must-Dos before you start using Firefox (and even while you are using it)

Create A Social Display Picture

Try MyPictr.


MyPictr is a free web-based tool that allows you to snap a picture of yourself to add to a social network.

Looking to cut yourself out from a group photo and add it to Facebook, Twitter or Orkut? Well, upload the photo to MyPictr and do just that.

You can save the photo and then upload it to a social network or even share and email it instantly.

Sync Facebook with Google Calendar in seconds

Use fbCal.

fbCal is a Facebook application that syncs your Facebook events and friends’ birthdays to Google Calendar (and many others like Microsoft Outlook and Apple iCal).


All you have to do is allow the application access (both online and offline) to your Facebook account and it will automatically link events and birthdays with a calendar of your choice.

You can also choose to download the list to your computer in the form of a .ics file and sync it offline. For example, you can sync it with Microsoft Works Calendar.

Related Reading: Use Google Calendar through Twitter

Create and Add a Facebook Profile Badge to your Email Signature

New feature allows you to create a personal Facebook widget. Learn to add it to your email signature.

 
Use Facebook a lot? Well, now you can now create a personal widget of your profile and share it across the web. Simply head to the Facebook widgets page (You would have to be logged in to access the page) and click ‘Create a Badge’ on the top-right corner of the page.

You can choose between Vertical, Horizontal and 2-column badges. Facebook also allows you to select what your profile badge should contain from your profile, with a provided list of Items.


Select ‘Save’ and proceed to preview the widget and also add to your blog/website instantly by obtaining the HTML code that is generated for the widget. You can also create a Photo Badge in the same way.

You have to select the number of photos from your Facebook album that you would like to display in the badge. Facebook badges can be posted easily on personal websites, blogs and even your email signature.

If you are a user of Firefox, you can use their Wisestamp Signature Add-On to add the HTML code of the Facebook Profile Badge to your personal/business signature by copying and pasting the code in the Wisestamp signature editing screen.

Your Facebook profile badge then becomes a part of every email you send out. Not a user of Firefox? Well, it’s an award-winning browser with tons of features. Read this post to learn and do more with Firefox.

Related Reading: Add a Random Quote to your GMail Signature