gHacks technology news » facebook

Facebook Login Phishing And Account Hacking Warnings

Martin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:24:52 +0000

According to several reports on websites like Computerworld a new phishing scam is currently in the wild that is trying to get the Facebook login data of Facebook users. Pandalabs, who uncovered the phishing scam, did not release lots of details about the attack other than it mimicked the Facebook login page and displayed an error message after the user entered the Facebook login information. They also mentioned that the fraudulent url would most likely be spread by email but also Blackhat SEO techniques which could mean that the attackers have placed their website in prominent positions in some search engines making users believe that they visit the right Facebook website when in fact they visit the manipulated website.

Pandalabs did release in depth details about a Facebook hacking scam as well. They discovered a website which claimed to hack any Facebook account for $100 payable through Western Union. A user who wants a Facebook account hacked has to register at the website. The Facebook Id of the account that the user wants hacked needs to be entered into the form on the website. A script will then pull the username from that account and mimic a hacking attempt.

It will then ask the user to pay the $100 before the password to the account will be revealed. A user paying the $100 will not get the password to the account. The money is gone as well as it is not possible to get it back once it was send. Veteran Internet users therefor avoid making payments through these money transfer systems.

It is also likely that the login data is recorded and tried on various websites to see if the user did use the same login data on other websites which in the end could mean that the Facebook account of the user who wanted a Facebook account hacked got hacked. Oh, the irony.

Check out our Facebook Login article for pointers on how to avoid falling pray to criminals attacking Facebook.

Tags: facebook, facebook account, facebook hacking, facebook login, facebook login page, facebook phishing

Facebook Phishing Scam In The Wild

Martin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:52:28 +0000

Offering a popular website or web service is not always a blessing. This especially becomes apparent when you have to deal with security related issues like phishing attacks. Facebook is without doubt one of the most popular sites on the Internet these days and it therefor comes unsurprisingly that the service is regularly attacked.

Trend Micro are reporting about yet another Facebook phishing attack that is currently in the wild. The attack begins – like most phishing attacks – by mass mailing potential Facebook users informing them that they need to update their Facebook login credentials. A link is offered in that email and if they follow that link they land on a website that looks like Facebook. What’s interesting here is that the email address field of the Facebook login form is already filled out so that the Facebook user only needs to enter the Facebook password to complete the process.

A click on the login button will open a new page that contains a link to an update tool which installs a trojan on the user’s system.

It attempts to access a Web site to download a file which contains information where the Trojan can download an updated copy of itself, and where to send its stolen data. This configuration file also contains a list of targeted bank-related Web sites from which it steals information. Note that the contents of the file, hence the list of Web sites to monitor, may change any time.

It attempts to steal sensitive online banking information, such as user names and passwords. This routine risks the exposure of the user’s account information, which may then lead to the unauthorized use of the stolen data.

The blog post contains security tips on how to distinguish legit from phishing emails. Users who are interested in those can visit the blog post but the most important lesson once again is to avoid clicking on links that are send via email.

Tags: facebook, facebook login, facebook login page, facebook phishing, facebook security, phishing

9 Facebook Userscripts

Martin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:41:53 +0000

Chance is you have a Facebook account. Hundreds of millions of users have one and at least some of them are looking for ways to change the standard appearance and functionality of the social networking website. One unobtrusive way of doing that is to use so called userscripts which can be loaded into web browsers like Firefox and partially into browsers like Google Chrome, Opera, Safari and even Internet Explorer. Firefox users need to download and install the Greasemonkey add-on.

The userscripts change, remove or add elements to a website on load if they are activated. They can for example remove ads, display download links, embed additional content or provide other benefits to the Internet user. Check out our Facebook Login and Facebook Login Page help articles if you have troubles logging into Facebook.

FacebookDeletes

If you want to delete friends on Facebook you need to do that one by one on the Friend’s page there. That’s a problem if you do not want to remove one but maybe dozens or even hundreds of friends. That’s where the Facebook Deletes userscript comes in handy. It allows Facebook users to batch delete friends in Facebook. [link]

Facebook | Add Status

You can change your status by writing something into the What’s on your mind box. Some users like to see their previous status there before they start changing it. This is what the Add Status userscript does. It displays the current status next to the What’s on your mind box, [link]

Remove All Facebook Ads

If you are not using an ad blocker in your web browser you might want to consider running this userscript. It will remove all Facebook ads to remove these distractions from the Facebook website. [link]

Secure Connections

If you visit Facebook you usually enter through the http address. Facebook is also offering to open Facebook using a secure https connection. This script automates the process by automatically loading the https website for Facebook and several others that are configured in the script. [link]

Facebook Fixer

One of the larger Facebook scripts. The developer is currently working on a new version as Facebook recently has made some design changes to their website. There is a lot that this userscript does including

Big Profile Pictures and Photos recently improved
Big Album Pictures
Video Download Links
Load Full Albums
Homepage Customization recently improved
Age and Sign recently improved
Calendar Integration
Keyboard Shortcuts recently improved
Re-Title
Error Page Reloading

This is a large script that changes many aspects of Facebook to the better. [link]

Facebook Purity

Don’t like all those quiz and application messages on your Facebook homepage? Now you can get rid of them by installing the Facebook Purity userscript which automatically removes them from the homepage. [link]

Facebook Friends Checker

Want to know if any of your friends have removed you from being their friend? Now you can find out with the Facebook Friends Checker userscript. [link]

Facebook Chatbar+

Gives you a collection of emoticons that you can click for a simpler way to experience emoticons in chat. [link]

Facebook Highlight Birthdays

Highlights the birthdays of today on the Facebook homepage. [link]

Tags: facebook, facebook userscripts, greasemonkey, userscripts

Facebook Login Page

Martin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:32:05 +0000

Facebook login problems are more common than some users might think they are. The most common type of errors that are encountered by Facebook users are usernames and passwords that are not accepted. Less common are page display problems or other error messages during the login phase. There are a few options for users who face Facebook login problems.

One option would be to request a password reset directly at Facebook. The option is available on the Facebook login page and requires only the email address that the user registered the Facebook account with. This usually should solve the problem of not being able to log into Facebook.

A superior solution to this is to use a password manager like Last Pass to store the Facebook account information. Last Pass can automatically fill out the form at the Facebook login page and log the user into the social networking website without interaction at all. Last Pass is currently available for several popular web browsers including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Facebook support contains a Facebook login and password help page that addresses several questions that Facebook users might have about the login process. This includes

I can’t log in to Facebook.
I want to change my password.
My account was hacked or “phished.”
I want to change my login email address or add a new contact email address.
I want to sign up for an account. I’m experiencing issues registering for an account.
There is a yellow banner prompting me to confirm my account.
I have questions about the “Keep me logged in” option.
Bugs and known problems.

You can visit the support page here.

Tags: facebook, facebook login, facebook login page, login

Facebook Status Update Notifier

Martin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:29:46 +0000

Facebook users who want to check their Facebook account for new messages, pokes, friend requests or invites usually have to go to the Facebook website and login there to see the Facebook status updates. This does mean that they sometimes visit Facebook to find out that nothing has been updated. A Facebook status update notifier like Apjunction Notifications will make those visits a thing of the past. It can also be helpful if the user is experiencing Facebook login problems.

The software program for the Windows operating system will display Facebook status updates right on the Windows desktop. It uses a semi-transparent window to display the unread messages, pokes, friend requests and invites.

The main application window contains additional options. It is from here for instance possible to update the Facebook status, look at personal information or see a summary of Facebook status notifications (which distinguishes between event and group invites which the transparent window does not).

The Facebook status notifier uses roughly 1.5 Megabytes with the transparent window open and the main application window minimized in the system tray. The software program requires the Microsoft .net Framework (not mentioned which version). It can be downloaded from the Google Code project website. (via To The PC).

Tags: facebook, facebook notifier, facebook status, windows software

facebook login

Martin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:20:03 +0000

Facebook is currently probably the most popular social networking website on the Internet. With a user base growth of 50 million in the last three months it is without doubt now ranking at the top with its 300 million users. Facebook login problems are as common as those on other websites. This does not only fall into the forgotten username or password category but also phishing problems which every major web service has to cope with.

The standard Facebook login page is available directly at the Facebook homepage. There users can register or log into their Facebook account. A mobile Facebook page is available as well as a Facebook lite website. The former for mobile users the latter for users with slow Internet connections.

A forgot your password link is available on all three pages in case the password cannot be remembered correctly. The Facebook login username is usually the email address that was used in the Facebook signup. Facebook users who want to get rid of all the problems related to logging into Facebook including forgotten passwords or phishing threats should use a password manager like Last Pass, which is available for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, for their Facebook login. This password manager remembers the Facebook username and password, will automatically fill them into the forms at the Facebook homepage and even perform the Facebook login automatically.

Tags: facebook, facebook account, facebook login

Backup Facebook Accounts

Martin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:52:10 +0000

Many online services do not offer the means to backup data locally. Users who want to backup data are usually left with a tedious manual process (like downloading pictures or videos one by one). Data that cannot be downloaded right away is even harder to backup, think of contacts or private messages for example.

Archive Facebook is an add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. The purpose of the add-on is to provide the tools to backup facebook accounts. The add-on can backup photos, messages, friends list, notes, events, groups, information and the activity stream. And since it is an experimental add-on it is likely that the developers will add new features to it in the future.

Here is how the add-on works:

An ArchiveFB entry is added to the Firefox Tools menu after installation of the add-on
Activate ArchiveFV > Archive from the menu after logging into a Facebook account
The process is automatic and can take minutes or even hours depending on the data in the account
A Facebook menu option is added to the ArchiveFB menu giving the user the option to view archived accounts

Once the archiving process has completed, you will see an entry in the sidebar that says “Facebook | username date” where username is your Facebook username and date is the current date. Click on the entry. You will see your Facebook profile page appear and at the bottom will be an annotation bar where you can highlight text or make comments on a page for your personal records. Click through your archived Facebook pages to ensure that all pages have been archived. All pages listed in the introduction should be archived. You can tell if a page has been archived by placing your cursor over a link. Look in the bottom left hand corner and Firefox will show the location of the link i.e. if the location starts with “file://”, it is on your hard drive, if it starts with “http://”, it is on the web. If it is not on your local hard drive, try to archive your account again. If the second attempt doesn’t work, please notify us and we will attempt to fix the problem.

Facebook users who like to backup their Facebook accounts can download the Firefox add-on from the official Mozilla Firefox website.

archive facebook

backup facebook

backup facebook accounts

facebook

firefox

firefox-add on

Lifestream Backup: Free 1 Year Accounts For Ghacks Readers

Martin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:13:40 +0000

Most computer users know that regular data backups are important to be prepared when data on a computer system becomes corrupted. This can be due to hardware failures, human error or computer virus infections. Backups ensure that data can be recovered at anytime. Online services on the other hand are not usually integrated in backup strategies as users put their trust into the hands of the companies that offer these services. It does not matter if its online email accounts like Gmail and Yahoo Mail, social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter or video and photo hosting websites like Flickr or Youtube. Only a few users think about backups of their data that is stored online and those that do usually encounter problems trying to find a service that can backup that data. It usually takes at least some level of research to find an appropriate program or service to backup the data that is stored online if there is a solution at all.

The developer’s of Lifestream Backup have developed their service for that reason. Lifestream Backup is a solution to backup data that is stored at various popular online services. The list of supported services reads like the who is who of the most popular online services:

Twitter
Facebook
Basecamp
Gmail
Google Docs
Delicious
FriendFeed
Flickr
Photobucket
Zoho Writer
Wordpress

Youtube and Blogger will soon be added to that portfolio raising the supported online services to 13. The principle is simple. All that user’s need to do is to authorize the Lifestream Backup service. This is either done by authorizing them directly at a service or by providing the username and password to that service. Lifestream Backup will start to backup data on a daily or weekly schedule. Email notifications can be send to inform the user that a backup has been performed (emails can be send after every backup or as digests).

Backups that have been created are accessible in the archives section of the backup service.Data backups are usually offered as xml files or as multimedia files. Each file can be viewed online or downloaded to the local computer system. An option to download all backed up data of a service would come in handy, especially for services like Flickr where the file count can easily reach a hundred and more.

To give one real life example: A Twitter backup consists of updates, mentions, received and send direct messages, favorites, friends and followers. The backed up data is offered in seven different XML files. No information about the data that gets backed up is available before the first backup. The developer’s should definitely add information about the data that gets backed up by their service. This usually includes the most important data but it is always better to see it in writing before configuring a backup for a specific service.

The Wordpress backup option is different from most other options. A plugin needs to be installed on the blog and a key configured so that the backups can be performed.

Invites:

The developer’s of Lifestream Backup were nice enough to provide Ghacks readers with a free one year account that can store up to 2 Gigabytes of data. These accounts are sold for $29 regularly but free for the next 24 hours if you visit the signup page that has been created for Ghacks.

Tags: backup, facebook, flickr, gmail, lifestream backup, twitter, wordpress

Bing & Ping Preview

Martin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:07:35 +0000

The Microsoft Bing development team is trying to distinguish their search engine from Google by adding new features to their search engine. The latest feature that the team is developing goes by the name Bing & Ping. It has been designed to offer Bing users better options to share search results. This feature resembles the “social” buttons that are displayed on blogs and other websites. Bing & Ping integrates Facebook, Twitter plus email and copy options in the Bing search engine.

Only specific results, called Bing’s Instant Answers, can be shared this way. This includes translations, sport results, weather conditions, financial information and more.

Microsoft is now offering signups for the Bing & Ping preview.

Thanks for your interest in the Bing & Ping preview. If you want to participate in the preview program, please submit your Windows Live ID. If you do not have a Windows Live ID, you can register for one by going to https://signup.live.com. You will receive a reply confirming your acceptance into Bing & Ping via e-mail to the Windows Live ID you provided. The e-mail will provide additional details on the features we’re testing out, including some examples of how to use them.

Users who are interested to test this new feature can sign up at the Bing & Ping Preview page. Users who signup for the preview will receive an email once the service has been activated for them. The email will contain instructions and examples on how to use the service.

Tags: bing, Bing & Ping, facebook, search engine, twitter

Cnet Techtracker Checks For Software Updates

Martin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:27:44 +0000

Several so called software updates were developed in the last few years. Many of the popular applications of this kind are backed up by a large download portal on the Internet. Cnet’s Techtracker falls into that category. The software program is available for the Windows operating system and requires a Cnet account before it can be downloaded and used. The program will scan the computer system for installed software after installation and display its findings in the default web browser of the logged in user.

Outdated software programs will automatically be listed at the top of the list followed by all other programs that are currently up to date. Each entry in the table will list the version on the local computer system and the latest version of the software program. A download link is provided which will immediately initiate the download from the Cnet servers (in a new tab).

The only other options provided in this table are to configure email alerts which are unfortunately not explained anywhere on that page. It most likely will trigger email messages whenever the software gets updated. At least two false positive were detected by Cnet’s Techtracker. It identified the Firefox version as 3.5.2 where in fact it was already the latest 3.5.3 version of Firefox. A similar detection error was found in the Mozilla Thunderbird entry. It was listed as Thunderbird version 1.9.1.1 where in fact it was the latest Thunderbird 2.0.0.23.

A click on the more info link beneath each software title will display quick information about the software including editor and user ratings with links pointing to those reviews, the file size and download statistics.

Nothing that’s really necessary considering that the software is already installed on the system but still nice to have. It would have been better if the download size of each software was displayed more prominently in the table.

Cnet’s Techtracker is an interesting addition to the list of software updaters. It is backed by one of the largest software portals on the Internet which means that it can offer a good software detection rate. The forced registration and false positives are the two negative aspects of the program. While the developers can surely work on the latter the former will most likely not change in the near future. Users who want to give it a shot can download the software after logging into the website with their Cnet or Facebook account.

Tags: cnet, cnet techtracker, facebook, software updates, techtracker, updates, windows software

Facebook Lite

Martin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:34:01 +0000

Facebook has activated a lite version of their popular website for users in selected countries. Facebook Lite was initially designed to offer users with slow Internet connections a faster way of accessing the most relevant sections in Facebook. The concept still seems to be valid although only users from selected countries can currently open the Facebook Lite website in their web browsers. The interface of Facebook Lite comes with less noise. Many elements that are displayed on the standard Facebook pages have been removed to provide faster access to the core functionality.

Elements that have been removed include Highlights, the left sidebar navigation to access modules in Facebook, the What’s on your mind bar at the top, links to quickly connect with friends and the requests section.

Some functions of these modules are still available on the Facebook Lite page. Friend requests for instance are still shown on the start page while invitations and other requests are not. A quick check with the Firefox add-on Firebug revealed the following size difference: The normal Facebook page had a size of 778 Kilobytes while the Facebook lite page only 113 Kilobytes. These values can obviously vary depending on the messages and images that have been posted. Not all notifications (like when someone earned a reward in a game) are displayed in the Facebook Lite page.

Standard Facebook Page:

Facebook Lite Page:

Some users were able to access Facebook Lite after changing their display language to one of a supported country, e.g. US English. Some users have also received invites (2 to be precise) that they can share with other Facebook users to invite them to test Facebook Lite.

Tags: facebook, facebook lite, facebook lite invites, facebook website

FriendFeed Acquired By Facebook

Martin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:02:43 +0000

The owners of the popular social networking website Facebook have acquired FriendFeed, a web service that allowed users to share information with friends and groups easily. Details on the acquisition are sparse at the moment with the exception that FriendFeed will continue its service for the time being. All FriendFeed engineers will join the Facebook development team and it is likely that features that made FriendFeed popular will be added to Facebook in the near future.

It is not clear at this point in time if FriendFeed’s service will continue to be offered or if the website will be shut down eventually.

Both parties involved seem to be very happy with the deal while many members of the FriendFeed community appear disgruntled. Two of the main concerns are related to privacy. One fear is that user data will be carried over to Facebook, another that Facebook and FriendFeed are being used to address different groups of people. Many use Facebook to stay in touch with close friends and family while FriendFeed was being used as a way to communicate with groups of users who shared similar interests.

Below is the official press release that was issued by Facebook and the blog post written by FriendFeed:

PALO ALTO, CALIF.—August 10, 2009—Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams.

“Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends,” said Bret Taylor, a FriendFeed co-founder and, previously, the group product manager who launched Google Maps. “We can’t wait to join the team and bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world.”

“As we spent time with Mark and his leadership team, we were impressed by the open, creative culture they’ve built and their desire to have us contribute to it,” said Paul Buchheit, another FriendFeed co-founder. Buchheit, the Google engineer behind Gmail and the originator of Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto, added, “It was immediately obvious to us how passionate Facebook’s engineers are about creating simple, ground-breaking ways for people to share, and we are extremely excited to join such a like-minded group.”

Taylor and Buchheit founded FriendFeed along with Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh in October 2007 after all four played key roles at Google for products like Gmail and Google Maps. At FriendFeed, they’ve brought together a world-class team of engineers and designers.

“Since I first tried FriendFeed, I’ve admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use.”

FriendFeed is based in Mountain View, Calif. and has 12 employees. FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being as the teams determine the longer term plans for the product.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.

FriendFeed blog post:

We are happy to announce that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle…

The FriendFeed team is extremely excited to become a part of the talented Facebook team. We’ve always been great admirers of Facebook, and our companies share a common vision. Now we have the opportunity to bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world and to work alongside Facebook’s passionate engineers to create even more ways for you to easily share with your friends online.

What does this mean for my FriendFeed account?

FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We’re still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team. As usual, we will communicate openly about our plans as they develop — keep an eye on the FriendFeed News group for updates.

My humble prediction is that FriendFeed will continue operations until the end of the migration phase. Any thoughts on this? Possible alternatives?

Tags: acquisition, deals, facebook, friendfeed, social networking

Microsoft Outlook Facebook Add-On

Martin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:27:15 +0000

The very same developer that is offering the Microsoft Outlook Twitter Add-on has created another add-on for Microsoft Outlook that is integrating Facebook in the email client. FBLook is available for Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 running on Windows 2000 or later. It integrates some of the functionality of Facebook in Outlook including the ability to update the status from within the email client, receiving status updates from friends and seeing the number of new requests (including Friend Requests, Messages, Invites, Pokes)

The installation of the Facebook add-on for Outlook takes only a few seconds and requires no user interaction at all. New buttons are added to the Outlook toolbar that become visible on the next start of the email client.

It is obviously required to log into Facebook before information can be retrieved and send to the online service. This is done by clicking on the Login to Facebook button in Outlook. It will spawn a new browser window or tab that is displaying the Facebook login page. The user has to log in and confirm the log in in Outlook to be able to use the controls in the email client.

From then on its possible to use all the features provided by the Microsoft Outlook add-on. One interesting option provided is to update the Facebook status using the music track played in either Windows Media Player or iTunes.

Tags: Email, email client, facebook, facebook add-on, microsoft outlook, outlook, outlook 2003, outlook 2007, outlook add-on

Stumbleupon URL Shortening Service Su.pr Out Of Beta

Martin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:49:43 +0000

Oh noes, not another URL shortening service. That’s probably the first reaction of many users who read the announcement that Stumbleupon’s URL shortening service Su.pr is now available publicly. As if there were not enough services of this kind already. There are however a few aspects of su.pr that make it quite unique in its own right which in turn could make it interesting for some users to use. Su.pr works like any other URL shortening service on the outside. Users can write a message of up to 140 characters in the box and Su.pr will automatically shorten the URL that is posted in that message to save characters.

The very same page contains additional options to shorten the message and post it to Twitter or Facebook. Both of these options require a Stumbleupon account which gets linked to the Twitter and Facebook account.

Su.pr provides two interesting options that can make it interesting to users. The first is that every url that gets shortened gets also submitted to Stumbleupon. That option might be especially interesting to webmasters who post their new blog posts or websites to Twitter or Facebook anyway. This way they can post it to Stumbleupon as well which usually generates some extra traffic. Some webmasters have experienced hundreds of additional visitors coming from Stumbleupon using this method. A Wordpress plugin has been provided by Stumbleupon to automate the process.

It is furthermore possible to move the shortened url from su.pr to the domain the blog is hosted on so that links will point to that domain instead.

The second interesting aspect of Su.pr is an extensive statistics section which will give the user traffic details about the url that has been posted. This includes clicks, referrers, re-tweets and reviews. A last option that sounds interesting is the ability to schedule posts.

Su.pr is a convenient URL shortening service with some interesting features. It could become very popular with webmasters who post their articles and websites to Twitter and Facebook. Their main benefits are the statistics that are provided and that the url gets posted to Stumbleupon as well.

Tags: facebook, stumbleupon, su.pr, twitter, url shortening, webmaster

Post to multiple accounts with Gwibber

Jack Wallen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:31:04 +0000

Do you microblog to multiple accounts but find yourself posting the same thing to each account? If so it can be a hassle to log into each site or open up each client just to say “I’m eating my Frosted Kibble while reading the latest articles on ghacks.” Wouldn’t it be nice to have one client to use to post to Twitter, Jaiku, Identi.ca, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, and RSS? Well it’s real and it’s called Gwibber. Gwibber is a GNOME client written in Python and GTK that resides in your Panel (or on your desktop) and allows you to quickly make updates to your microblogging sites (or even your RSS feed). It’s easy to install, configure, and use.

Installing Gwibber

It shouldn’t matter what distribution you are using. Open up your Add/Remove Software utility (in GNOME this is found at the bottom of the Applications menu), do a search for “gwibber” (no quotes), select the results, and click apply to install. Or if you’d rather install via command line you can issue a command similar to one of these:

sudo apt-get install gwibber

yum install gwibber

Once Gwibber is installed you are ready to fire it up.

Adding accounts

Figure 1

The first thing you will need to do is add an account to Gwibber. This is a fairly intuitive process. Click on the Accounts menu and select Create. When the Create submenu expands you will see all of the different types of accounts you can use with Gwibber.

Let’s add a Twitter account to Gwibber (would you be “Gwibbing” instead of “Tweeting”?) Select Twitter from the listing which will open up a small window (see Figure 1). There is very little information you need to add:

Username – Your Twitter user name.
Password – Your Twitter password.
Receive messages – Do you want Gwibber to show your incoming messages?
Sending messages – Do you want Gwibber to be able to send messages to your account.

Once you fill in the information click OK. At first you may think nothing is happening. Give Gwibber time before you assume something is wrong because it takes a bit of time for the authentication to happen.

Most of the accounts, you will find, as as simple as this to set up. The only account that might trip you up is Facebook

Posting to Facebook

Figure 2

In order to post to facebook you will have to authorize Facebook to use Gwibber for posting. To do this you have to get an authorization key from Facebook. Make sure you are logged into your Facebook account before you request the key. Select Facebook from the Create submenu which will open up a similar window to the one you used to configure your Twitter account. The primary difference is there is no username/password to add. Instead you have to authorize Gwibber for your Facebook account. Click the Authorize Gwibber button which will open up a new window (see Figure 2). Click on the Request Login Code which will open up your browser to a page with a key on it. Enter that key in the text area of the Facebook Authorization window and click Apply. Now click on the Authorize Satus Changes button and you will then be taken back to Facebook where you will authorize Gwibber to post to your account. It’s a sort of back and forth that might sound complicated, but it’s very simple. And once you are done there is nothing more to take care of besides the posting.

Final thoughts

Gwibber is a great way to post to multiple microblogging accounts. The only drawback is you will be posting the same thing to all of your accounts.

Tags: facebook, gwibber, Linux, microblogging, twitter

Worio Combines Bookmarking And Web Search

Martin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:36:41 +0000

Worio is a clever mashup of several search engines, social bookmarking and personalization features. At its core stands the feature to add related information to searches performed by the user. Currently Google, Yahoo, Live and an internal search engine are at the user’s disposal. The search results are displayed on the left including their title, description, url and tags associated with the results. The right side makes this interesting to many users. Worio displays related search terms and websites on that side that add quality to the search results.

This functionality is available to all users. Registered users on the other hand can add the social bookmarking component to the mix. A Facebook or Worio account is needed for this. Once the account has been created it is possible to start saving bookmarks which will shape the profile over time meaning that Worio will use that data to display recommendations. If a user tags a lot of operating system, backup software or networking topics then that is what will be recommended primarily to him.

The account creation is a breeze for Facebook users as most data will be imported from there. Another interesting feature is the ability to import bookmarks from Delicious which also works incredibly well. Every page can be added to the bookmarks. If a user chooses to do so a new overlay image appears that displays tag recommendations and options to add or remove tags before saving the site.

A bookmarklet is provided that can be used to tag and add active websites to the Worio profile. The site can also be added to the list of available search engines.

The verdict:

The developers have created an easily accessible bookmarking site that adds to the search experience with its recommendation engine. It does well as a bookmarking site alone but excels when the search is used as well.

Tags: bookmarking, del.icio.us, facebook, Google, live, search, search engine, worio, yahoo

Facebook Fixer Enhances Facebook’s Design

Martin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:06:24 +0000

Are you a regular Facebook user? If you are you had to cope with several design changes, ads, profiling and privacy policy changes in the past which more often than not have faced strong opposition in the Facebook community. There are several possibilities to change pages and elements on Facebook to undo certain changes to the popular social community portal but only few are as powerful as using Greasemonkey scripts to modify how Facebook looks and functions.

Facebook Fixer is just one Greasemonkey script that can be used to change the Facebook pages. It is one of the more powerful scripts that gets updated regularly to keep up with the official changes. Every feature of the script can be turned on and off separately in the options:

Bigger Profile Pictures and Photos
Bigger Album Pictures
Load Full Albums
Video Download Links
Homepage Customization
Age and Sign of People displayed
Calendar Integration
Keyboard Shortcuts
Removes Facebook | from the title of each page
Error Page Reloading, automatically reloads pages that throw up errors
Automatic Update

Facebook Homepage

Facebook Photos

Options

The Greasemonkey script works on the latest Facebook design. Users who want to remove Facebook ads can install this script to do so. Firefox users need to install the Greasemonkey add-on before any scripts can be installed.

Tags: customize facebook, facebook, facebook ads, facebook userscript, greasemonkey

Facebook Photo Album Downloader

Martin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:47:39 +0000

If you are a Facebook regular with a solid amount of friends and activities you might have thought about downloading some of the contents, especially pictures but other multimedia content would do as well, from Facebook to the local computer. Think of photo albums that have been uploaded by friends, family or colleagues. It is possible to manually download individual photos from Facebook but it would surely be a time saver to download them all at once.

Facebook Photo Album Downloader is a Firefox extension that can download an entire Facebook photo album in one go. The firefox extension is actually pretty easy to use. All the user has to do is to right-click the View Album link on Facebook and select Download Album With FacePAD. A Javascript popup will appear telling the user that the download will initialize. The photos that are in the Facebook album will be downloaded in the default Firefox download directory.

If the selected photo album contains more than one page of photos multiple JavaScript popups will appear telling the user that the photos will be downloaded. The default value is 20 photos per page.

Tags: facebook, facebook download, facebook photo albums, feacebook albums, firefox, firefox facebook, firefox-add on, firefox-extension, mozilla-firefox

Be Careful What You Write About Online

Martin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:42:07 +0000

With all the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and the million others out there it becomes very easy to tell the world about yourself. What many users of those social networks do not realize is that their writings can have consequences in the real world. A young women got only recently fired from here job at a British marketing company because she mentioned on her Facebook profile that her job was boring. She did not mention the name of the company in the posting but it was enough for the company to react on the message.

Consequences do not have to be job related though, think about using dating sites will in a relationship, posting untrue comments about people in bulletin boards or simply participating in the occasional flame war on a favorite forum. Those things usually do not backfire but if they do it can quickly become ugly for the offender. Many Internet users still think that the Internet is a lawfree environment where they can post anything they want without fearing consequences in real life. The realization that this is not the case usually comes when it is to late to change the cause of action.

The reaction of the company that fired the employee for the Facebook comment was a harsh one. Many would have probably asked the employee to remove the offending comment and most employees would probably comply immediately. It does serve as a prime example though as to what can happen if you are not careful about your online postings.

Some countries go even further than this. They make the website owners responsible for the content on their websites. This leads to some ridiculous situations where not only the poster but also the website owner face consequences for the data that has been posted on the website. Users should be aware that their online postings might come back at them at some time in the future in a non pleasant way no matter where they live or post.

Which leads to the question: Are you cautious about what you post online? Do you have any rules or guidelines that you follow? As a company, what would be your stance? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: comments, facebook, legal, legal consequences, online, online writing, posting online, social networking

Desktop Image Search

Martin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:29:51 +0000

Ginipic (via Instant Fundas) is a desktop image search application that provides an easy to use interface to search for images on various websites and even local pictures.The image search supports sites like Flickr, Facebook, Deviant Art, SmugMug, Photobucket or Google, Live Search and Yahoo. The interface can be docked to the side of the desktop or independently as a window. It is possible to select one source for images or search all of the locations at once. The image search application will display 18 preview images per page in normal state and a lot more when maximizing the window. A total of 190 thumbnail images are displayed on a 24″ monitor running on a resolution of 1920×1200.

A click on a preview thumbnail will open a preview window containing additional information like size, title or format of the selected image. Size buttons on the bottom will load the image in different sizes. These size buttons are automatically adjusted depending on the original size of the image. The same toolbar contains buttons to save the image to the local computer, view it in the original context (which will open the image in the default web browser), set it as the desktop background, copy or share it.

Ginipic is an excellent image search engine that can be used to search for images on multiple image search engines including some of the best places to download wallpapers like Deviant Art or Flickr. The application is a bit heavy on the resource usage but since it does not have to be running all the time in the background it does not matter that much.

Tags: desktop image search, desktop search, deviantart, download-images, facebook, flickr, image download, image search, photo download, photo search, photobucket, smugmug, windows software

gHacks technology news » facebook

Facebook Login Phishing And Account Hacking Warnings

Related posts

Facebook Phishing Scam In The Wild

Related posts

9 Facebook Userscripts

Related posts

Facebook Login Page

Related posts

Facebook Status Update Notifier

Related posts

facebook login

Related posts

Backup Facebook Accounts

Related posts

Lifestream Backup: Free 1 Year Accounts For Ghacks Readers

Related posts

Bing & Ping Preview

Related posts

Cnet Techtracker Checks For Software Updates

Related posts

Facebook Lite

Related posts

FriendFeed Acquired By Facebook

Related posts

Microsoft Outlook Facebook Add-On

Related posts

Stumbleupon URL Shortening Service Su.pr Out Of Beta

Related posts

Post to multiple accounts with Gwibber

Related posts

Worio Combines Bookmarking And Web Search

Related posts

Facebook Fixer Enhances Facebook’s Design

Related posts

Facebook Photo Album Downloader

Related posts

Be Careful What You Write About Online

Related posts

Desktop Image Search

Related posts