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How To Access Facebook At School or Work

Here is one way (I’ll be posting more in the next few days under a new category called “how-to”) to gain access to the facebook website and ultimately your account at school or at work.

Many businesses and school use a firewall to block you from accessing websites. Most commonly they tend to filter out social networking and e-mail related websites, but this little tip may help you get pass their firewall (one point for you, zero for your loser boss or school administration. ha. ha.).

In todays how-to you’ll need to be able to download stuff on the computer you are at, if you do not have access to do that, than unfortunately this method will not work and you’ll have to wait for me to write up a different way (no worries…I’ll post something tomorrow hehe).

Ok, you ready? This is the easy way. ( it doesn’t work all the time, but it may depending on the type of firewall is set-up)

First, download Firefox by clicking here

If your not familiar with Firefox, it is a free browser that has loads of cool features not found in Internet Explorer — I have been using it for many years now and will never go back to Internet Explorer.

Firefox is rarely affected by the changes your work or school administration make, as most only affect Internet Explorer. More importantly Firefox has a built in proxy connection setting which allows you to enter in information you can get from a anonymous web surfing service which would allow you to get to any website you want even if it is blocked by a firewall.

So, try simply using Firefox, if that didn’t work than stay tuned as your situation may require a more complex solution. Don’t worry, I’ll save you!

Facebook App - Where’s My Money Punk?

I like applications that have real world value. You won’t see me reviewing anything I feel doesn’t add value to the Facebook platform and to its users.

I hate applications like food fights or my stripper name. Sure, they have a shit load of installs, but people install them and uninstall them just as fast. What use are they but to simply clutter your beautiful Facebook wall!

Today, I found a cool application from Paypal. If your not familiar with Paypal than click here, otherwise keep reading.

The Paypal application for Facebook allows you to “request money from your Facebook friends, even if they don’t have a PayPal account. It’s the safer, easier way to collect money with a little help from PayPal.”

Maybe Amanda borrowed some cash for them sweet shoes she saw at the mall or maybe your buddy Eric ran up his tab a little too high the other night at the bar to impress that cute girl.

Whatever the reason, now you can use Paypal through Facebook to request money from your friends. It’s absolutely awesome! I love it!!!!

You can install the application by clicking the link below:
http://apps.facebook.com/paypalapps/

When Visitor Stats Turn Into Friends!

Sometimes I feel isolated when writing for this blog. I mean, here I am in my basement typing away hoping that people who come to this blog can use the information in order to help them understand what Facebook is all about.

Today was an awesome day! I got a friend request from someone who I did not know — I approved the request than asked the question “how do we know each other?”. To my amazement it was one of my visitors, who has been using this website for about a month, to learn more about Facebook. Tres cool!

If there is something you’d like to learn how to do on Facebook, please let me know via a comment — and I’ll do my best to write up a how-to or film a tutorial video. It’s a great feeling knowing what I do is helping others network, connect, and grow.

Feel free to add me as a Facebook Friend

Retro Facebook (TheFacebook) Screenshot circa 2004

In yesterday’s post I mention how Mark, the CEO of Facebook is being sued for allegedly stealing source code from ConnectU.com. There has been some discussion in the blogosphere that this just isn’t possible — after all look how clean, fresh, and easy to use Facebook is compared to ConnectU.com.

I beg to differ, Facebook didn’t always look the way it does today. Here is a screenshot from 2004 when Facebook was actually called “TheFacebook.com”.

So, did Mark steal the code to launch his own social networking website? Who knows. You can check out all the past screenshots of thefacebook.com by going to here.

TheFacebook.com Circa 2004

Facebook.com Today

Would The Real Facebook *cough ConnectU.com cough* Please Stand Up!

I believe all great ideas are not new or original, they are merely stolen from someone or somewhere and reworked, reshaped, and made better and usually take over the market. Its called evolution baby!

Think about that for a moment… Apple stole the GUI (graphical user interface) idea from Xerox….Microsoft stole the idea from Apple but profited from licensing and distribution agreements which made Microsoft what it is today. Sure, there were improvement along the way — but originally Xerox had created the idea… the others merely stole it, reworked it, and made it their own.

I know the article is old (July 2007) but Facebook is being sued by ConnectU.com saying that Mark stole source code and staled the release of ConnectU.com to work on his own project Facebook (originally called thefacebook.com) — launching it before ConnectU.com — thus having first movers advantage. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook, denies ever stealing any source code, but it does seem all too fishy. He says he didn’t know it was for a social networking website, he thought it was for a personal website (c’mon Mark… you can do better than that, geesh)

I recently set-up an account at ConnectU.com — the outside looks pretty aweful (nothing a little graphic design geek couldn’t fix in seconds) but once inside you can see some similarities — the clean, easy to navigate feel is prevelant throughout.

Let this be a lesson for all — you might have a great idea and good intention, but if you don’t act on that idea, someone else will and it just might leave you hanging with only 70k members rather than 30 million and a $1 billion dollar buyout offer from Yahoo!.

On a side note, I like ConnectU.com’s layout and design inside its site — it should perhaps take its code and rework it for another domain, perhaps start a social networking site in a niche — like multiply.com is doing (they cater to the 30-somethings crowd).

Facebook Has Google Sweating Like A Prize Fighter

So, let me get this straight. There are millions of websites and billion of actual web pages and we’re all competing for the top 20 positions in Google? This is ridiculous!

When I look back at some websites I know and enjoy today, I did not find them through Google, Yahoo!, MSN…etc. I found them from the referral of a friend or family member. I also seem to discover new and interesting websites through the network of blogs I read daily/weekly.

Let me do a quick inventory…

1. I was introduced to YouTube.com by my 1o year old niece. (lol. numa numa dance)

2. Facebook was introduced to me by my ex-girlfriend’s friend.

3. I discovered Digg.com and Reddit.com from a friend’s blog.

4. BitTorrent was introduced to me by my brother.

Do you see a pattern? Grab a paper and pen! List some of the major websites you currently visit. How many of them were from a referral from someone you knew? Maybe a co-worker, friend, relative had referred you? Interesting? I think so!

How does this all tie into Facebook? According to Facebook’s blog, Facebook receives 600 million searches a month, which puts them into the top 20 search engines online in terms of number of searches.

Search Engines as we know them will drastically change in the next 5 years. When the web was young Yahoo!’s directory style was ideal. Than as websites increased in numbers Google pagerank democratic logarithm-thing-a-mer-bob took its place and gave us all what we wanted - relevant information. But lately, I personally hate Google — I rarely go 3 pages deep into it and rarely find what I want.

I have a hunch, a gut feeling of sorts, that search engines of the future (5 years from now) will resemble more like Facebook in the sense that the results shown to you when you search will be tailored to your likes and dislikes, but also to the likes and dislikes of those you hold close in your circle of influence. Think about it. People tend to hang around those who they have something in common with. Now imagine — a search engine (or socialengine as I’ll call it) that will know what you and your friends have in common and fetch relevant content to match it. Oh la la, tres sexy! Rawr!

Update: Here is an interesting article about what I just talked about check it here 

Facemail? E-mail As We Know It, Is Dead.

E-mail as we know it is dead. It’s too slow, and ineffective.   There was once a time ( back in the early 90’s) where people actually thanked you for e-mailing them. In the 1990’s spam messages were far and few between and people actually read 99% of their e-mail.

Today, ask any internet marketer and they will tell you that e-mail as an effective marketing medium is losing its value — fast! Marketers are now turning to a more receptive audiences with RSS (Real Simple Syndication).

So, what does Facebook have to do with all this? If your not aware, a few weeks ago Facebook launched a feature in its messaging system that allows you to message friends that are not currently on Facebook.  You can now put any e-mail address in the to: field and Facebook will e-mail them. Your friends will also be able to respond to the e-mail without having to sign-up for Facebook, pretty cool eh?

Facebook will even add previously used e-mail address to your “friend selector” so you don’t have to remember everyone’s e-mail address all the time.  And if you happen to enter a friend’s e-mail address who is already on Facebook, Facebook will forward it to their Facebook inbox.

I messaged Facebook Engineer Luke Shepard regarding this new feature. I wanted to know if Facebook had any plans to allow us to enter our  current e-mail address and have facebook fetch our mail from the server. I’m awaiting his response. This is a feature I’d like to see — it would be nice to be able to have a one-stop-shop.

What are your thoughts?

Facebook Is Missing Two Important Features.

It has come to my conclusion that there are a few things that really piss me off about Facebook. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be getting upset — but I feel the following two things could radically improve the service and enhance the my experience, dammit!

1. Unique Easy To Remember URLs

I recently tested out multiply.com — its another social networking website that is focused on the 30-somethings niche. It touts itself as being a “grown-up” social networking website. Whatever they call themselves they do have a feature I’d like to see on Facebook. On multiply.com when you register you are given an easy to remember URL you can use offline to direct your friends or new found friends. It looks something like yourname.multiply.com. If your using Facebook to network and develop your social circle having an easy to remember URL could be printed on yoru business cards or some sort of new “social card”. Just a thought, but I know I’d like an easy way to have someone connect with me.

2. Facebook ‘Verified’ Seal

Facebook does confirm the persons e-mail address when they register for an account, but what good is that. I could easily create multiple e-mail accounts and create multiple profiles. Heck, my brother’s dog, Lola May, has her own profile on Facebook. (she’s one heck of a cute English Bulldog) But, it is ridiculous — people are setting up profiles for their pets, babies, and celebrities. Is there any way Facebook could implement some sort of verification process similar to Paypal, that would, after validating ones identity, post a “verified” seal on the person profile page. This would add a level of security and credibility that would be unmatched.

In the meantime, you can use this application to make a somewhat easy to remember URL to direct people to your Facebook profile, it’s called Profile.to - check it out!

I have decided to message the Facebook Engineers and see if they can implement these features, I’ll let you know when I hear back from them.

Mr Watson, Come Here - I Want To See You On Facebook!

On March 10th, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell described in his notebook entry the first successful experiment with the telephone. Today, the telephone has greatly evolved from landline, to mobile, and now VOIP based phone systems. No matter what form it takes, it still has one main purpose — to connect people to people.

I want to share with you an Facebook application I found today that merges Skype (skype allows you to make calls to other skype users for free or a landline or mobile for a small fee through the Internet) with your facebook profile.

The new application is called Skype Me. Skype Me adds a “call me” button to your profile page allowing your friends who have Skype to call you for free via the Internet. It also has an option to show your friends your status allowing them to call you when you are free. You can also see which of your friends are using the application and you can call them as well.

It’s a nice little application that help you to stay in close contact with your friends. I’ll be using this new application in the following weeks to interview people within my network about how they are using Facebook to grow their social networks (musicians, developers, marketers…etc) and record it into a Podcast that will be available for free on this website. Stay Tune.

What do Facebook & Your Mom Have To Do With Your Finances?

Yesterday I talked about a new application called Kyle.tv.  I discussed how you could use the application to create and distribute valuable content to others, thus making you more socially valuable and indirectly increasing your social networth.

As you begin to view Facebook as a valuable tool to network with others rather than some hip social networking website with some fancy widgets, your goal should not only be to create value for others in the form of sharing information freely, but to also develop a better social circle for yourself. (Mom always told you to choose your friends wisely)
If you’ve been on Facebook for 6 months or more, you understand what I am talking about.  About once a month I go through my network of friends and actually purge my list. What!? Yes, I clean it up, I get rid of people that perhaps are not bringing me any value or that I am not providing value to them — you know, you get a friend request from someone who you haven’t seen since grade 3, you add them, and they never message you and you don’t really care to message them - to that I say PURGE!. Your goal should always be to surround yourself with smarter, richer, healthier people than you. Or a better way of putting it is, surround yourself with people who you admire and would like to become one day.

My friend and mentor  Bob Dignard-fung once told me that my annual income was the average of my 10 closest friends. I didn’t believe him until I sat down one day, made a list, and discovered that it was the truth.

Are you satisfied with your current reality ( finances, health, relationships, etc)?  If the answer is yes, than this post won’t provide you with a single ounce of value, but if your not, I challenge you to conduct a mini experiment. Are you game? *c’mon slugger*

I’d like you to conduct a mini experiment in finance. Don’t worry you won’t need any special skills or have to know the 27th number after the decimal in pie. What you will need is a Facebook application called Top Friends and a calculator.

Follow these steps:

1. Install the Top Friends Facebook application
2. Select from your network of friend your Top Ten (10)  friends
3. Estimate how much each friend would earn annually (heck, give them a call and ask)
4. Add all the annual incomes up (including your own) and divide by 10
5. What’s the outcome? (post your results as a comment - let’s get some discussion here people!)

If you want a better life, start surrounding yourself with better people. Start by evaluating where it is you want to go - than surround yourself with people who have already gone. Amazing happen!
I appreciate the heck out of you.