Not all of us likes the small puny facebook chat bar, or worse off not all of us are able to stay on facebook site all the time. This maybe because your parents are watching you, or maybe your at school. Whatever the case it is, we can’t always have MSN on each computer and at the same time, not all of  your friends will be using Instant messaging at the same time. But instead, they all are on facebook chat. How can you get around this problem? Well if that is the case, then you can do it very easily. Want to know how? Then read on and follow our step by step guide for adding your facebook chat to a firefox sidebar, which you can hide and use without having to go on facebook.

Step 1:

The first step is easy, go to the bookmarks on your firefox menu at the top and select the ‘organize bookmarks’ function.Once your on the bookmark menu, go to step 2.

Step 2:

The second step is the most important one so do it as said or it might not work. Select ‘Add a new bookmark’ form the organizing menu. Now place the name as ‘Facebook Chat’.

Then place the url as :http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php.

In some versions of firefox ‘url’ field is also called as ‘location’ field. Remember to enter the address as mentioned above, or it will not work.

Then check the ‘Load bookmark in sidebar’ feature. This is also important if you want to use the chat in the sidebar. Once your done then go to step 3.

Step 3:

The last and final step is to test if your settings are working. Go to the ‘view’ option from your facebook menu bar at the top. Select the sidebar and then click on the ‘Bookmarks’ option. This will launch the sidebar with all your bookmarks. Now all you have to do is find your bookmark and load it. Once you do that you will notice that the facebook pop up will appear, which has the facebook chat in it. All this will take place in the side bar itself.

Note: You have to be logged on to facebook for it to work properly. Just login your account and then load the chat on the sidebar. You can leave the site after that. If it doesn’t work after you leave the site, then make firefox remember your user and password before logging, this will fix the problem.

Now you are ready to go! Have fun chatting with friends and contacts without going on facebook.

Many companies and offices, including schools block facebook to avoid its usage during work or school timings. But in some cases this can be the case even at home, if you sit for too long on facebook then your likely to find it blocked by your parents or elders.

But how do we get past this blockage? Most of us don’t know how it is being blocked, even a basic browser block can be hard to unlock if you don’t know what you are doing. This will take a lot of time and won’t be worth it at all, specially if you are at work or at school.

The other simple solution to this is by using proxy servers and sites.

What is a proxy?

A proxy is a IP gateway that will cloak your own IP address and will also cloak the url of the site you are visiting by making it undetectable by others including browsers and software. This means you can anonymously login to your facebook from work or at school without anyone knowing it. Even if it is blocked!

Proxy sites also provide services that disable flash, scripts and other objects from displaying. This makes the pages load faster but can also stop you from logging in since most login services uses scripts.

Where to find proxies?

You can easily find proxies by searching them on the internet. Do a basic search on google with the term ‘proxy’ and you will find lots of proxy servers and websites.

If you are worrying about the safety of proxies, then don’t worry. Proxy sites are hosted on their own servers so they can’t do anything to your PC. But just be a bit careful when entering your login details on sites while using proxies.

Will facebook work while using a proxy?

Yes of course, but it might not on all proxies. But you have to try the sites in order to find that yourself. Logging on facebook via proxies is quite easy and shouldn’t be a major issue.

Tip: In some countries ‘proxy’ and proxy websites are blocked by the internet service providers themselves to enforce censorship. This is a major problem in the middle east and south Asian countries including china. In order to get access to proxy websites you can do a simple thing. While searching for proxy on Google, if the sites are blocked then search ‘list of proxy websites’ and view them as ‘cached’. This will give you access to a fresh list of proxies. Use them till they get blocked then repeat.

Now you know how to log on facebook from virtually anywhere without any restrictions!

Facebook though will not hold back, making sure to stay with the current technology and feature updates it has launched a new feature to compete with the twitter Retweet function.

What is a retweet?

On twitter a retweet is when you share someones tweet to your own followers. This gives more coverage to the original tweeter and thus makes it viral. Similarly facebook’s own version of the retweet function works by sharing your friends links on your on profile.

facebook via

What is it called?

Facebook calls it the ‘Facebook via’ feature, where you retweet[or reshare in this case] a link from your friends profile to your own profile, making it viral and visible to all your friends at the same time giving credit to the original person who shared it.

Any limitations?

Yes, in fact there are many limitations. Unlike the feature on twitter, facebooks version is still in say ‘beta’ mode. Currently you can only share links from your friends profiles, but this will likely change. Facebook is going to give this feature a full swing as it is already popular, so in the future you might be able to share photos, status, music, etc. But facebook still has the privacy issues related to those updates. Perhaps that is why the delay.

Really, Mark?

Facebook’s annual f8 conference in San Fransicso saw the social networking giant unveil a number of key developments that many say are set to change the future of the web as we know it. The Open Graph platform is perhaps the most prominent of the anticipated features, causing speculation around the industry.

However, will it really live up to the hype? Will Facebook’s expanded strategic reach really fundamentally change the way people use the Internet? Will Facebook become the login to the Internet, as ReadWriteWeb put it recently? Is the Web actually becoming primarily social?

We are skeptical. While Facebook is a good way to keep in touch with friends, the Internet is much  more than just plain socialization. People come to the Internet to look for things they can’t find in their immediate surroundings or in real life. These items of interest, such as the need for information resulting in a Google query, a desire to purchase something that is not available in the vicinity, comparing prices, or helping decision making processes are not things can Facebook can currently do for an Internet surfer.

“Our goal is to use the open graph so people can have instantly social experiences wherever they go,” says Mr. Zuckerberg. Well if you really want to have an instantly social experience, we suggest you step outside of your house and say hi to the next random stranger that walks by. Or better yet, visit Chatroulette if you really must be instantly social on the Internet.

Although it is fun to be able to talk to and gossip with friends and acquaintences, creating a useful economy around socialization will take much more than just the poorly-named Open Graph. What is more likely is that Facebook will be relegated to a communication tool, not the primary driver of the Internet economy.

See the faint, darker blue images? The ones that look like two people, two rectangles, and a little ball that appears a bit like the Earth? Unfortunately, you’ll have to look real close to find those. They represent Friend Requests, Your Inbox (where you find your messages), and Notifications, respectively. Click on Notifications, for example, and you will see a little popup or dialog box appear just below the menu.

This is what it should look like:

Click on the other two and you will see similar popups. Click on the items within the popups will take you to another page for that particular item. Try it, you might even like it. Happy Facebooking!

Large Internet search engines are already getting nervous at Facebook’s enormous clout in the online realm. And with the Internet becoming an inseparable part of our lives, the looming presence of Facebook only seems more real. MySpace already seems history despite the best efforts of its frantic founders, and with Bebo now set to be consigned to the recycle bin of history, there is only one social network that really matters anymore.

Many people don’t know how to use a web browser or navigate through the Internet properly. Many can’t even associated a colour scheme or a website design with a specific website or brand. Hence the attempts to login to the largely crimson-themed Read and Write Web, with many mistaking it for the azure Facebook.

When you think Facebook isn’t working, the most important thing to do in such a situation is to simply think again. Yes, think again! Maybe Facebook is working, but you just don’t know it yet? See the blue page in front of you? That’s Facebook! And if you see a red or green page, don’t try putting in your username and password in the comment box, because that isn’t Facebook!

This means that you can login to Facebook without using a web browser. In other words, you don’t need to run Internet Explorer or even Firefox to get into Facebook. Just click on your Facebook application, and you’ll be taken straight to the Facebook homepage.

This can be applied to make Facebook login even easier. Basically, you create a Facebook desktop app that you place on your Windows or OS desktop. Clicking on it takes you to the Facebook homepage directly. Click here to get Prism for Firefox.

When you see this screen, you know something is wrong. The first step is to check your Caps Lock key. If it is on, you need to turn it off and try again. If you have tried typing in a different password and it still isn’t working, you may belive that you’ve actually forgotten your password. In such a case,you may want to try to recover or reset your forgotten password. Click on “Forgot your password?”. You will see the following screen recovery screen:

Facebook password recovery screen

Type in your email address and input the captcha code. Wait for instructions to reset your password.

If you still can’t login, it may be because you are compulsively pressing the Shift key. If you have OCD, then you need to see a psychiatrist.

Facebook is attracting an ever increasing user base across the world. People come to Facebook to connect with friends or even with long lost acquaintences, but stay for the value they see. People communicate with each other to further their own commercial or financial interests. They also collaborate to find good deals from other businesses.