A lot of people can't help answering quizzes on Facebook. Heck, some people on my Friends list do nothing there but answer every single one. I, for one, answered some of them, but I vowed not to do it anymore since it doesn't really add substance to the activity stream of my news feed. I really can't blame them, and neither should you, because there may be a quiz in there that would really pique your interest and intrigue to the brink of insanity if you didn't even think about trying to answer the question "what would the result be?" However, for some people, it sometimes gets too annoying to see results of quizzes that are simply juvenile and mediocre. Sure you can "Hide" whatever you want to hide from your News Feed, but it becomes a chore that you may not be enjoying the experience anymore. Further more, Facebook, with all its bells and whistles, aren't really transparent with all the changes and improvements they somehow implement without notice. One of which is the Filter list. The filter list is the one on the left side, as shown below. By default, the first item on the list is the News Feed. This filter lists the activity stream of your friends, whether they posted a note, uploaded a picture, answered a quiz, or simply updated their status. This filter can sometimes get too noisy, what with all the quizzes your friends answered, videos they linked to, etc. For those who just want the status updates of their friends, simply drag and drop the filter for Status Updates to the top of the Filter list. Whenever you open your Facebook home page, it will display ONLY your friends' Status Updates. If you prefer to see notes, videos, or photos posted by your friends, simply drag and drop the filter apropos to what you want to see. Hey, I used the word apropos appropriately. I think. Essentially, whatever is on top of the Filter list will be displayed by default whenever you open up your Facebook home page. You can further explore Facebook's filtering system by creating custom filters, but it is quite limited to what you can actually filter, meaning you can only filter WHO will appear on your activity stream. For now. What do you do to prevent information overload?

It has become quite a common routine for people to open a whole slew of social network sites upon opening a browser in one's computer. My browser, Firefox of course, opens up about a half dozen sites when I start my online routine. There usually is no problem in doing this, but the problem lies in updating all of them with as little time in between when doing so. Thankfully, there are a number of web apps or services that help me update all of my social networks in one go. Also, the social networks themselves are adding features that let you update other social networks when posting updates. When left unchecked, it can cause feedback, much like a microphone that's too close to a speaker. It gets loud. Too loud. Twitter, by itself, does not post updates to other social networks, like Facebook, MySpace, Plurk, etc. Facebook, by itself, also does the same thing. The difference between the two is that Facebook imports "stories" from other sites, such as blog feeds, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, etc, and shows it in the home page. Facebook is noisy as it is, with updates from friends that answered quizzes, joined groups, became fans, etc. Twitter is noisy when the people you follow update their statuses by the minute, which is sometimes the case. I don't mind the noise. Not at all. Other social networks choose to do something different. Take, for example, Friendfeed. Although it functions like Twitter BUT with real-time updates, it also aggregates friends' feeds from other social networks. So if a friend of mine is a Friendfeed user and I follow them on Friendfeed, I get their status updates to Friendfeed and any social network they have decided to add to their feed, like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. Friendfeed is great as it tries to be the one-stop-shop to check friends' updates and start-slash-continue discussions by posting comments. The problem with Friendfeed is that it can't post an update to other social networks, other than Twitter, at the same time. Ping.fm solves this dilemma by providing a service that updates a number of social networks. So in one posting, I can update my status in all the social networks I belong to. It was great, at first. However, whenever I check my Friendfeed, it displays my Ping.fm-based update several times because the same message was posted to a number of social networks I added. It may not be a problem, nor would anyone care, but it was me who was annoyed by multiple instances of the same message. I decided to remove the social networks from Friendfeed that I update simultaneously through Ping.fm. So before, when I update my status, my Friendfeed displays the same message that I posted in Twitter, Facebook, and Plurk. Now, it just displays the update I posted to Friendfeed. This way, I don't annoy my followers with a number of mirrored posts. The only difference in those mirrored posts is where it was posted. There are desktop clients, whether AIR-based or otherwise, that let users post messages simultaneously to multiple social networks. Twhirl, an AIR-based desktop application, posts primarily to Twitter, but has extended its coverage by using Ping.fm's service, posting tweets to other social networks. However, I still use Ping.fm's service to update my social networks instead of Twhirl, mainly because I can't use Twhirl on other computers or on my phone. And then, there's Plurk. Although the concept is similar to Twitter, the execution is very different. And recently, they have decided to add a feature where a plurk is also posted on Twitter and Facebook, among others. Since I was using Ping.fm already, I saw no reason to use this feature. It only made sense that I stick to one service, or method of updating my status, to prevent confusion and me annoying the hell out of everybody else. If only Friendfeed's aggregation features and Ping.fm's updating service merge into one, with a desktop client to boot, it would make updating and keeping tabs on multiple social networks a whole lot easier. That would, in my very humble opinion, take the social network scene to a whole new level.

Facebook has been receiving a lot of flak lately due to the recently deployed redesign of a user's News Feed, the default or home page of a user upon logging in. A number of people have created groups petitioning the return of the "old" Facebook, claiming that if they wanted a Twitter-like interface, they would have used Twitter instead. However, just to clarify some things, the new Facebook News Feed is something more akin to Friendfeed, which is a micro-blogging platform that also took a page from Twitter, but does more. Friendfeed aggregates a user's social network updates, including Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, Google Reader, and blog feeds, among others. With Friendfeed, users can comment on posts and feed updates, and they also have an option to "like" them. The major difference between Twitter and Friendfeed is the 140-character limit. Now, this "like" feature is what Facebook copied from Friendfeed, and Friendfeed copied the "like" feature from Twitter's "favor" feature. So you see, Facebook did not copy Twitter. Facebook copied Friendfeed, which copied Twitter somewhat. Or at least, that's how I perceive it. And it's not just me. Personally, I like what Facebook did to the News Feed. For me, it was easier to use than the previous design, although I wish it had the auto-update feature of Plurk, which notifies you when there are new updates to your timeline, or in Facebook's case, the News Feed. Facebook's notification system is limited to the kind where someone comments on your status, tagged you in a photo, or shot you with mayonnaise in the face. Plurk notifies you if any of your friends have updated their status or responded to one of your or your friends' updates. It may not be easy, but it is doable. Since the deployment of the new design, there were a few minor tweaks in a Facebook user's News Feed, like the "People you may know" and "Requests" sections are now above the "Highlights." There will be more changes and tweaks in the News Feed, as Facebook has expressed, one way or another, that they will be taking into consideration the feedback and input of their users. This may not be a good idea, according to TechCrunch's Michael Arrington. And I agree with him. Facebook is a free service. To demand something from a free service is not really my cup of tea. Whatever they decide to implement, if I like it or I hate it, it doesn't really matter. The bottomline is that it's really my choice if I want to continue using the service or not. And it is yours, too. To each their own, I guess.

A lot of people are becoming more and more dissatisfied with Facebook and its features, not to mention the recent fiasco over who owns the content according to changes in the TOS that were reverted back to the original. As for a semi-regular Facebook user, one who just drops in daily to check if there are any interesting updates, I find it somewhat intrusive, and as it tries to lure me in to use it as a junkie would, there's still a long way to go before I consider Facebook as something of an essential service for me to use as ubiquitously as possible, despite a huge amount of loyal fans and users. Sarah, from sarahintampa.com, noted in her post that she wants to use Facebook for both personal and professional purposes. And I totally get it, even if I don't have her problem of being a famous Internet celebrity, one that entails a number of people asking her if it's okay to follow her, which means she has to follow them also. For those who don't know her, she writes for Read Write Web, among other things. Anyway, she points out that there's no option for Facebook users to follow someone without also being followed. That is a big turn-off. I'm not saying Facebook should be like Twitter, wherein you can follow someone without them NEEDING to follow you, and you don't have to follow someone who wants to follow you. It's just that there are no options to filter the people you follow into groups or cliques. True, the essence of a community is giving and receiving, but one can only take so much, and sometimes, people who follow you mindlessly click on the invite friends button to add every single app available in Facebook. Upon seeing another request to play Mob Wars, or to join a cause to feed some poor schmuck, I am reminded by my priorities. Sitting atop my priority list is getting out of debt, and I doubt spending hours and hours of playing vampire or pirate will help me do that, and neither will joining a virtual 5K run to help cure cancer. How do you cure cancer by running? Virtually? This tires me out just thinking about it. I believe in causes. Most of them are noble. But I think there's a better way of promoting causes, and being transparent about it. Will someone be donating something somewhere if I accept your request for joining a cause? If so, how come it isn't published somewhere other than Facebook? Don't you think something this big won't be covered by major news sources? What, Facebook is the only avenue you know of promoting your cause? Yeah, right. I have about five pesos in change sitting in my drawer that I can give you. How do I give you that? For a big company, Facebook should have made a dedicated page for events/causes that users can join. All the members SHOULD get are notifications, in digest form on a weekly basis, of the new events/causes that may be of some interest. I don't want my friends, all two of them, to simultaneously invite me to join some cause that I MIGHT not believe in. The application page also needs a lot of work, in the sense that Facebook HAS TO CREATE ONE FIRST. And it should all be OPT-IN, and not shoved down your throat. And again, notifications should be in place for new applications added every week instead of getting the same request to add a trivial game from all the people you follow. As Facebook grows, it's only normal for the public to expect more from the service as the amount of time people spend using it increases, and Facebook is somewhat slow in responding to these expectations. Then again, this article is just a big rant on how ineffective Facebook is. And no, spending more time to fully experience what Facebook is all about will NOT contribute to checking off priorities on my list. Poking me will only result in physical violence and injury. Got any pet peeves or raves about Facebook? Let's hear it in the comments section.

So I've been stumbling sites (using StumbleUpon) lately and I came across a website that shares the stupid things people say when calling in for some technical support. Some were insanely ridiculous, others were just downright idiotic. One thing it made me, though, was that it made me wonder if this still happens on a daily basis. A few years ago, I was also one of the people in the receiving end of ignorance while trying to provide technical support. It's not pretty, but it was quite enjoyable and very enlightening. You get to meet different personalities, some accommodating, some bull-headed. Have we grown? The site I was mentioning earlier made me think if people have grown smarter, technologically-wise, after a slew of very user-friendly Apple products and a plethora of a more intuitive GUI. I can't believe I said plethora. So I thought about it, and honestly, I can't really provide an accurate answer, unless I base it on my personal experience, which is an insignificant sampling, all things considered. So there's not really much to do but speculate. I therefore speculate that people SHOULD have grown more technically knowledgeable. Recently released versions of operating systems have become simpler and more user-friendly. Cloud computing is well on its way as more companies are embracing the model "software-as-a-service." Web 2.0 basically is no longer a buzzword as more and more companies are developing, and making great headway in, web applications that are slowly becoming ubiquitous, as is the aim of every web company. Or that I'm just using buzzwords without a clue. Heh. Trolls are still abundant. The only difference between then and now is that it is easier to be a troll and spread their dickeries everywhere than before. And yes, they have more buzzwords to use without having any sense of their meaning yet they still use it every chance they get. Teh horror, trolls are still with us. Maybe the then-stupid people are wiser now, but I think they were replaced with clueless cloud users. Facebook may be too much tech for some people. Google Docs or Windows Live Spaces may be too complicated. God help us if people start calling for help to use MySpace properly. I know I've been humiliated by online apps simply because I did not read the fucking manual, or in this case, the website's instructions. What some people don't get is that THEY DON'T HAVE TO USE THE SERVICE, unless they need it. All it takes is some effort to get used to the interface, to know its features, to do things simpler. Otherwise, it's going to be like pulling teeth. Hard and painful, both for the user and the developer. And with that in mind, to those who are still reading this, if you are using Internet Explorer 6, do yourself and the web developers a huge favor. Upgrade to a better browser. Ramble on.