Rachel asks: I spend lots of time on Facebook. Is there a way to appear offline to my friends on Facebook chat?

Answer:

Thanks for the question. There are two options. First is to appear offline to all your friends (useful if you want to appear offline to all your friends)

1. Login to your Facebook web page.
2. Open the Chat panel (lower right hand side).
3. Hit Options and then select Go Offline. That will set your status to offline on chat.

Second option is to appear offline to specific friends lists. This might be useful if you want to avoid specific people but interact with other friends:

1. If you haven’t defined a friends list yet, go ahead and create a friends list (Lists>> Friends>> Create New List).
2. Add specific people you might want to avoid to that list.
3. In the Chat panel, hit Friends List and enable viewing the list in the Facebook chat.
4. Hit the Go Offline icon at the right hand side of your Friends list, as shown below:
5. That’s it!

Nikki asks: Few weeks ago i went ahead and blocked my ex boyfriend from Facebook. Now we are in touch again and i want to unblock him so we can interact via Facebook and the chat. How to do that?

Answer:

Glad you guys are back. Unblocking a person on Facebook is quite easy:

1. First, Login to your Facebook account web page and click on Settings
2. In the Privacy section you’ll see your Block List.
3. Go ahead and remove your friend from there.
4. Now go ahead and send him a new friend request, so you guys can interact on Facebook again.

So here’s how you block someone on Facebook:

1. First, login to your Facebook account.
2. Hit Settings.
3. In the Privacy section, hit Manage. You’ll see the following:
4. In the Block People section enter the name of who you wish to block. Facebook will search to find a matching person to the name you entered.
5. Once you have selected the correct person, click Block. You might need to execute steps 3-4 as needed for different individuals you would like to avoid.
6. Note that you can also block a specific email address, so an account associated with that address won’t be able to contact you not only today, but also in the future.

Two important remarks before you go ahead and block people:

1. People you have blocked will not be notified about that.
2. If for some reason you would like to restore a relationship with someone you blocked in the past, you will need to send him/her a friend request. Pretty embarrassing, right

Stay tuned for more Facebook tips.

1) Click on the settings link located at the top right corner of your profile page.
2) You would see a heading by the name “E-Mail”, Click on “Change” link next to it.
3) Enter your new mail id in the text box. You would be prompted to enter your Facebook password. Enter your Facebook password and hit the confirm button.
4) You would be sent a confirmation mail for the same in your new mail – id. In case you change your mind you can cancel the request by clicking on Cancel request link!

1) Click on the settings link located at the top right corner of your profile page.
2) You would see a heading by the name “Password”, Click on “Change” link next to it.
3) All you need to do is give your old password and type in your new password.
4) Hit Change Password button and you have successfully changed your password.

And before you sign off, always remember to keep your passwords private and do not include your personal information like date of birth, Id number etc as your passwords. You might want to choose an easy yet random password and improve your password strength by including special characters and numbers!

Hide Facebook friends list

Question:

Dennis asks: I want to make sure that my friends list is visible only to my friends. How can i remove my friends list on Facebook?

Answer:

Thanks for your question, Dennis. To hide your friends list on Facebook, you need to log into your account and check for the option “settings”, which would appear on the top right of your homepage. When you hold your mouse on this option, three more options would appear out of which you need to click on “privacy settings”. As you click on this, you will be taken to a page that shows your “privacy settings” options. In this page, you would see an option “friends”, which would again have four more options to choose from namely, “everyone”, “friends of friends”, “only friends” and “Customize”. Depending on who you would want to hide your friends list from, you can choose any one of these four options.

How to simply change your Facebook layout

Question:

Zine asks: Hey, i have hear about a Facebook application named PageRage that allows you to change your Facebook layout. Have you tried it? What are your thoughts?

Answer:

Thanks for your question, Zine. PageRage Super profile is a Facebook app that allow you to apply a skin on your Facebook profile. This is done by installing an add-on software named Yontoo layers, which allows to supersede the default Facebook layout with the custom one.

I have tried PageRage a while ago and think that the general concept of allowing Facebook users to customize their profiles is very good. That said it’s important to understand that in order that your friends will be able to see your custom skin they’ll need to have the Yontoo layers software installed as well on their PCs. This fact makes its a bit unuseful in case you are accessing Facebook from school or work, as you or your friends might not have the required permissions to install applications on public computers.

Lately i have noticed that users of the application have reported performance issues. This might be attributed to its growing popularity.

Please note that you can also use a Greasemonkey script to modify your Facebook background, but this will work only if you are using Firefox, and won’t be visible to your friends.

Folks from Yontoo are welcome to comment on the performance issues.

Question:

Jean asks- I am looking for some code that will allow me to remove the MySpace details box. Can you help?

Answer:

Sure Jean. As a matter of fact, i wrote such a tutorial not long ago. I suggest that you’ll look into my post on how to hide details on MySpace, as it has the required CSS code you’ll need in order to remove the details box in your MySpace profile.
Enjoy, and don’t forget to visit our codes page, for more cool MySpace stuff.

Here’s one from Debbie: I have a Facebook profile and i would like to be able to add a countdown clock to it. Is it possible?

Answer:

Thanks for your question Debbie. Indeed, unlike MySpace, Facebook has made it not trivial to add graphics, playlists and so forth. Countdown clocks are not an exception.
OK, here’s what you need to do in order to add a countdown clock for Facebook:

1. First, find your countdown clock. This post will point you to the right places from which to pick your preferred clock. Grab the clock’s html code.
2. Now login to Facebook and install the MyStuff application.
3. Now paste the countdown clock code into MyStuff and voi’la, you have just implemented a “MySpace link” countdown clock for Facebook.