It’s Not Facebook, It’s You! 5 Ways To Fix Your Facebook Experience [Weekly Facebook Tips]

I joined Facebook because it promised to be an easy way to stay in touch with friends and family while traveling and living abroad. I stayed with Facebook even though many of the prejudices I had turned out to be true. What I learned, however, is that most of the things you do with Facebook, or allow it to do to you, are your choice.

Facebook offers a lot of opportunities and it is up to you to customize your experience. It’s a little like real life. You can do great things, work hard, be a positive example, help others, or you can waste your time; it’s your decision. The difference is that Facebook is much less complex and occasionally comes with great instructions. So what is it that you struggle with on Facebook and how would you like to turn that experience around?

1. Wasting Time

Because Facebook is so great at what it does – presenting you with the latest information from the people and things you care about – you cannot help but get sucked in and spend hours on reading status updates, peeking through photo albums, watching videos, or playing games. And if you don’t read everything that has been posted to your News Feed since the last time you visited, you feel like you are missing out. This is not a productive use of your time!

There isn’t an easy way to escape from this time sink. First you need to be determined!

Ask yourself:

• How much time can you afford to spend on Facebook?


• What do you really want to use Facebook for?


• Who do you really want to stay in touch with?

The answers to those questions will reveal what you want Facebook to be for you. Once you have an understanding of what you appreciate about Facebook, observe yourself the next time you use the social network:

• How much time do you actually spend on Facebook?


• What are you actually doing on Facebook?


• Who are you actually interacting with?

Based on your initial idea of what you want Facebook to be and the baseline assessment of what it actually is now, take action!

• Remove items from your News Feed that you do not want to see or that waste too much of your time.


• Stop playing games on Facebook! Yeah, those ones, too. Seriously.


• Unfriend or unfollow people who make you unhappy and dis-Like pages that don’t post anything useful. Or at least remove those updates from your News Feed.

2. Feeling Bad

Facebook is a reflection of who you are and how you think. When you approach Facebook with the wrong mindset, it can make you sad, anxious, and envious. Approach it with the right mindset, however, and it can leave you happier, inspired, and grateful for having so many awesome people in your life. Which alternative would you prefer?

A recent study revealed that people who are more engaged in Facebook, tend to suffer from higher levels of anxiety. This is hardly surprising. Lonely or introvert people with a less intense social life find it easier to connect using social networks. Yet seeing people having an exciting social life in the real world can be incredibly depressing. But it doesn’t have to be!

It’s tough, but you can be conscious about how you approach Facebook (or life in general) and how it makes you feel. It’s a key part of customizing your Facebook experience. Try these tips:

• Envious? Imagine how you would feel if you were the other person. Empathize. Then, instead of feeling envious, try to be genuinely happy for them and cheer them on.


• Anxious? Why? Do you feel like your life is a failure? Do you think you should do better? Don’t be so hard on yourself and stop comparing yourself with others! Rather focus on what is good in your life and work hard to improve whatever is not right, yet. Give yourself some credit along the way and celebrate your achievements. Yes, do post your progress on Facebook and feel your heart jump with joy when your friends encourage you and are happy for you. :)


• Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)? You miss out on 99.999999999% of what is going on in the world right now and you have missed out on almost 100% of what has happened in the past or will happen in the future. Live NOW. Learn to enjoy the moment, decide on your priorities in life, be true to them, and work hard for having great moments.

3. Revealing Too Much

Per default, Facebook shares everything. Whatever you share with Facebook, is shared with the world. And whenever Facebook introduces an update, the default is ‘open to all’. Hence it’s important to regularly review your privacy settings and make sure that privacy relevant information like your birth date, your phone number, or your personal photos are hidden from the general public.

You can easily check what your profile looks like for another person from within Facebook. Go to your Timeline, i.e. facebook.com/your_user_name. You can get there by clicking your own name anywhere on Facebook. In the top right next to Activity Log click the arrowhead to expand the Settings menu and select View As…

From the top left, select as who you want to see your Timeline and Profile. You can enter a friend’s name or view your profile as the public, i.e. a random stranger would see it.

If you see something that you don’t want a specific person or the public to see, track down that particular piece of information and update its settings.

4. Sharing Too Much

Some things should remain private! None of your friends want to hear about your every bowel movement, nor do they want to hear you complain all the time, unless you are really having a tough time and need help. In that case, why don’t you just ask for help? This is probably the toughest one, but don’t Like and re-Share too many Facebook posts. It will drive those people nuts whose News Feeds are inundated with your Likes and Shares.

Remember, if everyone was a little more considerate, we would all waste less time on Facebook.

Fortunately, a recent study shows that around one third of all Facebook posts are self-censored. Another study suggests that self-censorship could be related to not wanting to… cause a huge discussion, offend or hurt someone, or be boring or repetitive. Sounds like a great number of people actually is considerate already!

5. Depending Too Much

Don’t let Facebook rule your life. Make sure you have people’s contacts and birthdates stored outside of Facebook, so you can stay in touch in case you get banned or locked out. Back up your photos and other personal memories, so you don’t depend on Facebook to save them for you. Generally, use Facebook like any other tool, don’t depend on it for your (social) life!

Conclusion

You control your Facebook experience. Make it a good one, but don’t make it an intense one. Facebook is a tool to stay in touch with real people in real life. The goal is to have a real social life outside of Facebook.

How do you use Facebook and how much time do you spend on it each day?

Image credits: Nowhere via Shutterstock, Woman Riding Bicycle via Shutterstock

The post It’s Not Facebook, It’s You! 5 Ways To Fix Your Facebook Experience [Weekly Facebook Tips] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Get Over $200 Worth Of Windows Apps For $30 With The New PCBundler [Updates]

UK-based PCBundler launched their second Windows bundle on Monday, offering $217 worth of Windows apps for only $29. The project was developed after PCBundler’s creators saw a lack of Windows-based all-in-one packages available on the Internet, and decided to do something about it.

Users who take advantage of this offer will receive seven top-selling Windows software, including TuneUp Media (which you can also get for free from our Rewards program), PCKeeper, VideoConverter Pro, Audio Recorder, Switch (also available for free download as a MakeUseOf Reward), Phototangler, and PASSWORDfighter.

A nice variety items has been chosen for this bundle, and the price alone could be worth it to some users. For instance, TuneUp Media is a popular app that lets you organize your music collection, normally coming at a retail price of $49.95. PCKeeper, a $39 tool, offers 15 tools in one: a disk cleaner, an anti-theft tool, an uninstaller, a duplicate finder, antivirus, and more.

Altogether, the package offers a total of 87% discount from normal retail prices, and licenses for all program are delivered to buyers upon purchase. Most apps in the bundle have free trials available, and these are linked to from the product pages in the bundle. This way, you can check the programs out before you decide if you want the bundle or not. But don’t take too long. the bundle will only be available for two weeks, until May 6.

If you would like to take advantage of PCBundler or learn more, visit the official website.

Do you think that PCBundler is a good deal? Will you make use of it?

Source: PCBundler

The post Get Over $200 Worth Of Windows Apps For $30 With The New PCBundler [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Scan QR Codes with the Google Search Widget on Android

You do not need a separate QR code app on your Android phone to scan QR code. Just launch the Google app, switch to the Camera mode and use it to scan QR codes.

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This story, Scan QR Codes with the Google Search Widget on Android, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 22/04/2013 under Android, QR Codes, Software.

Reader Isn’t The Only One – Alternatives For 3 Dead Google Services

Over its long course serving us as the overlord of the Internet, Google has had some good ideas and some bad ideas. I remember first hearing of Google. I was a loyal Yahoo! search engine user, even past the time when Google was considered to be top dog. But eventually I had to cave in and switch. It’s the same with browsers – I was a Firefox fanatic up until six months ago, when I made the switch to Google Chrome. It’s just better. That’s as plainly as I can put it.

However, Google has pushed out some pretty interesting and obscure projects on the side. Google PowerMeter, for example, was a way to keep tabs on how much energy you’re using in your home from a web interface. Never heard of it? You’re probably part of the great majority. I know there are some that you do remember and have been missing, though. Let’s revisit a few.

Google Answers

Though it was never as well-known as some of the alternatives, Google Answers was an online knowledgebase. The difference between Google Answers and its competitors was that it required users to actually post paid bounties for very detailed and researched answers. In the age of the wiki, you don’t need this. The Internet has everything. Though Google Answers hasn’t disappeared into a cloud of dust, it is no longer accepting questions.

So what has come along to replace Google Answers?

Yahoo! Answers

This is probably the first thing that comes to mind. It’s a free service that provides similar functionality. The answers submitted here are community-submitted, based on votes, and are sometimes very unreliable.

Quora

Quora is probably the best resource on the Internet for this purpose. It came around in 2010 and has grown huge since then. On Quora, users can collaborate to answer questions by editing the questions themselves and even suggesting edits to users’ answers. It’s a very open format and the Quora community is filled with helpful people.

ChaCha

ChaCha is a mobile solution. It’s been called a “human-guided search engine” that allows users to text in a question and receive a response as quickly as paid specialists are able to research and deliver them. The service is free to use.

Google Desktop

As the name makes pretty clear, Google Desktop was essentially Google for your desktop. Using this application, you’d be able to add widgets to your Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop that would allow you to search through all files, emails, web history, and more. While there are a handful of options that could replace the functionality of Google Desktop, two stand out.

If you’re a Windows user, Windows Search is a piece of Microsoft’s operating system that seems to be constantly changed and improved with each advancing version. Google Desktop was most popular in the XP days, but today all of the features it once provided are practically included in Windows right out of the box by using the search field in the Start menu.

There’s also Everything. Like Google Desktop, the name says it all about this search tool. Google Desktop was an attempt at allowing you to search your computer for anything and everything, and this free application allows you to do such tenfold more effectively. Everything is the elite software in this field and we’ve put out several articles that highlight its features. It’s simply the best way to search your Windows system.

iGoogle

iGoogle isn’t being put to rest until November 1, 2013, but it’s the Google service that I’ve put the most hours into. For many years, my browser’s starting page has been iGoogle. It gives me everything I want all on a single page, and I’ll really miss it. iGoogle obviously puts a huge emphasis on elements of Google like their search, RSS reader, and more. The alternatives available are actually much more extensive and flexible.

Netvibes is easily the consensus winner when you’re looking for a virtual dashboard to match, and even better than what iGoogle offered. Though paid accounts are available, I used a free Netvibes account for some time and was overwhelmed by the options available. If you used iGoogle and enjoyed it, you do not need to pay for this service. It offers everything and more.

Last year, Tim put out a great article that introduced six alternatives to iGoogle. Netvibes was on his list. Give that article a look if Netvibes doesn’t offer what you’re after, but I’m very confident in the service. Make sure you check it out.

What other fallen Google services have you had an interest in? We’ve all heard about Google Reader’s upcoming retirement, and we’ve also got a great article to show some viable alternatives. Let us know which products and services you miss and we’ll get some discussion about the next best things in the comments section below!

The post Reader Isn’t The Only One – Alternatives For 3 Dead Google Services appeared first on MakeUseOf.

2 Tools For Converting Movies For Viewing On a Smartphone

Movie files are generally not optimized for the smartphone. They often take up too much space and may be encoded in a format that the smartphone can’t play back very easily. If the movie in question is on a physical DVD, it will need to be “ripped” into a standard video file before you can play it.

Video conversion isn’t as essential as it used to be when playing videos on a modern smartphone. With apps like VLC for Android, you can play videos of almost any type or size directly on your smartphone. However, you may still want to convert a movie before viewing it to save precious storage space on your smartphone and get more battery-efficient playback.

HandBrake

HandBrake is one of the more popular video conversion tools. These apps are referred to as “transcoding” tools, because they can convert videos from one encoded format to another encoded format. We’ll be focusing on the Windows version here, but HandBrake also runs on Mac OS and Linux. You can download Handbrake for any platform from its website.

HandBrake also offers DVD-ripping capabilities, so you can convert a movie from a physical DVD to a file you can watch on your phone. To do this, you’ll need to install the DVD43 software for Windows, which bypasses the DRM included with DVDs to allow this ripping. Depending on the country you’re in, this may technically be illegal.

After installing and launching HandBrake, click the Source menu and choose the type of video you want to convert. Select Video File for a single file or Folder to convert all video files in a single folder. If you want to convert a DVD, insert the disc into your computer and it will appear in the Source drop-down box.

Once the file is added, you can start tweaking your conversion settings. If you added a DVD, click the Title box and select the appropriate section of the DVD.

Whatever you’re converting, you’ll need to specify a destination. You can enter a destination for this conversion using the Destination box. If you’d like HandBrake to take care of this automatically in the future, you can open its options window (Tools -> Options), select the Output Files tab, and enter a default location in the Default Path box. For example, you can have HandBrake automatically save all converted video files to your desktop or another easy-to-access location.

To quickly select appropriate transcoding settings for your device, click an option in the Preset column. There are options for the iPhone and different types of Android phones, as well as other devices like the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV. You can also select one of the normal profiles.

You can optionally modify the conversion settings after selecting a preset. For example, the Picture tab allows you to set a custom width and height for your video file. However, you’ll probably be fine if you stick to the default settings.

Once you’re ready to perform the conversion, click the Start button. HandBrake will convert your selected source video and create a new video in the destination folder you specified.

You can now copy your video file to your phone by connecting it to your computer with a USB cable or, if it’s an Android phone, using the excellent AirDroid app to transfer the video file to your phone over Wi-Fi.

If you’re converting a lot of videos on a regular basis, you could use DropFolders along with Handbrake to automatically convert video files you add to a specific folder on your computer.

SUPER

SUPER is a Windows application with its own cult following. Kannon recently dubbed it a “HandBrake killer”, noting that “no free (or paid) video software in its class matches the versatility and broad file-type compatibility of SUPER.” SUPER offers more power and options than HandBrake. It’s also more compatible with different video formats. HandBrake has removed support for AVI, XviD, and OGG/OGM codecs, but SUPER still supports these formats.

However, SUPER is a much more complicated application with a user interface that isn’t nearly as user-friendly. It also installs adware during the installation process, which you must immediately uninstall after installing SUPER if you want to keep your Windows system clean. And it’s Windows only, so Mac and Linux users are out-of-luck.

If you’re interested in SUPER, head on over to Kannon’s guide to using SUPER, where he’ll walk you through dodging the adware and getting to grips with SUPER’s interface.

More Tools

These are our 2 favorite tools for converting videos, whether you need a slick, easy-to-use interface optimized for the most popular formats or you need the most flexible video-conversion tool out there.

For more ideas from readers like you, check out the discussion on MakeUseOf Answers, where readers recommended their favorite video conversion tools.

What’s your favorite tool for converting videos before watching them on your smartphone? Do you prefer one of the above tools, or have you found a better one? Leave a comment below and share your favorite one!

Image Credit: Smartphone mobile video via Shutterstock

The post 2 Tools For Converting Movies For Viewing On a Smartphone appeared first on MakeUseOf.

What Is The Best Way To Remove Timestamps From Photos?

I used to think that a date imprinted on a photo helped to stoke up nostalgia and gave all the photos in my albums some perspective. Those were the days when my snapper of choice was a simple point-and-shoot, and I didn’t understand EXIF data and how I could use the EXIF to make sense of photographs. Wisdom dawned late and not in time to save a bunch of photos “spoilt” by the unseemly sight of timestamps embedded in one corner.

Now, I have switched off date embeds from the camera settings in all my cameras and being somewhat of an “expert amateur”, I rely completely on EXIF information to tell all about a photo. But the good news is that you can dust off the old photos with timestamps and do a bit of editing to remove the timestamps from them. The benefit of that labor? Make them frame worthy or just a bit neater to look at.

Timestamps don’t really serve a purpose and are a distraction. So, here are some simple techniques to remove them from your old (or new) photos.

The Simple But Dirty Way – Crop Your Photo

This is the simplest way to remove the timestamp but it is not always effective. Cropping will remove a large part of your image. You are in luck if the timestamp can be cropped out without altering the composition while resizing the image. Crop tool is a basic tool and you can crop your photos in any photo editor, from MS Paint to IrfanView, or any cloud based photo editor too. As you can see from the above picture, the cropped result (below) is hardly ideal as it has snipped away a large part of the photo and modified the composition for the worse. I compensated by adding thick margins above and below the cropped photo.

A Lesser Eyesore – Using MS Paint

MS Paint is the simplest tool at your disposal. More importantly there’s nothing complicated to learn about it. It is not a perfect tool for the job, but if you have no other recourse, you can use it to block the timestamp with a color that resembles the background behind it. As you can see in the picture below, the timestamp is embedded against a black background. You can select the background color and paint over the timestamp.

You can select the timestamp – hit delete – and then use the fill tool to color the vacant area with an approximation of the background color. I agree it’s not a perfect solution; but if you are artistically challenged, this is a simple try. You can just pull it off with backgrounds that are solid and of a single color.

The Easy Way – Inpaint (Not Free)

If you are routinely stumbling over image editing jobs that require you to remove unwanted elements from your photo, then there is a cheaper alternative to Photoshop. Inpaint is a photo-restoration software for Windows and Mac. It is not free (Purchase price: $19.99) but it has a handy free trial version to get your feet wet with. The trial version leaves a watermark. The benefit of using InPaint to remove timestamps is that it is simply a one-click affair. Here are the brief steps:

• Launch Inpaint and open the image you want to remove the timestamp from.


• Zoom in on the area with the date and time stamp, and then mark it with the red colored masking tool that is presented by default.

• Click the Inpaint button (the green arrowhead), and voila the timestamp is gone.

Inpaint works very similarly to Photoshop’s Content Aware feature, but without the steeper price tag and the more complicated steps. Inpaint also removes other unwanted elements from a photo, and with some luck can work its magic on a variety of photo bombs. That’s why paying a few bucks for the software that is hassle free could be earned back in the time saved.

But if you are still looking for a free solution, then you have to turn to one of the best free alternatives to Photoshop that is out there.

The Power of Photoshop in a Free Package – GIMP

If you haven’t been introduced to GIMP yet, then it’s high time. GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the open source alternative to Photoshop and those of us who aren’t moneybags; it also translates to – free. Here are five websites to learn a bit more about GIMP and get comfortable with the program. Or if you want to do it faster, here are some easy GIMP video tutorials for a beginner. Just like many programs today, the graphic editor can also be extended with special GIMP plug-ins. It is just such a plug-in we are going to turn to for removing timestamps from our photos.

The plug-in we are going to use is called Resynthesizer . It is available for both Windows and Linux. After you download the ZIP file, you can copy all the Python files and paste them in GIMP’s plug-in folder. To locate the plug-in folder, launch GIMP.

Go to Edit – Preferences. Scroll down to Folders – Plugins. You can see the path for my specific portable installation of GIMP. Restart GIMP so the graphic editor recognizes the new files.

Resynthesizer adds a few smart plug-ins under GIMP’s menu. Browse to: Filter – Enhance – Heal selection. Heal selection is just like Photoshop’s Content Aware feature or its Clone Tool. In fact, it preceded Photoshop as explained by Patrick David in this very thorough explanation of how the Heal selection tool works in GIMP. It is a good read if you want to understand the “magic” behind the tool and how it makes objects bigger than timestamps disappear. For our purposes, we just have to do the following steps…

• Open the photo in GIMP.


• Use the Rectangular select tool to select the timestamp.


• Go to Filter – Enhance – Heal selection. Use the default settings as shown in the screenshot.

• Click on OK and allow the Resynth plug-in to process the image and remove the timestamp.

Here’s how the final processed image looks after you export it as a JPEG file:

There are many other ways to remove timestamps from photos with GIMP. But I have found this to be the simplest and quickest to use. Also, the easiest to explain.

Recalling Photoshop

Photoshop and even Photoshop Elements are great software. But they are expensive both in terms of dollars and the value of your time as you will have to learn it from scratch. If you already have a copy, then of course, you can find umpteen tutorials on the web that talk about removing timestamps and watermarks of all kinds. To help you start off, here’s a YouTube video that demonstrates Photoshop and its excellent Content Aware tool.

The easiest way to remove timestamps from your photos is not set it in the first place. It’s one of the things you should immediately do after buying your camera. But if the ugly deed is done, then I hope these tips can help you with the fix. Do you find timestamps to be an eyesore? Do you have any other technique to recommend?

The post What Is The Best Way To Remove Timestamps From Photos? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How to Use Google AdSense Ads on your Responsive Website

Learn how to make your Google AdSense ads responsive with JavaScript. The most appropriate ad unit will automatically get served based on the width (resolution) of the visitor's browser.

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This story, How to Use Google AdSense Ads on your Responsive Website, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 22/04/2013 under Google Adsense, Internet.

Google Tests New Interface for Related Image Searches

Google Image Search tests a new interface for related searches. Instead of displaying a list of thumbnails when you mouse over the related searches, this experimental interface shows a small collage of images above the queries.

Here's the standard interface:

In other related news, search by subject no longer works. Hopefully, it's just a bug:

{ Thanks, Abdul. }

Swipe Navigation in the Mobile Gmail Site

One month ago, Google updated the Gmail app for iOS and added a swipe gesture that lets you move between conversations without having to return to the inbox. At that time, the mobile Gmail site didn't have this feature, but now it's available.



If you like to use Gmail in the mobile browser and you don't want to install a special app for Gmail, you can now swipe left or right to the previous or the next conversation. Unfortunately, this feature is more difficult to use in Chrome because Google's browser has a similar gesture for navigating between tabs. You should avoid swiping from the edge of the screen when you open mobile Gmail.

It's interesting to notice that the "swipe to archive" feature of the mobile Gmail site doesn't work in Chrome for Android, but it works in the stock browser, in Safari and Chrome for iOS.