chopstickles blog

This is just a post for something I encountered a few months back which I found rather amusing. It must just be some fun that the developers were having, or a silly comment which they forgot to remove. Anyway, this is what it was:

Now since it’s been fixed:

Nothing more to say on this.

For the past few days i’ve joined the unfortunate group who have to now instead use the new Facebook. Whilst seeing friends who still had the old design I in a sense got jealous as I dislike most aspects of the new design. In my opinion, which holds no value, I think they should of left parallel versions, giving the user the choice of what they really wanted. Not that they seem to care much, people were just forced into it using it.

I guess eventually I and most others will get used to it and probably end up preferring it, but why couldn’t they just leave the original as an option?

The new wall/feed is to overpowering on the page. I feel that if I want to see the crappy news stuff I’d go directly to it. Besides that as well, my comment count is gone!

That is all.

</end rant>

Since seeing a link to “the new” Facebook on Mashable.com i’ve had quite a few sneak peaks at the interface and what has changed in the design. From what I have so far seen it is rather impressive with very little flaws noticed. Although there is on there i’m not particularly fond of and thats what seems to be the heavier focus on the Mini-Feed, and how it seems to be mixed with the Wall. Although there is little buttons you can use to filter the content, I’d still prefer less focus on the Mini-Feed, and why can’t you even minimize it anymore.

One other improvement of significance I have noticed is the faster loading times of profiles as the profile application infestation seems to have ceased. There still is a few which appear on the profiles, but no way near as what there previously was on profiles.

Other things also include tabs separating key areas of your profile such as the Wall, Info and Photos, and quicker access to posting photos onto yours or other profiles.

There is still alot which I have yet to see so i’ll most likely be posting again when I actually have a decent amount of stuff to mention.

This is just a quick post related to the previous entry I had on the Top Friends application being displayed.

The Top Friends application has now been enabled and the privacy changes have been implemented. Basically now it seems that you can only view a persons Top Friends profile if you are friends with them, otherwise you are now redirected to your own profile. If the person you visits had Top Friends installed and a public profile you still will not be able to view their profile unless you become their friends.

One less privacy hole on Facebook.

Although this may come as old news to some people, others may not have even yet noticed it.

On the 26th of June the Top Friends application was suspended due to a security and privacy breach. A week prior to it’s suspension I actually took some time to look into it and how it functioned and actually found it to be quite an interesting application. Although like many others it did strike me as odd when you could see the relationship status, interests and some other profile information of people who were set to private and didn’t have myself as a friend. This of course wasn’t on their actual profile instead on a sub-profile which was attached to the application where it would display basic information, the users display picture and other applications.

After looking around on the internet and news sites it seems that it will not be re-enabled until the security and privacy breach is fixed. I can’t yet find a place which states when this actually will be fixed.

Cnet Article:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9977762-7.html

Mashable Article:

http://mashable.com/2008/06/26/top-friends-disappear-facebook/

After just randomly checking through Facebook it has come to my attention that they are going to discontinue networks. That somewhat struct me as odd as they were a valuable way to connect with fellow students at University as well as people in the area. After a quick search there was no success in finding out the reason why it actually was to be discontinued.

The displayed message:

Network Pages will be discontinued soon

Facebook will soon be removing Network Pages from the site. Please keep this in mind when communicating with others on the Wall and on the discussion board. You can use Groups to connect with the people around you.

Having to resort back to just using groups is a mistake in my opinion but I guess the administrators think thats the right thing to do as they actually chose to do so.

I did though notice that a while back Facebook removed the networks link from the top area of the page. I guess by that then, this has been something that has been coming for a while now. I wonder how long it’ll be before it disappears.