How To Change Your Birthday On Facebook

When you sign up for a Facebook account you are asked to enter information about you including your birthday. The majority of Facebook users will probably get that right, but it can happen that you pick the wrong date either accidentally or on purpose if you do not want to reveal you true age to the social networking site.

When you later decide to change your age you will notice that this is not possible right away. First you will probably search for options to select a different birthday. When you finally find out that the option is available under Edit Profile, you will notice that the birthday is not editable there. You can open that page right here to test it for yourself.

Why is it blocked? The most likely reason is to block users from changing their birthday from changing it whenever they feel like it, and to block minors trying to make themselves adults on the site.

This is however a issue if you have accidentally selected the wrong birthday. How can you change it if not in the Facebook profile?

The only way to change your date of birth on Facebook is to contact the Facebook support team to make them change it for your.

Facebook has made available a form for that request which you can access here.

Here you need to select the new birth date and enter a reason for the change. The most likely reason is that you have made an error during account creation. It is likely that the first request will be granted if you use that reason for changing the birthday.

There is no telling how Facebook will react if you use the form multiple times throughout the years. It is likely that they will deny the second or third request unless you provide them with a very good reason for the change.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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Pokes, How To Display Them Again on Facebook

A recent redesign on Facebook has changed the look and feel of the user start page on the social networking site. Some of the changes, the ticker for instance, have mostly received negative feedback from users of the social networking sites.

Many smaller more subtle changes have also been introduced in recent times. The Pokes feature for instance has been removed from the homepage. It was previously displayed on the right side of the Facebook page. And while it is still possible to poke users with a click on the “more” button on their profile page, there is no real visible option anymore to look at the received pokes.

For those who do not know: Pokes are a basic way of saying “hi” without actually having to type anything. It is an option to express affection and interest in a person.

Here is a screenshot that highlights where you find the poke option on old Facebook profiles.

And here is a screenshot where it can be found on new Facebook Timeline profiles.

The pokes page on the other hand is not displayed anymore on the profiles page or any other page by default. Let me explain to you how you can get it back to your news feed page on Facebook and all other pages of your Facebook profile. Take a look at the following screenshot to see where the Pokes link will be added to on your profile page.

All you need to do is to visit the Pokes page on Facebook. When you do that the Pokes link will automatically be added to the sidebar menu. It is displayed under the Apps category afterwards.

You can alternatively right-click it and select Add To Favorites from the menu to add it to the Favorites listing at the top of the page.

Another alternative is to bookmark the pokes page directly to open it whenever you need to look at the pokes that you have received in the past.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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How To Avoid Facebook Timeline Profiles

Facebook recently rolled out a new user profile design that the company calls Timeline. These new profiles change the layout and design of user profiles fundamentally. Facebook Timeline is currently an opt-in option, which means that users need to enable the new feature to turn their profiles into timeline profiles.

Users who have not changed their profile yet may still encounter timeline profiles, as it is up to each individual user if they keep on using the old profile or if they have already switched to the new profile.

It is however not possible to switch back from the new profile layout to the old one. Once timeline has been activated, there is no turning back.

There is however a workaround for users who do not want to see timeline profiles on Facebook. Please note that the workaround will change the layout of all profiles that you personally visit on Facebook to the old profile layout. Other users who do not make use of the workaround will still see the timeline profile.

Firefox users need to install the extension User Agent Switcher, which can be used to trick the Facebook site into believing that a different browser is used to connect to the service.

Locate the User Agent switcher icon in the browser bar. If you do not see it right-click on a toolbar, select customize from the context menu and drag and drop the User Agent icon to one of the visible toolbars.

Click on the icon afterwards and select the pre-configured Search Robots > Internet Explorer 7 entry. Facebook will now believe that you are using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 browser to connect to their site. The effect is that you will see only old profiles and not the new timeline profile view.

Please note that this leaves an ugly large blank area at the top of the profile.

Chrome users can use the built-in option to override the browser’s User Agent. A click on the wrench icon, and the selection of Tools > Developer Tools or the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-J open to the developer toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Click on the wrench icon in the lower right corner of the screen and locate the Override User Agent option under Network.

Select Other from the menu and paste the following information in the field on the right:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)

Note that Chrome will identify as Internet Explorer 7 on every site you visit until you deactivate the option again. An alternative is the creation of a new browser startup shortcut on the desktop.

Right-click the shortcut and select Properties from the menu. Append the following parameter after chrome.exe (leave a blank between).

--user-agent="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"

You can now use the shortcut whenever you want to access Facebook, and the normal shortcut that identifies the browser as Chrome when you visit other web pages. (via PureInfoTech and Caschy)

Update: Check out the Facebook Purity script to get rid of the blank space at the top when you are using the IE7 user agent.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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My Permissions Lets You Clean App Permissions

With the popularity of a service and an api come third party services that either use the service’s authorization system or add functionality to the service. A prime example is Facebook. Sites on the Internet may allow you to log in to the service with your Facebook credentials. This is useful as users do not have to register yet another account before they can use the service. It does however mean that users need to authorize those apps to use that data.

And with multiple popular services doing this, it may quickly become a control issue. It is not that sites like Facebook or Twitter are hiding the pages where apps that have been authorized in the past are listed, but it still requires the user to know that a page for managing app permission exists.

My Permissions is a free web service that offers two core features. It first links directly to the app permission management pages on eight social networking sites. Included by the service are Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Linkedin, Dropbox, Instragram and Flickr.

A click on a button opens the app settings control panel of the selected service in a new tab. You may be asked to log in first before you can manage app permissions. If you are already signed in, you can edit or remove app permissions right away. It usually takes a single click to remove an application from the list of connected apps.

You can naturally bookmark the links right away to open the app permission pages right away without having to visit the My Permissions page first.

The developers have created an ifttt recipe that reminds users once per month to check app permissions on social networking sites that they use.

If you are a heavy app and social networking user you may appreciate the service. Everyone else can still use it to check which apps have been authorized currently. (via Caschy)

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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Modify Facebook To Your Liking With Social Fixer

Most Facebook users probably have one or two page elements or features that annoy the hell out of them. This can be a small recent change like the top posts feature that promotes some posts and modifies the timeline by doing so, or something bigger like the new photo viewer interface or the highly annoying Facebook Ticker. Tools like Social Fixer, a web browser add-on for Chrome, Firefox and Opera, can be used to make modifications to Facebook. The better ones even add new features to the social networking site that make their life on the site easier.

Social Fixer, previously known as better Facebook, introduces dozens of changes and feature additions to the Facebook web page. The majority of changes can be activated individually which leaves it up to the user if a particular feature is changed on or added to Facebook.

When you install Social Fixer in your browser you are asked if you want to start with a minimal version or the complete package. The minimal version makes only slight changes to Facebook and keeps most features deactivated. Users can then open the extension’s options that are displayed directly on the Facebook page to modify Facebook page elements selectively. The program runs a setup wizard after installation which informs the user about the core features that it provides.

The program lists dozens of preferences in the options. Take a look at the following screenshot that is showing the options in the Firefox web browser.

The extension even comes with a search to find options quickly. Options are displayed in groups like layout, display, chat or theme that all display multiple preferences.

Here is a list of some of the options that the extension offers:

• Show full image previews when hovering your mouse over pictures
• Disable the “Lightbox” (aka “Theater”) photo viewer popup
• Change font size to px for posts and px for comments
• Fix “Enter” key behavior to be a newline when adding comments, rather than submit
• Lock the blue header bar at the top even if the screen is small
• Reorder posts to be chronological and hide “Top Stories”
• Add “Reply” links to comments and float the reply box up to the comment
• Show “Friend Tracker” to get Unfriend notifications
• Display the “Control Panel” at the top. It can be used to mark messages read, reload or mute all.
• Hide the Ticker Feed of friend activities (Hide Facebeook Ticker)
• Hide friends’ real-time Game activity
• Hide the “Top Story” triangle indicators in the upper left of posts
• Fix timestamps to show actual date/time (“one hour ago” becomes “12:34am (one hour ago)”)
• Automatically mark a post as “read” after commenting on it
• Auto-expand comments on Questions post pages
• Left align the page rather than center
• Show old stories as grayed out rather than hiding them completely
• Turn off the chat sidebar on the far right (if it exists) and go back to popup chat list
• Group friends by online status (active on top, idle below)
• Install themes or skins on Facebook
• Enable Filters to hide specific post types in the news feed
• Add custom CSS styles

Those options are just the top of the iceberg. Social Fixer is a handy extension for Facebook users who want to modify the Facebook page to their liking. It is particularly effective in removing annoying page elements like the Facebook Ticker.

Social Fixer is available on the project website for all supported browser versions. It is also directly available on the respective add-on repositories.

An alternative is the userscript Facebook Fixer.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Turn On Tag Reviews On Facebook To Avoid Being Tagged Automatically

One of the biggest sources of spam in my opinion are tags on Facebook. The reason for this is that it is possible to tag friends in photos automatically. Those information are then not only available on the profile of the user who tagged the photo, but also on the profile of the tagged user. Even worse, the photos appear in the user’s photo time line on the profile page. Plus, you also receive notifications when users comment on a photo that you are tagged in.

One could say that you better pick your friends carefully on Facebook, but we all know that this is not always possible. Facebook fortunately has implemented an option called tag reviews which allow a user to review tagged photos before they become visible on the Facebook profile page.

To enable tag reviews on Facbeook, you need to click on the down arrow in the main toolbar next to your user name and the Home link and select Privacy Settings from the menu that opens up.

Locate How Tags Work – control what happens when friends tag you or your content, and click the Edit Settings button next to it.

This opens an overlay menu with five options to change.

• Profile Review of posts friends tag you in before they go on your profile (note: tags may still appear elsewhere on Facebook)
• Tag Review of tags that friends want to add to your posts
• Maximum Profile Visibility of posts you’re tagged in once they’re on your profile
• Tag Suggestions when friends upload photos that look like you
• Friends Can Check You Into Places using the mobile Places app

Tag Review is the second option in the list. Just click on the arrow icon next to it to turn it on. This displays an informational page where you can turn on tag reviews on Facebook.

Once you enable the feature you will receive notifications whenever you have been tagged by another user in a photo. You can also turn on the Profile Review feature to approve or deny being tagged in friend’s posts that are displayed on your own profile.

Lastly, you can change the maximum profile visibility for posts that you are tagged in. You could for instance make it only visible to yourself, to friends or a specific group of users.

Making the changes to the tag privacy settings can really improve your privacy on Facebook and reduce the amount of unwanted posts and notifications that appear on your Facebook profile page. (via)

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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