Facebook raj

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Facebook Security? Not if you’re from the Philippines ….

I’m paranoid. I cover the pin-pad when entering my code at the ATM. I look over my shoulder when I’m signing into websites in public locations and promptly change passwords thereafter. I only use public washrooms… if there’s nobody else inside.

Recently facebook launched a code generator to complement their SMS code verification system.

What? Oh ya … In English.

If you opt in, facebook has a feature where, if you sign in from an unknown computer, phone, tablet or whatever, they’ll send an SMS to your verified mobile phone number that you must enter in tandem with your username and password.

It’s a great security tool for those that may inadvertently disclose their password to someone … or a phishing site — without the code, your password is useless.

Unless, of course, they have your phone … (but that’s a different story)
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aside 15 Jan

How do you post photos to facebook by email?

One great feature about facebook is they allow you to post via email. Until recently, you could get your (*secret) personal publishing address at www.facebook.com/mobile.

To the dissapointment of at least one person it’s no longer possible to get this address from the previously-cited page, nor is it even possible to get this address from a normal browser on your PC anymore.

Why would you want to post by email? Actually, the fact that Google Plus or G+ or whatever they call themselves doesn’t allow you to post by email means they’re currently excluded from the content I generate. I realized a long time ago that my facebook friends and twitter followers are different people and that some people on facebook don’t have twitter and vice versa. It’s been easy for me to cross-post content to both networks, especially photos I take and caption and push out to the world using email posting addresses.

Maybe Google will figure it out one day but until then, facebook and twitter are the most important places for me to post info.

Enter the iPhone or iPad…

Thankfully, if you’re using a browser that doesn’t support photo uploads, you can still get the facebook personal publishing address – simply navigate to the touch or mobile version of the facebook site at touch.facebook.com or m.facebook.com with your iPhone or iPhone and hit the photo button. Voila! Your personal publishing address … which you should keep secret, since anyone can post to your wall/timeline with the address.

If you ever change your facebook password, you’ll have to go to this page again as the address changes every time you update your password. Happy posting!

aside 31 Dec

What’s your Japanese name, b*tch!?

Facebook is always full of little localization/location-sensitive tricks. I started to take notice a few years ago on a trip to Mexico when I was asked if I’d like to change my language to Spanish. At the time, it appeared that facebook used Geotargeting to figure out where in the world you were. They still do this and also have an arsenal of methodologies they test to make it easier for people to connect to you.

What’s your Japanese name?

One of the languages I’ve put on my facebook profile is Nihongo, or Japanese. This prompted facebook to ask me if I had a Japanese name, which undoubtedly would make it easier for Japanese users to connect with me on facebook, if I were of Japanese descent.

One-time use QR codes

On a recent trip to Japan, I noticed several things popped up in the sidebar while communicating on facebook. One of the things that stuck out was a one-time QR code that allowed me to log in on my Japanese mobile phone

What Train Station is nearest to you?

On that same recent trip, after changing my current home location to Tokyo, Japan, facebook asked what train station was closest to me.

Facebook Asks: What's your Train Station

Questions about residence

Facebook is also curious about where you live. Especially for serving up ads. Again, while traveling, I noted that facebook asked me where I lived in order for them to serve up ads relevant to me. ‘Have you moved to Singapore?’ is what came up last time I opened up facebook in China – I was using a proxy server in Singapore to bypass the Great Firewall of China.

So why is this all important? facebook is already looking to the future – where the bulk of Internet users will not be in North America and likely won’t even speak English. As it stands, more that 75% of users are outside the United States.

Find out more on facebook’s own statistics page, HERE.

aside 1 Sep

Does Facebook discriminate against Africans?

I recently hired a new virtual assistant who resides in Kenya. He’s sharp, he gets my directives and is efficient. The hitch? Apparently facebook doesn’t really like him.

On four (4) separate occasions this week, facebook temporarily locked us both out of my account. This has not only repeatedly disrupted my authorizations from other applications and social media work, klout, facebook messenger (now a vital communication piece), and Microsoft Outlook integration, but it’s sucked a bunch of my time up, too!

It seems only I can unlock my account from my office computer, so poor Sam sits idle at night and then has to wait for me to come to the office in the morning to unlock the accounts.

Can you say annoying? After jumping through facebook’s little hoop four times, all I can say is can you get the hint, facebook?!

Well, no more – I recently turned on the VPN box I have sitting in Amazon’s cloud. The same VPN in Singapore that I used to get on facebook from China. Let’s hope that Sam can use this to get online and get to work.

I’d hate turn him to the door because of a social network that won’t let me inherently trust a whole country or ISP. I can’t imagine what would happen if I traveled to Kenya and wanted to post updates on my travels. Yikes!

aside 29 Jun

Do I look fat in this dress?

Apparently not, but facebook may discriminate against you if you’re too skinny. Well, if your photo is too skinny, that is.

I recently encountered an issue with posting a photo from an app on my iPhone called IncrediBooth. When I sent the message to facebook’s email to posting system, the images simply disappeared. When I tried a manual upload I got the message as pictured above: “The photo was either too tall or too skinny.”

IncrediBooth’s own internal facebook posting tool actually adds white padding to an image to make the image a square as a workaround but if you want to have a tall, rectangular image, for now you’re out of luck.

Facebook recently implemented this change after users started hacking their profiles to include banners and other assorted stylistic changes as seen on Alexandre Oudin‘s profile. Find out more about the hack to see what I’m talking about, HERE.

aside 17 May

Facebook in Japan

It’s interesting to travel and use facebook from foreign places. In China and Vietnam, for example, in most cases you’ll be blocked by the Government’s firewall and then you’ll be subjected to use a VPN or some other access technique to get onto facebook. In other places, facebook delivers localized tools or design.

On a recent trip to Vietnam, I was forced to use a VPN that I set up in Singapore. It was interesting to see that facebook asked me (in the sidebar) straight up if I was in Singapore, if I was visiting Singapore or a permanent resident.

On my most recent trip to Japan, more neatness. Facebook makes it easy for Japanese users to log into their site with a disposable autologin QR code as seen below.

Use Facebook on your mobile phone

We’ve been working hard to make Facebook Mobile usable in Japan. There is still a long way to go but most of the basic functionality is there. Please check it out and let us know what you think.

Facebook Mobile is helpful for keeping up with your friends when you’re on the go.

Read the “auto .ogin QR code” with your mobile phone.

http://m.facebook.com

Do not share this QR code with anyone else – it is personalized to log you in automatically. For your protection, the QR code can be used only once and expires after 24 hours.

Click the image (above) for the fullsize screenshot.

aside 9 Jun

Facebook in Spanish

It looks like Facebook uses geo targeting based on IP address to find out what country you’re in. They base their ads and various other ‘features’ on this and sometimes you get odd quirks.

During my last trip to Mexico, I dragged along my laptop and connected it to the hotel’s Wifi. Upon logging into Facebook, I got the following message:

¡Bienvenidos a Facebook en Español!
Ahora hispanohablantes en todo el mundo pueden unirse a Facebook. Conéctate co todos tus amigos, en cualquier idioma.

Puedes cambiar tu preferencia de idioma ahora: English

Usa el buscador de amigos para ver si mas de tus amigos se han unido e invita a todos tus amigos hispanohablantes a que se registren.

According to the Facebook Blog, the Spanish language feature was released in January. No word on when geo targeting made its way to Facebook but likely this happened before the whole language thing.

On another trip, I took my laptop to Calgary and again logged into Facebook. From that point on, I started to see Calgary centric ads on Facebook. Now, even though I’m back in Vancouver, it seems that Facebook still thinks I’m somewhere in Alberta. It might be that the IP address I’m currently using isn’t listed in their geo ip database so the last definite location they have me set at is Calgary.

aside 9 Jun

Warning! Your account could be disabled.

In February, 2008, I received a disturbing message from Facebook:

Warning! your account could be disabled.
You are using this feature to spam other users. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features will result in your account being disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.

Well, this was after being kicked off from Facebook in January, so I was a bit on guard. The error must have been inadvertent – how the heck could i be spamming by writing on a wall of an event that I was unable to attend? I asked the people at Facebook and received a response. More on this after the jump.
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aside 26 Mar

Your Facebook account has been disabled by an administrator.

UPDATE – September 8th, 2008:

Looks to be a pretty important topic out there. It appears that one out of a thousand visitors that view this blog post thinks that either I’m facebook or that I’m affiliated with facebook. Let me be clear:

I am neither facebook, nor am I affiliated with facebook.

I repeat,

I AM NOT FACEBOOK.

Leaving a comment on this blog asking to be reinstated will only lead you to being publically ridiculed.

Now, back to regular programming…

Earlier this year, in January, my facebook account got suspended. I’ve always seen it as an opportunity to talk about the various implications (and opportunities) presented by this suspension but it’s taken me forever to finally get to it.

Read past the jump to find out more about it.
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Facebook

Facebook Security? Not if you’re from the Philippines ….

How do you post photos to facebook by email?

What’s your Japanese name, b*tch!?

Does Facebook discriminate against Africans?

Do I look fat in this dress?

Facebook in Japan

Facebook in Spanish

Warning! Your account could be disabled.

Your Facebook account has been disabled by an administrator.

I AM NOT FACEBOOK.

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