Software

Software Hardware – They go hand in hand.

Tool for adding Facebook app tabs to your page.

On February 1st, Facebook officially killed all app profile pages. However, what they left behind was a confusing and difficult way for users to add their app tabs to their pages.

What use to be a simple click is now, create a new HTML page with specific code and then format your URL a specific way replacing the variables with your pages’ information. Yea, a little bit more complicated.

So, I created a tool that will do all the hard work for you. All you need to do is provide the application ID and the URL to your servers where you’re hosting the page.

Get more DropBox space AND be better prepared for a disaster.

Who loves DropBox and who wants more free space? Well everyone that uses DropBox of course.

And who has cataloged the contents of their house for insurances purposes? Probably not many.

Turns out, that you can do both right now.

DropBox is beta testing a new version of their Android app that auto syncs photos and videos you take to DropBox. For every 500MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you’ll receive another 500MB space, up to 5GB total. So all you need to do is install the beta app and start uploading.

Twitter has a job opening for a unicorn slayer.

Did you see Twitter’s awesome recruiting video? I have to say, it got my attention because it’s cheesy awesome.

While listing open jobs, I noticed that they are even hiring a unicorn slayer. Now I think that may be illegal, with them being endangered and all, but you don’t find that job to many places.

I think I’m going to stay at my current nerdy job for now, but if I ever want to fly with the blue birds, Twitter sounds like fun.

How to update your Facebook status so only some of your friends see it.

It seems like everyone is on Facebook these days. I have high school friends, co-workers, relatives and even my mother in-law follows my updates. However, I don’t always want to share everything with everyone. That’s why there are Facebook lists.

Lists are a way of organizing your friends into groups; or circles if anyone uses Google+. You can then select that list and see only updates from those friends.

You can also post updates only to a list. That way you can say “Man I totally got wasted last night” and not share it with your boss or mom. ;)

How to shrink your Facebook tabs iFrame when AutoGrow fails you.

Facebook AutoGrowWhen building a Facebook application tab, Facebook gives you a great function called FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow (formally FB.Canvas.setAutoResize) that allows for the Facebook iFrame to automatically figure out how tall it should be to incorporate all your content. As you switch between pages in your app, it continues to grow as needed.

The downside is that it doesn’t shrink. If your first page is 2000 pixels tall, and your second is only 800, the iFrame remains at 2000 pixels and you get a bunch of empty white space at the bottom.

This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow grows. And when you grow, you don’t get smaller; ever.

Google+. The social network that wants to be cool but isn’t.

Google+Who doesn’t love the idea of Goolge+? It’s a social network, from Google, that ties into your Google life. It’s got a pretty easy to use interface, does a great job at grouping friends, has video and audio chat built-in and can automatically upload every picture you take from your Android phone into the system. It has a lot of good things going for it; except no one really uses it.

Sadly, Google+ doesn’t fix the main problem with social networks; noise. I actually follow fewer people on Google+ than I do on Twitter or Facebook and it just seems more noisy. There are so many links, images and videos that it’s information overload.

Flashed Miui onto my Droid Incredible

Android Root UserI’m not a huge Android fan but I do have an Android phone that I want to love. I’m a Google fan, but the phone has not been as good as I thought it should be.

I think the real issue with Android is the fact that carriers modify it. Once Google releases an update it first has to go through HTC and then Verizon. They modify functionality, add apps you can’t remove, and cause problems.

So I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and I flashed on a new ROM; aka installed a different version of the Android operating system.

Google Music’s uploader app finally adds playlist support.

Google MusicI’ve been using Google Music for a while now, but my biggies issues is that the app uploads everything in iTunes. This means that it uploaded Christmas & children’s music whether I wanted it or not. Plus there is no way to create smart playlists so I could listen to everything but those genres.

Turns out that when I opened Google Music’s uploader system preference the other day it now appears that it supports playlists; regular not smart playlists. This should make it easier to upload only the music I want and exclude the rest.

Google Music Uploader Mac

To the CloudApp with that screenshot and return me a link.

If you’re on a Mac, Cloud is a great free app.

To The CloudApp

To use it, you just drag a document onto the application icon in the menu bar and it gets uploaded to the internet. It then copies the link to the file so you can just paste it into an email or use it wherever.

To make it even more handy, it can automatically uploads screenshots you take and return a URL to the file to your clipboard. This is very handy when I’m writing an email or a form post where I want to include a screenshot.

Why do phone carriers still charge for text messaging when there are so many free alternatives?

Texting AlternativesI’m not a big texter, but I do get a few each month from others. So I end up paying a few dollars for texts. What I don’t get is why phone carriers charge for texting when so many others give it away for free? I already pay $$ for the phone and service, why do they have to charge me on top of that?

As an alternative, my wife and I usually use Facebook Messenger. I send her pictures and texts all the time. The downside here is that you need to be friends with someone to message them.