A Guide to Facebook's Recent Changes

"Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper," says Facebook engineer Mark Tonkelowitz in a blog post.If you've been on Facebook in the last couple of weeks, you've probably noticed some dramatic changes in your newsfeed's layout. What with the ticker, revamped friends lists, subscribe button, and more, Facebook has been rolling out new features at a dizzying pace-- it can be hard to keep up. Here's a guide to get you up to speed. 

1. There's no longer separate feeds for "Top News" and "Recent News." Instead, all stories will show up in a unified newsfeed, but top updates will be designated by a blue upper-left corner. If you haven't logged in to Facebook for a few days (gasp!), you'll first be presented with a list of the top stories since you last logged in. Otherwise your newsfeed will display stories in chronological order. You can tell Facebook if you disagree with its ratings; just click in the top left corner to mark or unmark an item as a top story. Taking a cue from Twitter's timeline, a refresh button at the top will update automatically to show you when you have new stories. 

2. A new real-time "Ticker" will show you all of your friends' activities, live. All "lightweight" activities (liking a status, joining a group, listening to a song, etc.) go to the Ticker. Click on a story in the Ticker to see a pop-up with more details and to interact with a post without leaving your current page. Also, when you are using an app or playing a game, a special app ticker will appear showing you updates relevant to the game or app you are using.

3. A number of new features have been added to Friends Lists. First, everyone has three default lists: Close Friends, Acquaintances, and Restricted. Add someone to "Close Friends" to ensure everything they post shows in your newsfeed. If you want to limit the updates you get from a person, add them to Acquaintances. Finally, friends in your "Restricted" list can only see posts you make public-- the perfect spot for parents, old teachers and employers! Facebook has also added "Smart Lists," which take information that you've added to your profile to create lists of friends who go to school or work with you, live near you, or are family. For example, if you list "New York, NY" as your current city on your profile, a list called "New York Area" will be created for you, which initially will include all friends who also list New York as their current city. You can manually add and remove friends in smart lists. You can also merge lists, so your old lists can transition to the new smart lists with ease.

4. You can now "subscribe" to a person or a fan page's public updates, and people can subscribe to you, all without adding you as a friend-- if you allow it. This sounds like a feature geared more towards public figures than the average Facebook user, but if you want to opt in, you can do so here. When you subscribe to someone, you can choose what kind of updates from them you want in your news feed. Since you are automatically subscribed to your friends, you can go to their profile, click the "Subscribed" button in the top right and filter the updates you see from them as well. 

So, what do you think of these changes to Facebook? Love them? Hate them? Let us know in the comments!

Use Facebook to Augment and Restore Your Photo Library

Now if my computer were to explode, my high resolution photos of Luke holding keyboards would be safe on Facebook.

Earlier this week, we all got to endure irate status updates and Tweets about Facebook's new photo viewer, which ineviteably faded away after a few hours.  Now that the dust has settled, it's clear that Facebook has emerged as a tremendous last-ditch backup utility for your cherished photos.

For a few weeks before the new lightbox viewer went live, Facebook has been giving users the option of uploading their photos in high resolution, which compresses them to 2048 pixels wide, rather than the paltry 720 pixels that we've been used to.  Though the difference isn't evident in the viewer itself, you can download the high resolution via a link on the bottom left of the photo.  This is great for archiving pictures of yourself that friends took, or saving albums from parties without risking your own camera.  The images aren't full resolution, but they're big enough to look good on your computer screen.  

Read on to learn how to use Facebook photos in a crisis

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Facebook Launches New Profile

Ch-ch-ch-changes. Facebook, in an attempt to stay current and hip (haven't you seen The Social Network?), has just launched a new profile for their users. Screenshots are from Facebook's blog and are being displayed through fair use. As much as I love the readers of HackCollege, and would love to provide a more personal experience, I won't be displaying my personal profile for the sake of my friends' privacy (and maybe my own, too).

Some notable changes:

 

• The profile "snapshot". Underneath a user's name, the elevator speech of their life is listed. For me, work information comes first, followed by education, current city and hometown, relationship status (if in a relationship), and birthday. This is followed by a row of recently-tagged photos, which the user does have the discretion of choosing - in an attempt to show what the user's recently been up to.
• The profile "tabs" have disappeared, and now appear in a list off to the side, under one's profile picture.

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Idiotproofing Your Facebook Photos and Videos

Yep, THAT red cup. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Chris Makarsky. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

So it happened. Your first red cup picture has made its appearance on Facebook. Most likely you're underage - and you're probably a freshman who let your squeaky clean high school reputation slip a bit. But the question is - what do I do now?

In the United States, drinking under the age of  21 is illegal. However, for some reason, social networking sites like Facebook are hotbeds for photos of underage beer pong, keg stands, Jello shots, and undercover vice cops. 

Wait, what? Follow these tips below to protect yourself from getting into trouble by not being cautious enough on Facebook.

Click to read more ...

Facebook Unleashes New Privacy Controls

What the new privacy page will look like. Click here for more info straight from ZuckerbergWe've been talking a lot about Facebook lately because, frankly, about 99% of college students use it.  When Zuckerberg and co. came out with their incredibly fine-grained confusing new settings that defaulted to making tons of information public a few months ago, it gave rise to the usual crop of "1,000,000 Strong Against the New Facebook" groups.  But something was different this time.  People started talking seriously about abandoning ship and actually deleting their accounts.  A few enterprising college students even started making their own social network in response to the changes.  

It doesn't happen often, but this time the outcry was loud enough to actually make Facebook backtrack and respond to the criticism.  Over the next two weeks, Facebook will be rolling out a streamlined and simplified privacy page to help you lock down your information to your heart's content.  They will even prompt you upon signing in to check out the changes and update your settings.  Nice of them, right?

Overall the response from the blogosphere has been positive, but bear in mind that simplified settings mean fewer options.  For example, you won't be able to choose what non-friends will see if they search for you (your name, gender, profile picture, and networks are all fair game), and you can't choose different options for your posts, photos, and status updates anymore.  It will be interesting to see how college students, still Facebook's bread-and-butter audience, will react to the new changes.

Has Facebook graced you with the new options yet?  What do you think of the policy?  Let us know in the comments.

Scan and Reclaim Your Facebook Privacy

As you can see, I have some work to do on my profile.Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about Facebook's recent privacy snafus. In fact, a few astute readers were correct in predicting the social network's issues in the comments of this recent post.  Part of the problem stems from the fact that it's just plain confusing to change your privacy settings with over 30 different options to fine tune.  Luckily, reclaimprivacy.org has a handy little bookmarklet that makes it dead simple to see if you're sharing the pictures from that end-of-year foam party with a few too many people.  

Just head over to the site and drag the bookmarklet into your bookmarks bar. Click it from your Facebook home page, and you'll get an easy to read red, yellow, or green indicator for a bunch of different privacy measures.  It even gives you options to easily change your settings and secure your online identity.  

[Via Lifehacker]

5 Great Faux-Home-cooked Dishes You Can Make in the Microwave in Your Dorm

Say hello to the newest HackCollege writer. Her name's Kahley Emerson and she's currently a sophomore at ASU. Give her a warm welcome. ~Kelly

While the meal-plan cafeterias and 2 am pizza runs are part of what the college diet is all about, sometimes all I want is a piping hot piece of my mom’s homemade chicken potpies.

For obvious reasons, dorm life usually doesn’t feature a complete culinary playground; most halls don’t even allow hotplates. One option, for those like myself in search of a home-cooked meal, is to use the floor’s communal kitchen, but proves problematic as soon as any aromas leak out to tempt the stoners next door.

The other alternative is to make the best of the top half of my ingenious microwave/mini-fridge combo tower.

Sure, I still have not found a way to duplicate my mother’s scrumptious pie in the zapper, but I have found these five meal options that are both tasty and can be concocted using just the magical heating ability of microwaves.

1. Mary's Microwave Almond Fudge:

While most of the ingredients require a trip off campus, these little chocolate confections do a good job of slaking my chocolate cravings.

2. Easy Microwave Chilaquiles:

Ready in about 20 min, this Mexican-inspired layered dish is a perfect companion to an icy Corona 6-pack among friends… or a study session…

3. Spaghetti in the Microwave:

It takes a little more than half-an-hour and can be customized to anyone’s liking. I swear it's not as sketchy as it sounds.

4. Microwave Scrambled Eggs:

I know these sound a little peculiar at first, but hey, isn’t college is all about experimentation?

5. Microwaved Potato:

The Irish in me refuses to leave behind potatoes for college, and the sloth in me loves how easy it is to wave myself a hot spud.

And you thought the microwave was just for cup o’noodles…

What are some of your favorite dorm-made food items? Let us know in some comments!

Facebook Turns On New Theme

As of today, Facebook has made its newest theme-change official. This is the most aggressive theme change yet, with a complete reorganization and a yet-again minimalist-ization (that is definitely not a word) to the profile pages.

To check it out for yourself, just visit www.new.facebook.com.

As with all Facebook updates, there's going to be a lot of backlash. Facebook has learned from their previous roll-outs and are now giving people the option to "opt-in" to the new layout. Kudos to them.

2008 Facebook Prius

Everything that you know and perhaps love about Facebook is still there. Everything's just in a different place. While the number of columns has stayed the same (3), the width of each column has increased.

Everything that used to be in the main column has been compressed into tabs. That personal info top spot has been replaced by a Mini-Feed/Wall hybrid. Everything that gets written on your wall or every action you perform now shows up on your Wall.

My jury is still out on this concept; I can't decide if they just charlie-foxtrotted two features together or if the combination makes sense to me.

What's the Same

The core functionality of Facebook is the same. Applications are still there. Info is still there. Everything is still there, it's just gotten a face lift (pun). Think Michael Jackson (joke).

Dominant Ad Placement

There have been some grumblings from advertisers recently that Facebook ads are continually under-performing, even though Facebook ads are probably the most targeted things possible.

In film, the dominant side of frame is considered the right side of frame. Because the Western World reads left-to-right, your eyes "stop" at the right. A good example of this is any late night talk show. Hosts always sit on the right.

Thus, the ad position has moved from being a forgotten space in the bottom-left-hand corner of the screen to an in-your-face top-right dominatrix. Maybe this will appease advertisers' woes?

Twitter, Anyone?

This update stresses the single-feed mentality that is the rage these days. Like Twitter or Pownce, all action is being consolidated into one stream of information. This stream of information may be a fire hose but--hey!--it's all in one place. Maybe this will make people think twice about becoming "friends" with someone on Facebook.

Boxes?

Any application that lets you put something your page can now be seen in the new "Boxes" tab on each profile. Facebook is forcing users to keep their profiles clean of 3rd party applications. While it's draconian, I like it. It means I won't have to scroll past 13 different variations of a SuperWall application to just leave someone a note.

Conclusion

After the initial cross-eyedness and "This is bullshit" reaction, the Facelift is growing on me.

How do you feel about the new Facebook changes? Let us know in some comments.