How to Know When Someone 'De-Friends' You on Facebook

Just last week Facebook reminded users of the options they had for ignoring unwanted friend requests and the social network is trying to make it as painless and subtle as possible for all parties involved. Another issue that got the same treatment was removing a friend from your list, which was also a subtle action with the ones removed not notified in any way. Unless they have the Friends Checker Greasemonkey script, that is, which brings up a hard to miss message when a user removes them.


“When the script detects that someone you used to be friends with is no longer one of your friends, a message will appear informing you about who it was and giving a link to their profile page,” the script's entry on Userscripts.org says. “The script checks by default once per hour when on Facebook, but this time can be increased.“

The script, spotted by Inside Facebook, is simple to use, assuming you can handle installing a Greasemonkey script, and its functionality is limited but to the point. Facebook Friends Checker regularly polls the social network to see who has “de-friended” you in the interval since the last check. The polling interval can be adjusted by going to the Greasemonkey entry in Firefox's Tools menu and then selecting “User script commands” followed by “Set time interval to check for removed friends.”

With Friends Checker you can automatically see who has removed you from their list every time you visit the site. Of course you could check this manually by going through each friend's profile but this isn't really an option especially for those with hundreds of friends. Facebook itself, for obvious reasons, doesn't send any notifications in this event. However, there's no need to worry just yet as the script has been installed only about 20,000 times which, while a decent number by itself, pales in comparison to the more than 250 million registered users the social network has at the moment so the chances of someone you're removing using it are pretty slim.

Source: Softpedia.com

Bored? 7 Ways Turn Downtime into Uptime

When you’re self-employed, it’s very common to experience periods of downtime. In fact, in my experience, there tends to be a somewhat predictable cycle that brings about periods of increased workflow that’s followed by a slow down.

When the slow down occurs and how long it lasts is different for every business. But if your business is anything like mine, the periods of the workflow cycle can be intense – from more incoming work than you can handle to an abrupt quiet period. I have come to appreciate this downtime, though, and have a number of things I do to turn the silence into productive time for my business. Here are some ideas:

1. Revisit Your Goals

Spend some time analyzing your goals, the progress you’ve made and what you need to do to stay on course. It’s also helpful to create some mini-goals that will help the process and give you specific activities with measurable results that you can do immediately.

2. Focus on Social Media

Review and revise your social media accounts, update your profiles and join new online business networks. A slowdown in work is also a great time to become more active on social networks and start to build and enhance your relationships.

3. Assess Your Web Site

If you have less client work coming in, it could be the perfect time to give your own web site a close look. Read through the content, check your contact information, perform a SEO check, and test out forms and functionality. You may also want to update your portfolio so it reflects your most recent projects.

4. Reach Out to Clients

Downtime is a great time to send clients a feedback survey to get their take on your work if you didn’t do it at the end of a project. You can also use this time to ask clients for testimonials to use in your marketing materials.

5. Follow-Up and Re-Pitch

Do you have a few proposals out there that you have yet to hear back on? Follow-up with prospects to see if there is still an interest. You may be able to generate some new work, or at least clear your pending list of dead opportunities.

6. Get Organized

If you’ve been fumbling with your tasks and struggling to manage projects, now is a great time to work on your systems. Migrate to a new project management app or try out a new to-do list system to become more productive and less scattered. It’s also a great time to clean your office, organize your files and focus on administrative tasks that tend to be forgotten.

7. Get Away from Work

A workflow slowdown can be the perfect time to take a break, get away from work and refresh your outlook. In my experience, a quiet period is usually followed by a quick ramp up in work, so take the time to enjoy the calm before the storm.

If you can predict this period of downtime, keeping a running list of downtime tasks can help you avoid wasted time. And being focused and busy when work is slow will help you avoid any stress and anxiety that may come with a lack of work.

Plus, if you truly make the most of downtime, you will likely find that it goes by too fast to allow you to accomplish all of your downtime goals, which is not a bad position to be in.

How do you handle downtime in your workflow?

Source: www.sitepoint.com

73 Ways to Become a Better Writer

Do you want to become a better writer? Silly question, eh.

The good news is that writing makes you a better writer. Just like practicing the piano makes you a better pianist, or riding a trail bike makes you a better biker.

A few weeks ago I asked a question on Write to Done: What Helps YOU Become a Better Writer? The suggestions the readers offered were so rich and varied that I decided to gather them all together for Copyblogger readers.

I think there is one guaranteed winner among the seventy-two suggestions - blogging. Writing a blog is an amazing way to sharpen one’s skills. As bloggers we have to produce words daily - even when we don’t feel like it. And we get instant feed-back through comments. As Leo Babauta points out in his inspiring story How I got 100,000 Subscribers: Lessons from Zen Habits, it’s the readers that help us improve.
Doing these things can help you become a better writer:

1. Become a blogger.

2. Use self-imposed word limits.

3. Accept all forms of criticism and learn to grow from it.

4. Read what you’ve written over and over, until you can’t find any more problems.

5. Show what you write to a trusted friend for feedback.

6. Outline. And then write to that outline.

7. Edit, and edit again.

8. Live with passion.

9. Be open, curious, present, and engaged.

10. Take a break between writing and editing.

11. Learn a new word a day.

12. Get the pen and fingers moving.

13. Write in different genres: blog posts, poems, short stories, essays.

14. Read grammar books.

15. Write without distractions.

16. Challenge yourself: write in a crowded cafe, write on the toilet, write for 24 hours straight.

17. Take a trip. Road trips, beach trips, bus trips, plane trips.

18. Watch movies. Can you write the story better?

19. Write. And then write some more.

20. Read, think, read, write, ponder, write - and read some more.

21. Read your stuff aloud to anyone who can stand it - including the cat.

22. Go back and cut 10% from your word count.

23. Talk to people.

24. Listen to how people talk.

25. Read lots of books. Both good and bad.

26. Make notes of your (fleeting) brilliant ideas.

27. Start your writing ahead of time - not hours before a deadline.

28. Listen to podcasts on writing tips.

29. Use simple, declarative sentences.

30. Avoid passive voice.

31. Limit your use of adjectives and adverbs.

32. When in doubt, cut it out.

33. Kill clunky sentences.

34. Be inspired by other art forms - music, dance, sculpture, painting.

35. Read your old stuff and acknowledge how far you’ve come - and how far you have to go.

36. Write for publication, even if it’s only for the local newsletter or a small blog.

37. Make writing your priority in the morning.

38. Keep squeezing words out even if you feel uninspired.

39. Tell everyone: “I’m a writer.”

40. Recognize your fear and overcome it.

41. Let your articles rest and then return to them with fresh eyes.

42. Comment on your favorite blogs.

43. Keep a journal to keep the writing juices flowing.

44. Use a journal to sort out your thoughts and feelings.

45. Keep it simple.

46. Practice monotasking. Set a timer for uninterrupted writing.

47. Watch people.

48. Get to know someone different from you and reflect on the experience.

49. Try new ideas or hobbies - the more variety you have in your life, the more likely you are to keep on generating good ideas on the page.

50. Read works from different cultures. It helps keep your writing from tasting stale in the mouths of your readers.

51. Rethink what is ‘normal’.

52. Work on brilliant headlines.

53. Check if your assumptions are right.

54. Join a writing group. If you can’t find one, form one.

55. Write during your most productive hours of the day.

56. Designate time to research.

57. Take time to muse and mindmap.

58. Map out a writing schedule for your project and stick to it.

59. Ask someone else to proofread.

60. Read Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” at least once a year.

61. Break out of your comfort zone.

62. Write at the scene. If you want to write about a beach, get a picnic rug and go write by the sea.

63. Go to the supermarket, the ball game, the class room, the building site. Make notes of the sensuous details, the atmosphere, the people.

64. Start with metaphors and stories.

65. Approach writing with gratitude, not just with a ‘must do this’ attitude.

66. Deconstruct and analyze books and articles you enjoy.

67. Know about story architecture. Many writers don’t. Which is like doing heart surgery or flying an airliner by intuition. Survival rates are low.

68. Socialize with other writers.

69. Stretch or exercise in between writing.

70. Make a note of ideas for further development before you leave a piece for tomorrow.

71.Use mindmaps for inspiration.

72. Take risks - don’t be afraid to shock. You are not who you think you are.

73. [Please add your own suggestion in the comment section!]

I hope that one or more of these suggestions has inspired you. Let me know which ones resonated with you. And please add to the list. I look forward to reading your comments! Thanks to all the Write to Done readers who contributed to this list.

Article source: http://www.copyblogger.com/better-writer/

Google building 3D hardware boost into Chrome

Departing significantly from what other browsers offer, Google has begun building its O3D plug-in for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics into its Chrome browser.

"The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we're close to being able to complete our first step towards integration," said programmer Greg Spencer in a mailing list announcement Wednesday about Chromium, the open-source project that underlies Chrome itself. "I'll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process."

By helping to pave the way for high-powered Web-based games, the move furthers Google's ambition to speed the transformation of the Web from a static medium into a foundation for applications. Another piece of the work is Google Native Client, which is designed to let Web applications take advantage of a computer's native processing power.

The overall effort has taken on new importance with the announcement of Chrome OS, Google's Chrome-based operating system set to arrive on Netbooks in the second half of 2010. Chrome OS will use Linux under the covers, but the real foundation for Chrome OS applications is the Web, Google has said.

Native Client coming, too
Google plans to build Native Client into Chrome, too.

"We recognize that there is well-justified resistance to installing browser plug-ins. For this reason, we have a strong preference for delivering Native Client pre-installed or built into the browser, and we'll be focusing on that as our main strategy for delivering Native Client to users," said Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client effort, in June.

Just offering the technologies is only a first step. Google must convince programmers to learn to use them and convince Web developers to embrace them. That's not simple, especially when few browsers can take advantage of them.
Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client

Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Chrome won't be the only browser to feature the acceleration features, though, because Google is working on plug-in versions, too. By building the technology into Chrome, Google could exert some pressure on others to support it.

Making Native Client and O3D into some kind of standard could help convince programmers the technologies are worth supporting and win over potential rivals. "The support of ratified standards (that Web developers) can use is something that we are extremely supportive of," said Amy Barzdukas, general manager for IE, in an earlier interview.

After years of near-dormancy, development of HTML, the language used to describe Web pages, has hit a feverish pace right now as browser makers try to make the Web into more of an applications platform.

Browser wars are back
Google added new fury to the browser wars when it introduced Chrome in September 2008. Chrome has attained a small but respectable market share of nearly 2 percent, according to research from Net Applications, but it has a long way to go expanding from the technophiles to the mainstream.

Chrome doesn't have the Internet Explorer or Safari advantage of being built into an operating system--though that could change over the years if Chrome OS manages to overcome its challenges and catch on widely. And Mozilla's Firefox took years to achieve its present market share of about 20 percent, making it the top alternative to IE and in widespread enough use that Web developers often choose to make sure their Web sites work with it.

Google has been spending a lot of time reproducing what other browsers already have--plug-ins, bookmark management, print preview, and any number of mundane but useful features. But Google also has been working on innovation, including more robust security and faster performance when running applications written in the JavaScript Web programming language.

Google has high hopes that it'll be able to match the performance of desktop applications with its technology.

"With O3D, we think we'll be able to enable high-quality games, the kind you're accustomed to seeing on consoles, as well as CAD (computer-aided design) applications," Chen said in a May speech. And regarding Native Client, "We want to be within single-digit percentages of what you can do with the best desktop native code," he said.

Google also is participating in a separate 3D Web graphics effort spearheaded by Mozilla and the Khronos Group.

Article source: CNET

MySpeed: Watch video at your own pace

There are some videos that drone on--business presentations, product demos, and online driving school--and others that rush by too quickly. MySpeed is a fun, free-to-try bit of software that serves as a playback remote so you can watch Flash videos at your own pace.

The simple app consists of a sliding bar that's set to 1.0, regular time, when a video plays. Slide it to the left to slow the sound and picture, or to the right to speed both elements to two or three times the original speed. You can also use shortcut keys to quicken or slow the video. Crtl+Alt+F makes it faster; Crtl+Alt+S drags it down.

The audio and video largely remained in sync when tampered with, but original trip-ups in streaming and buffering were more noticeable with the video accelerated. If you don't set MySpeed to start on boot-up, you'll need to open it each session. After that, it'll run in the background from the system tray.

MySpeed is an amusing, sometimes time-saving utility for YouTube and sources of Flash video. However, for the $30 post-trial asking price for the Windows app, it's clearly aimed at very frequent video watchers, especially e-learners who may want to breeze by some sections of a module and stroll through other, more technical segments.

Article source: CNET

Facebook Connect Available Now in Multiple Languages

Facebook may be the biggest social network in the world and one of the most visited web sites but it doesn't stop here. The company wants to get as many people as possible using the service and while the site is already the most visited destination online it aims to connect to its users even when they are visiting other sites. This is where Facebook Connect comes in, allowing any site or service to offer Facebook integration.
And with the social network having such a big presence worldwide it was only a matter of time before Facebook Connect got internationalized.

Being the premier social network in the world, as it has officially passed 250 million registered users with only 70 million or so in the US, it’s easy to see why it would need a powerful localized experience and, in fact, Facebook is available in 64 languages already, just 18 months since the program was launched. And now Facebook Connect users can benefit from the same level of service, with all of the features currently available in their native language.

“Developers who've implemented Facebook Connect, including those who have installed social widgets like the Fan Box, now have the ability to decide in which language they want their Facebook Connect features rendered,” James Leszczenski writes on the Facebook developer blog. “When a user first connects to your site, or publishes something back to Facebook, the Facebook Connect content will appear in the language you specify. User-generated content continues to appear in the language in which it was written.”

Facebook Connect has been a resounding success for the site, having been deployed by more than 15,000 sites or services in a little over six months since its launch. The login standard has been adopted by several large companies already, allowing users to login with their Facebook credentials. The localization feature is easy to implement, with webmasters having to make just small modifications to their code.

Article source: Softpedia

Adobe Releases Beta Text Layout Framework

This week, Adobe announced the beta release of the Text Layout Framework, an extensible library, built on the new text engine in Adobe Flash Player 10. This will allow developers and designers to use more sophisticated typography layouts in Web applications. The framework is intended for use with Adobe Flash CS4 Professional or Adobe Flex, and is included in the next version of Flex, code named Gumbo.

The Text Layout Framework delivers multi-lingual, print-quality typography for the web, including support for:

* Bidirectional text, vertical text and over 30 writing systems including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Lao, the major writing systems of India, and others
* Selection, editing and flowing text across multiple columns and linked containers, and around inline images
* Vertical text, Tate-Chu-Yoko (horizontal within vertical text) and justifier for East Asian typography
* Rich typographical controls, including kerning, ligatures, typographic case, digit case, digit width and discretionary hyphens
* Cut, copy, paste, undo and standard keyboard and mouse gestures for editing
* Rich developer APIs to manipulate text content, layout, markup and create custom text components

While this might be especially of interest to developers (because it looks like there is a bit of hard work behind the scenes to use it), for designers it means that online typography design is coming closer to what can be achieved in print. On the Adobe website you can test out eight examples of how you can manipulate and control text. Examples include working with columns, text effects, linked containers, ligatures and graphics. On first impression, the ability to work with text like this feels a little bit like InDesign “lite,” which is very exciting if you love type and are frustrated with current limitations on the web.

Do you think the Text Layout Framework sounds like something good for designers and developers to work together on?

Article source: Sitepoint