Happy Birthday Facebook!!!

A rude awakening

As with any other day, I start my morning via logging on to (in no particular order) facebook, yahoomail, cnn.com, time.com, soccernet.com and malaysiakini.com to get my morning news and updates.

It now a routine, and I have been doing this (facebook excluded) for the past 6 years or more. So yeah, if I don't do it, my day just started on the backfoot and you better not step on my tail today or you shall be facing a very agitated Ben ;)

And today was one of those day you wouldn't want to meet me. OH YES.... one of the above website is guilty of vioalating the sanctity of my morning ritual and no other than FACEBOOK!!!

WHAT THE HECK???

As I am currently in a different time zone ( -8 hours compared to Malaysia) I would usually log onto my account and then click the "Older Posts" button on the bottom left of the page. This is to catch up with the comings and goings in the life of family and friends at home and of course to post some comments on these photo/status/relationship updates.

However, that wasn't the case for today!

I clicked and clicked but the message "No more updates to be displayed" and the last update on show was last updated 4 hours ago which means all updates from the time I went to bed to 4 hours ago mysteriously went missing!

Logging off didn't help, nor did clearing my cookies and by this point I was quite irritated by this. I decided to proceed with viewing the other websites and it was at cnn.com which I finally found out why. Read all about it here.

So what has changed???

1. Instead of having your request tab on the top right corner, it is now on the top left corner, right under the facebook logo. A smart move from the point of a marketer, but in their defence (facebook has been under heavy criticism for being over marketing their user info in the past) I am glad that I no longer see the adverts being displayed quite prominently on my page.

2. All your apps are now also on the top left side of the page instead of the bottom left, which makes sense but again it has drawn certain criticism of trying to hawk it's games and apps. Again, in facebook's defence, you are using the service for free, so bear with whatever they try to sell to you to make more advertising revenue. If you are not interested, just remove these apps, or block it from appearing on your notification. Unless you are willing to pay, stop whinning! :P

3. The privacy and account setting is now prominently displayed on the top right hand side instead of previously hidden. Makes not much of a difference to me, but with the privacy hoo-ha nowadays, it's a pretty CYA step from facebook.

4. The observant ones might notice there is no No. 4 in the accompanying photo :) However there is another change which was not mentioned, the requirement of a "Photo plug-in" to upload photos. This however would not be discussed here and will be in my next thread tomorrow :)

Conclusion

I am not affected at all at the cosmetic improvements of facebook, but more for the delays and interuptions it causes whenever one of these 'upgrades' take place. I have yet to hear about it on facebook, but from experience, when I used to upgrade my MSN, the cotact list disappears! Even then, I just go to my hotmail address book and recover everything and I am still a loyal MSN (now Window Live) user and until that happens to facebook (which I do not have a contacts backup!) I am more than willing to put up with the niggles and glitch once in a while.

And oh ya, Happy Birthday FACEBOOK!

Regards,

Ben Lai

FOOTBALLERS!!! Come on guys! You can spare 1 day's wages for Haiti!!!

Haiti a tragedy

Not one, but two major quakes to hit such an improvished country. Lying just 700 miles off the US mainland, however the gap in income disparity is way way larger than the water which separates the two land.

There have been a lot of calls to help, with the US leading the way and not suprising, twitter and facebook.

And it is nice to see that plenty of idols helping out, with White Cleft Jean being the most prominent.

Footballers are rising to the call

Sometime last week, the Germans took the first initiative. The national team, the GBL teams and even Audi & Volkswagen chipped in. Read more of it here .

It is heartwarming to see such a gesture, moreover since footballers are usually branded as nice cribs-flashy cars-spoilled brats. And guess what, not only the footballers are getting involved. Fan initiatives are urging these footballers too.

Diego "Forlone" Forlan

Forgive me for the title above.

In no way I am taking a dig at Forlan himself, but to those detractors who wrote him off when he was offloaded from MU. I like him, he reminds me of Tevez, willing to run, scores an occasional goal and being South American, has flair in his blood.

Forlone no longer, with a European Golden Boot in hand (which he shares with one very prominent Samuel E'to) and with apparently Barca looking at him, I guess a change of climate did make him a better player.

What more suprising is this: HE WAS THE FIRST TO RESPOND TO FANS CALLS TO DONATE A DAY'S WAGE TO ASSIST HAITI! YES HE DID!!!

Read more about it here.

Forlan, as ever, you amaze others around you, humble, never one for the spotlight and an honest, hard working model professional. Kudos to you, and to those who used to call you Forlone, I guess they must be choking themselves now ;)

Regards,

Ben Lai