How to Bring In Your Facebook Contacts to Google +

UPDATE: Facebook has blocked the former method

But don't be too saddened, there is this new Google Chrome extension that makes extracting Facebook contacts a lot easier, and also reconstruct your respective social graphs on Google +.

Facebook Friends Exporter as this extension is called, allows you to transfer details that your Facebook friends have shared with you (i.e. their names, email addresses, phone numbers, websites, addresses and birthdays).  The information should be saved as a CSV file or imported directly into your Gmail address book as a folder labeled "Facebook contacts Imported"

A user’s Google+ connections are based upon his or her Gmail address book. To get started, users are encouraged to sift through their Google contacts to add them to “Circles” for friends, family, classmates, co-workers and other custom groups. Circles is Google’s attempt to help users interact better with specific social groups.

According to CNET reporter Stephen Shankland he noted that that this tool probably won’t rub well with Facebook, citing Section 3.2 of Facebook’s terms of service: “You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.”

Apparently there will be some sort of opposition between the two social giants, because Google has for long held the philosophy of users been able to extract their data (i mean their entire data, including Google contacts using Google Takeout). And Facebook on the other hand, attest to this as a very "serious privacy concerns".

Now i ought to warn you that using this extension is at your own risk according to the programmer Mohamed Mansour. Currently 30k + users have used it and not one of them have received ban notice from Facebook.

Add All Your Friends from Facebook To Google +

UPDATE: Facebook has just blocked this tool.

While you're settling into Google+, you might notice that it's a little lonely without your friends.

Since most of your friends are currently on Facebook (and might not even know about Google+), you'll need to help them make the switch.

Here's how:

Step 1:

Log into your Yahoo Mail account. If you don't have one yet, create one. Then, head to the "Contacts" tab in the mail dashboard. Click "Import contacts" and then select the Facebook icon in the next screen. You'll be asked to authorize the connection.

Yahoo will import all your Facebook friends' names and e-mails into your contacts list.

Step 2: Go to Google+, log in, and click "View and edit" in the sidebar on the right (below "in your circles"). In the next window, click "Find and invite." Click "Yahoo," agree to the terms, and watch as Google imports your Yahoo contacts (from Facebook) into Google+.

Step 3: Add all the Facebook friends you want on Google+ into your custom Circles. Then go to the Google+ dashboard, compose a post, and share it with those circles. Make sure to check "Also e-mail * people not yet using Google+".

Upon publishing your post, your friends will be indirectly invited to Google+.

Because Facebook doesn't allow third parties to grab users' e-mail addresses, the company will likely continue to shut down apps and extensions like, Facebook Friend Exporter, that attempt to do so.

Other Web development teams are attempting to bypass Facebook restrictions, but this Yahoo Mail workaround is the only legitimate way to get your Facebook friends onto Google+ (for now).

And if you are reading this and you've not yet gotten access to Google +, give me your email address i'll send you an invite.

UPDATE: Facebook has just blocked this tool

Facebook Unveils Video Calling Powered by Skype

Facebook has unveiled a group chat tool, a new design for its overall chat interface, and, yes, a video calling service based on Skype.

"Video calling is the first example of what we think of as a great social app," Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said during a press event at the company's Palo Alto, California, headquarters. "The integration that we've done could not have been done without the great social infrastructure we've rolled out over the last five years," he said.

The group chat tool is based on Facebook's existing Groups setup, which is now used by about 50 per cent of all Facebookers, according to Zuckerberg. The new design includes a browser sidebar that provides quick access to those you chat with most, and it offers a "call" button that launches the video service.

The video service requires a plug-in, but you can place a call to your Facebook friends that will then send them a notice pointing them to the plug-in. The service does not offer group video calling, but Zuckerberg indicated that this will eventually be rolled into the service.

The service cannot be used to call existing off-Facebook Skype clients – or vice versa. But Skype product manager Mike Barnes said that the two companies will eventually provide such off-Facebook calling.

Zuckerberg unveils video calling on Facebook

Facebook has already started to roll the new tools across its site, and "millions" of users. Bates says that the video service will reach about one per cent of users on Wednesday. According to Skype CEO Tony Bates, the two companies have been working on the video service for the past six months.

In late June, Zuckerberg told a Seattle audience that Facebook would unveil something "awesome" today, and last week, Techcrunch reported that this would involve integrating the social network with the Skype VoIP service, which is now owned by Microsoft. Redmond is a Facebook investor and longtime Facebook partner. Microsoft's Bing underpins search on Facebook, and Facebook may be used to personalized your results on Bing. Microsoft announced in May it's buying Skype for $8.5bn.

Update: This story has been updated with additional information from Facebook's press event.

iPad: Coder cracks iPad 2 jailbreak block

iDevice owners, including folk with an iPad 2, can now jailbreak their phones'n'fondleslabs with a simple visit to a website.

The site, www.jailbreakme.com, is once again up and running - coder comex last had it live a year ago - to open up iPads, GSM iPhone 3GS and 4s, and 3G and 4G iPod Touches, all running iOS 4.3, 4.3.3 or anything in between.

CDMA iPhone 4s running iOS 4.2.8 can be jailbroken too.

This is the first jailbreak for the iPad 2, which has proved tricky to crack using techniques developed in the past.

The new jailbreak installs Cydia, the independent app store from which you can download software that hasn't been sanctioned by Apple.

iOS hackers the iPhone Dev Team recommend using Cydia to install a utility called PDF Patcher 2. It blocks a hole that's usually covered at a remove by Apple's software but exposed by the comex hack.

Ubuntu: How to Install and Run Linux from your USB Flash

What do you use your USB flash drive for? Have you considered running Linux from it? A Linux Live USB flash drive is a great way to try out Linux without making any changes to your computer. It's also handy to have around in case Windows won't boot--allowing access to your hard disks--or if you just want to run a system memory test.

Install Ubuntu onto USB flash drive

There are a lot of Linux distros to choose from, but in our example, we are going to install Ubuntu using a Windows machine. Your USB flash drive should be at least 1GB in size.

Step 1: Download the 32-bit ISO of Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop and the Universal USB Installer. The ISO file is named ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso and the Universal USB installer is named Universal-USB-Installer-1.8.5.6.exe.

Step 2: Double-click on Universal-USB-Installer-1.8.5.6.exe and after accepting the license agreement, select Ubuntu 11.04 from the drop-down list.

Step 3: Browse and select the Ubuntu 11.04 ISO file you just downloaded.

Step 4: Select the drive letter of the USB flash drive you want to put Ubuntu onto and check the box to format the USB flash drive. Make sure persistent file size is set to 0MB, then click the Create button.

Step 5: Confirm the details of the install then click the Yes button.

Run Ubuntu Live

Step 1: Make sure that your computer's BIOS is set to boot from USB devices then insert the USB flash drive into a USB 2.0 port. Turn your computer on and watch it boot to the installer boot menu.

Step 2: At the installer boot menu, select "Run Ubuntu from this USB."

Step 3: You'll see Ubuntu start up and eventually get the Ubuntu desktop. From here, you can configure your Wi-Fi and use the included Firefox browser to access the Internet.

There you have it. Now you know how to set up your USB flash drive to run Linux. Keep in mind that any changes you make while running Linux Live will not be saved. If you like what you see and want to run the full-blown version of Ubuntu, you can use the USB flash drive to install it onto your computer. Good luck and have fun!

Google + : Some Fundamentals Tips You Need to Know

Adopting a new social network like Google+ is taxing enough--re-adding friends, creating "Circles", adjusting privacy settings, etc.--so learning to navigate can be a bit overwhelming.

1. Bold, italics, and strikethough. Do you miss the funky fonts and formatting you had in MySpace? Neither do we. Google+, however, gifts you with three simple formatting tricks: *bold*, _italics_, and -strikethough-.

2. Tag friends in posts. Get a friend's attention in a post by tagging them. Type "+" or "@" followed by their name. You'll see an autocomplete drop-down menu show up as you type their name, which presumably includes people in your circles and extended circles.

Your friend will be notified they've been tagged in a post, and post visibility will automatically be set to just that person. Don't forget to add more circles and friends (if you want to) before sharing.

3. Use permalinks. Permalinks come in handy for sharing and cleaner viewing of single posts. Just click the timestamp of any post and you'll be taken to a new page displaying just that post.

4. Quickly share post on Twitter and Facebook. Oh, the irony. To share a post with your Twitter or Facebook network, use the Extended Share for Google Plus Chrome extension. Upon installation, you'll see a new option ("Send to...") below each post in your stream.

5. Edit photos. Here's a nice feature for any on-the-fly photo editing. Go to your photos (accessible via your profile), select a photo. Click "Actions" > Edit photo, and you'll be presented with several photo filters. Scroll through other photos in the album for consecutive editing.

6. Send a "direct message". To send a message to just one friend, tag them in the beginning of a post and let them know it's a private message. Then, comment on the post to establish your own, private thread.

7. Let friends e-mail you from your profile. With this setting, you can let people e-mail you directly from your profile. Head to your profile, then select "Edit profile".

Below your profile photo, you'll see a grayed out "Send an email". Click it, and check "Allow people to email me from a link on my profile". Then adjust the privacy settings below.

co.cc : Google De-Indexes All .Co.Cc Domain Extensions

Google has just blocked more than 11 millions of .co.cc websites from its search engine result pages due to the fact that majority of them leverage that avenue for spam activities.

The domain .co.cc is offered by a Korea company (http://co.cc) that actually owns the domain name .co.cc, so it is not yet officially autorized as a second-level domain like co.au or co.uk.

According to google they see the firm as a "freehost" and has the right to block the whole domain "if we see a very large faction of sites on a specific freehost are spammy or low-quality", according to Matt Cutt, head of Google's web spam team.

In a recent blog post, the company said "To help protect users we recently modified those [malware-scanning] systems to identify bulk subdomain services which are being abused. In some severe cases our systems may now flag the whole bulk domain.

Recently the Anti-Phishing Working Group released  a 29-page report stating that .cc top-level domain hosted 4,963 phishing attacks in the second half of 2010, thats almost double the number found under any other extension.

Reason was due to a large number of attacks originating from .co.cc addresses, the APWG said.

The registry offers single sub-domain for free and allows customers to bulk-register 15,000 addresses at a time for a mere $1000 or about seven cents a name.

The stats on their website claims to have 5,735,855 individual accounts and a total of 11,383,736 registered domains, making it one of the largest domain extensions in the world even bigger than both .org and .uk over two million domains.