Saturday, September 4, 2010

Facebook: How to Use the Live Stream

Facebook has a livestream application in which live events can occur and viewers can comment on the even in real time. Each viewer’s comment gets posted to their wall with a link back to the event, which increased the visibility of the event.
Setting up a live event on Facebook, however, is more than most of us need to do and will incur some costs setting up the event through Vimeo and other Facebook partners. We can, however, still take advantage of the Livestream application and use it with static content. The viewers can still comment on the content in real time and their wall postings will increase the visibility of your video or other materials.
Here’s how to set up the Livestream application with your static content.
  1. The livestream application requires an application ID in order to work properly. You can get one of these by setting up a new application in the Facebook developer’s area. The application does not need to be added to the application directory and is basically private but you do initially set it up like a brand new Facebook app, like the numerous applications you use on your Facebook profile.
  2. Go to the Developer’s page and click on the button at the top right that says “Set Up New Application’.
  3. Give the application a name and agree to the terms of service. It has to be a unique name but I find that things like “Kim’s Demo Video” work fine. Click the Create Application button.
  4. Lately I have found that clicking the Create Application button causes Facebook to hang and then results in an error page. If I go back the developer’s page, the new application is in the list and has been created. Oh Facebook … what fun you are. It will be on the Application list on the right.
  5. Click on the application link and you will be taken to a page that looks like this.
  6. All you need at this point is the Application ID number, which is the third field down. Please note that when you create a new application and will be tied to your own fan page. If you are making the application for someone else’s page or your own fan page, you will need to specify this. Otherwise the dynamic comments will link back to your profile page rather than the client’s fan page. To do this go to Edit Settings on the right, Connect and fill in the field called Connect URL with the URL to the fan page that the application is for. Make sure you use a trailing slash at the end of the URL or Facebook will get fussy and keep telling your that the URL is wrong. You also specify the URL for a specific tab.
  7. Now that you have the application ID you can set up the FBML for your dynamic comments for the video or whatever content you’ve decided to use. The fbml looks like the following.
    <fb:live-stream event_app_id="YOUR_APPLICATION_ID" width="400"
    height="500"/>
    
    You can change the width and the height. YOUR APPLICATION ID is the application ID we obtained in the early steps when we made a new application. For example, the one for Kim’s Demo Video is 138980996142080.
  8. The live stream dynamic comments looks like the following.
  9. If you go to the wall for my profile, you will see a post that says “test” that links back to theapplication on my (Anti) Social Development fan page.
  10. In my demo I associated the dynamic comments with an older video I made. I have discussed how to add a flash video in an earlier post. And the layout is done with an old school html table. I didn’t do any other fancy styling for the purposes of this demo. Typically a “real” one will have images and a cool background, etc.

Blogger: Embed a Download Button

 To add a download button or any kind of button that will simply link to your readers to anywhere you want, just follow these simple steps:


  1. Use your mouse to select the following line of code, then press ctrl + c to copy it:
    <input type="button" name="Button" value="Download Desktop Reader!" onClick="window.open('http://www.yoursite.com/readername/reader_Install.exe', 'download'); return false;">
     
  2. In the edit HTML, press ctrl + v to paste the button code into your post. 

  3. When you view this code in an Internet browser, it should look like this:



    If you want to change the text on the button, simply replace the part of the code that reads "Download Desktop Reader!" with the message you wish to add.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Blogger: How to Embed Google Documents

Google Docs offers an undocumented feature that lets you embed PDF files and PowerPoint presentations in a web page. The files don't have to be uploaded to Google Docs, but they need to be available online.



Here's the code I used to embed the PDF file:

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf&embedded=true" style="width:600px; height:500px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>

but you should replace the bold URL with your own address. As I mentioned, the document viewer works for PDF and PPT files.

Some other sites that offer similar features: Zoho Viewer, PdfMeNot.

Update: The viewer is now available at https://docs.google.com/viewer. You can use it to embed PDF documents, PowerPoint presentations, and TIFF files.

Facebook: Change Your Facebook Fan Page URL

Step 1: Plan your page

Since today Facebook Fan pages can have vanity urls too. Meaning instead of the ugly
http://www.facebook.com/pages/the-long-name-you-chose/the-id-facebook-gave-you
you could have:
http://www.facebook.com/yourchoiceofname
In order to set the Facebook vanity url for your fan page, there are several things which need to be in place first.
  • You need to be admin of the page in question
  • It seems you also may need a verified account
  • You need to know which name you want for that page. Because once you have set it, you can never change it.
Facebook lists the following restrictions:
    • Create a username that is as close as possible to your public figure or business name (e.g. AshtonKutcher, PizzaHut).
    • If you own the rights to a given name, make it your username so that others cannot obtain it.
    • Usernames can only contain alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) or a period (".").
    • Choose a username you will be happy with for the long term. Usernames are not transferable.
    • Your username must adhere to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Step 2: Choose your vanity url

For choosing your pages url, visit http://www.facebook.com/username/. You will see something similar to this:
 image
This means, that I have set my personal username and in the bottom you do find the "Set username for your pages". Click on this and you will see a new selection: image

Now, if my page for the Global Business Women had enough fans, I could now choose to enter a name for them and show you the rest. ;)

Step 3: Setting the URL

I will follow with more information once I have a page over 100 fans to check how this goes ;)

Further information from the help entry from Facebook:
  • Infringement: If you wish to report that someone’s username infringes your rights, please fill out our username infringement form. The form is located here.
  • I am an authorized representative for a public figure, brand or business and/or hold the rights to a trademark name. My username was claimed by another user. What can I do?
    If you wish to report that someone’s username infringes your rights, please fill out our username IP infringement form.
  • What is the process to request removal of an unauthorized Page of a public figure, brand or business?
    If you wish to report that someone’s username infringes your rights, all you need to do is fill out our username IP infringement form here.
  • Will usernames such as "flowers" or "pizza" ever be available for Facebook Pages? Can I sign up on a waiting list?
    At this time, generic words are not available as usernames. Facebook encourages all users and Page administrators to create a username that closely matches the true identity of their name or business.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Blogger: Hide/Remove Navigation Bar

Let's start hiding your navigation bar with simple steps.

1. First, Log in to Blogger.

2. On your Dashboard, click Design, then edit HTML. You should see the HTML code of your site now.

3. Next, press CTRL + F and search for "Variable Definitions".

4. After locating it, paste the code below BEFORE it.

#navbar-iframe {
      display: none !important;
}

/* Variable definitions

5. Lastly, save the code.

There you go! If you want to see your navigation bar again, just omit the code.
If you are having problems in following the steps, try watching this video.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Learn Moovler: How to Download Free Movies

Moovler is a free high quality movie download site powered by torrent sites and utorrent, software used to download movie and other torrents. Moovler primarily aims to dissipate free movies for Moovlers and all other people interested in watching high quality movies.

In this guide, we will elaborate how Moovler works and teach you how to be able to successfully download and watch the movie you've missed.

1. Download and install utorrent.

2. Start downloading movies from Moovler.

That's it. Be sure to join Moovler on Facebook for movie updates.