Social

How to keep apps, games and websites from spamming your Facebook Timeline

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 5, 2018

One of the biggest challenges Facebook users face in their daily usage of the service involves keeping apps, games and websites that connect to Facebook as a sign-in mechanism from posting random updates, unwanted stores, ad links and other garbage on their Timeline.

For most people, this constitutes spamming because not only do these posts appear on your own Timeline, but also in your friends' News Feed and ticker.

Unfortunately, too few people are aware that they can easily squelch this spammy behavior with just a few clicks. In this tutorial, we're going to show you the tools Facebook put at your disposal which were designed to stop apps from posting updates on your behalf.

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Twitter rolls out a new timeline feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 18, 2016
Twitter's bird logo set against a transparent background

The pressure mounts on Twitter to re-ignite growth, which has virtually come to a halt as average users increasingly find the service too confusing and difficult to use. Today, the micro-blogging service unveiled yet another refinement designed to adjust how the timeline surfaces interesting content.

Similar to the “While you were away” timeline feature which released a year ago, Twitter will now put recommended, not the newest, tweets at the top of your timeline so that you never miss important updates from people you follow.

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Accessing Facebook in Safari can increase iPhone 6s Plus battery life by 15 percent

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 8, 2016

According to The Guardian's technology reporter Samuel Gibbs, uninstalling Facebook's battery draining iOS app and accessing the mobile Facebook interface through the Safari browser can boost an iPhone 6s Plus's battery life by as much as fifteen percent.

Gibbs cited his own testing, which has revealed that Facebook's mobile application continues to drain the life out of an iPhone's battery even when it isn’t being actively used.

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Twitter is testing a dedicated GIF button

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 4, 2016

Thursday, TechCrunch reported that some users of Twitter's mobile application for Android had briefly seen a dedicated GIF button inside the app before it disappeared on its own. The new button gave them quick access to trending GIFs and was located between the camera and poll icons inside Twitter's Android app.

According to user Phil Perlman, tapping the button lets you select trending GIFs, or tap through to choose a GIF reaction based on mood categories.

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How to annotate email attachments in iOS with Markup

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated January 29, 2018

One of the major features that shipped with iOS 9 was Markup, better known for the ability to draw on and annotate attachments of various file types that you receive in the Mail app and then send them back to the original sender, or someone else for that matter.

Despite how useful this feature is, few people actually use it, either because they don't know it exists or they don't know how to access it. In this tutorial, we'll take you through how to access it and cover some of the features it provides.

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Browse viral memes and see posts that are blowing up on Vine’s new Trends page

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Yesterday, Vine celebrated its third anniversary and launched a dedicated Trends webpage which collects all the clips that have gone viral on the service in one central place. Users can check out the original video that started the trend, see related Vines and select a growing trend.

In addition, they have collected 2015's most entertaining Vines, remixes and collaborations at the website year3.vine.co, including stuff like the most-looped Vine of Year 3 and posts that sparked some of the biggest trends of the year, such as What are Those?, Why You Always Lying? and Duck Army.

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Facebook launches sports section

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 21, 2016

Yesterday, Facebook announced a brand new section on the service dedicated to sports fans and it gets its first big test during this weekend’s NFL playoffs.

The Facebook Sports Stadium, as they're calling it because Facebook is “the world’s largest stadium,” is basically a dedicated place to experience sports in real-time with your friends and the world.

It brings all your game-related content on Facebook in one place, sorted chronologically and updated in real-time, including posts from your friends and their comments on plays, play-by-play information like where to find the game on TV, curated posts and commentary from experts, such as teams, leagues and journalists, and much more.

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How to download Facebook photos and videos

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 28, 2019

If you've been on Facebook for a few years now, chances are you've shared a bunch of photos and videos with your friends and family thus far, many of which might no longer be stored on your iOS device or Mac.

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't make things any easier by not providing a straightforward way to download the photos and videos users have uploaded to the service.

But worry not, our loyal fans, the iDownloadBlog tutorial series comes to the rescue. In this detailed tutorial, you will learn about five different techniques that will help you download Facebook photos and videos onto your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Mac without too much hassle.

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How to delete comments on Vine

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 9, 2019

I don't know about you, but I've adopted a habit of diligently going through the comments other people publish on my social media posts. I do it on a regular basis because there's nothing I hate more than seeing NSFW language or insults by other people on my posts.

Vine, a short-form video sharing service owned by Twitter, is especially notorious for attracting all sorts of commenters, many of whom just spew hate.

But worry not, ladies and gents, this quick tutorial will show you how easy it actually is to remove any offending comments from your post.

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Twitter is allegedly considering a 10,000 character limit for tweets

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 5, 2016

Micro-blogging startup Twitter is considering ditching the 140-character limit for tweets, one of its defining features, Re/code reported Tuesday citing sources familiar with the company's plans.

According to the article, the company is considering a new 10,000-character limit which would basically allow users to post longer-form content in a single tweet, as opposed to spamming their followers' feeds with a bunch of tweets.

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