Book Report - Facebook 101

Typically, my blog is about dogS, the loves of my life, but I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about another topic, Facebook. The book I read was :

Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 minutes, Third Edition 
By: Sherry Kinkoph Gunter
Publish Date: March 26, 2012

I accessed it from the CSN’s online library while searching Web 2.0 applications. Facebook is a social networking website where you can connect with friends, family or people who share your same interests, as well as connect with businesses in the community. According to the book, Facebook is the number one social networking website on the internet today and provides a free way to connect. 

This book is great for anyone is interested in learning about Facebook and how it started as well as learn how to use it, if you are a first time user.  Even if you have a Facebook, there are so many aspects that most users don’t even know all of the capabilities available. For example, groups, events, and pages can be new to anyone who may have been on Facebook for years if they didn’t know they existed. 

The book is broken up into pieces so you can choose a section and then break it down from there or read the entire book from start to finish to learn everything there is to know.

Signing up is a piece of cake. You click on Sign Up and complete the accurate detailed information to identify yourself and bam, you have an account. There are really only two items that must be legitimate in order to receive your account and they are your real name and email address. The idea of Facebook was built around having authenticate users, not allowing nicknames or aliases which can be odd-looking and flag you as a member and potentially be deleted. If you have an odd name you may have to contact them if it seems fake and get it approved. However, from prior experience, I’ve created my account for my fiance and I as just our first names, but it sounds like a real name since his first name is sometimes a last name. So it worked out. But that is not my name or his and it was approved. Also, you must supply a real email address to be validated as you are asked to confirm your email after you signup by clicking the link in an email they send you. Once you sign up you can edit your profile, and they give you the capability to say as much or as little as you please. You have full control over what others can see and cannot see to protect your own privacy, which is a great feature. Facebook is a very personal place to share thoughts,events and pictures with friends, but it can be scary if you are not careful about what you are posting and how you are protecting yourself from predators. .

After creating a Facebook is it very important to learn more about the privacy and how to protect yourself. All content that is uploaded still resides somewhere on the servers, including content shared with others, even if you delete it or remove your Facebook account.  So it is important to keep in mind to only post content you would want anyone to see, at anytime of your life. 

As I spoke about earlier one of my favorite aspects is groups. Finding groups was a great section for me because I feel that it allows me to find new people. It allows you to search for interests and connect with others with the same common interests and you get notified about that group, if you choose to. I personally join all of the animal groups so I can be aware of what is going on and see if there is an opportunity for me to help in any way I can. Groups are simple. You search for an interest and click “Ask to Join”. Once you are approved as a group member, then you can start interacting and meeting new people you may not have ever known. 

Facebook is not just about Personal though, they’ve created a Pages section which allows you to not have friends, but likes. Likes are used for businesses and famous people so that anyone can like them but it does not work the same as a personal page. The biggest difference is that you will receive posts this their timeline, however they will receive yours, where friending someone is the complete opposite; both parties receive notifications. 

Events is another one of my favorite features. It allows for you to post events and send e-vites to friends without ever sending out an invitation in the mail. Since so many of our friends are on Facebook, it makes it easy to create an event and send the e-vite to them. It takes one click on “Create Event” and filling in the details and then selecting the friends you want to invite. Then as the recipient, you have three options to choose from once you receive the e-vite. You can choose Yes, I’m attending, No, I’m not attending, or Maybe. This gives the host an idea of who will be coming. You can also leave comments on the event to share why or why not you are going. The only downside is that you can only invite 100 people at a time, so if you are planning on having a massive party, you will need to click on the Invite Friends link on the event’s profile page and send the invite until you’ve reached all the intended recipients. 

In conclusion, Facebook is a great tool for anyone, whether is be for business or personal because it has so much to offer. I would recommend this book to anyone who is just getting started or wants to learn a little more about what Facebook has to offer. 

Dog Heaven

Dogs are definitely the center of my world and always have been. I can't imagine my life without dogs and not just one, but a pack! If I could I would adopt all the homeless dogs and provide them with a loving home where they can enjoy life and be loved. But that's in a perfect world. For now, I have three little monsters that I adore and constantly take cute photos of, like they are my children. View the cutest dogs ever and see what a great life they have. My dogs pretty much take over my entire house and do whatever they want. Of course, I feel like they should be trained to listen, but on the other hand, I feel like that should live the life they want to live. If they want to sleep in the bed or the couch or chew things (nothing important of course, this is where listening comes in) or run around, they should be be able. Although, they can drive me nuts sometimes, I enjoy every minute I am with my dogs and I know they do to. They definitely live the life of luxury.