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Facebook Home Page Not Loading – White Screen [2012]

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

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Over the past couple weeks a lot of Facebook users have been reporting a bug with the Facebook home page. It is not loading properly and the users are seeing a white or blank page only.

Since the release of Google+ in July of 2011, Facebook has been releasing update after update in an attempt to maintain their position as the leading social media platform without following through to see if there are any bugs with the releases.

Facebook has been rolling out Facebook Timeline to most of its user base and it wouldn’t surprise me if this bug had something to do with the Timeline update.

Although there is no specific solution to the white screen problem on the Facebook homepage, there are a few reported fixes that have worked for some users.

See also: How to Prepare Your Facebook Profile for the Timeline Update

Solution 1:

Try accessing Facebook using https:// instead of http://. To do this, type https://facebook.com into your browser address bar and navigate to your homepage to see if the issue is resolved. If not, move on to solution #2.

Solution 2:

Reconfigure your network settings to use IPv4 instead of IPv6. Although this solution is temporary because we will all need to use IPv6 at some point in the future, many users have reported that changing their network settings have resolved the problem.

Reconfiguring your network settings depends on the operating system you are using but you should be able to find the proper setting by accessing your wireless or wired network settings. If this does not resolve your issue, move on to solution 3.

Solution 3:

Although this solution was not reported to solve this particular problem, it is a general troubleshooting method for most internet based problems. Try clearing your browser’s cookies and cache and then try accessing Facebook again. Users have also reported that changing the way your homepage is sorted to “Top Stories” can help resolve the problem.

I will update this post as more solutions and fixes are reported. If you find a solution that is not listed above, please add it in the comments section below and I will update the post.

Posted in facebook, fix, social media, timeline, Troubleshooting, updates | No Comments »

Facebook User Statistics 2012 [Infographic]

Monday, February 20th, 2012

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Facebook has been causing a lot of chatter amongst its users lately for multiple reasons. The social media giant recently began rolling out the controversial Facebook Timeline update to all of its users. Facebook also recently filed for its initial public offering.

Despite all the buzz and recent changes, Facebook remains the most powerful social media platform available and in order to understand just how influential the service is, all one needs to do is take a look at the user statistics of Facebook so far in 2012.

An infographic (posted below) was recently published by Infographic Labs that provides us with a great overview of Facebook’s current user base.

The infographic includes information such as how many users Facebook has, how many user per country Facebook currently has, daily averages for user activity on Facebook and financial information regarding the company.

See also: 5 Ways Facebook Will Change After Going Public

Facebook User Statistics Infographic Highlights: Facebook currently has 845 million active users. Facebook accounts for 1 out of every 5 pageviews on the internet worldwide. Facebook users share over 100 billion connections collectively. Over 50% of the population in North American uses Facebook. 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook daily. There are 2.7 billion likes every single day on Facebook. 57% of Facebook user are female (43% male). The social media giant has 425 million mobile users. The average Facebook user spends 20 minutes on the site per visit. Mark Zuckerburg currently has a base salary of $500,000 but is worth over $17.5 billion. Facebook nearly doubled its revenue in 2011 by making over $1 billion ($600 million in 2010).

Posted in facebook, Infographics, internet usage, social media, statistics, Trends, users | No Comments »

How Facebook Timeline Will Change Lives

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

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Now that almost everyone has received the Facebook Timeline update, I’m ready to publicly declare some of my own opinions on the update and some of my predictions as to how Facebook Timeline will change lives in the future.

Before I really get in to why Facebook Timeline is so revolutionary, I would like to preface by noting that there are some obvious privacy concerns with Timeline and there can be a creep factor involved if you have not properly configured your Facebook profile.

See also: How to Prepare Your Facebook Profile for the Timeline Update

All the creepiness beside however, Facebook Timeline is a really really powerful tool. I have been using it since September and I love the opportunity it provides in regards to looking back at my own life as well as the lives of those close to me.

Effectively Gauge the Direction of Your Life

As you become more active with Facebook Timeline, you can more easily see the evolution of your life, the accomplishments you’ve reached, the friends you’ve met and the places you’ve traveled. It really gives you a better idea of how you’ve arrived at whatever point in life that you’re currently at.

It also allows to take a look back and better understand how the decisions you’ve made have shaped the direction of your life. Many people say the best way to prepare for the future is to look at the past – with Facebook Timeline you can do that in your very own life.

Your Great-Grandchildren Will Appreciate Facebook Timeline

I don’t usually bring my personal life into my blog posts but for the discussion of Timeline I am going to make an exception.

My grandfather died more than a decade before I was born. I’ve heard stories of him and seen him in a few photographs. Other than that, I don’t have a great idea of who my grandfather really was as a person. If he had kept an active Facebook Timeline (impossible at the time), I would have a much better idea of who he was.

Obviously when posting on your Timeline you need to be conscious of what you want other people to know about you and what you don’t. Once you hide all of the stuff that you want to keep private, you’ve got an autobiography containing rich media content for the world to see.

Imagine if your relatives from 200+ years ago had Facebook Timeline profiles! How cool would that be?

Facebook Timeline or similar services will serve as great ways to remember loved ones. If you’r parents are on Facebook, you know that your grandchildren will know so much more about their great-grandparents than you know about your own.

Facebook Timeline could be displayed at wakes and funerals to remember the passing of loved ones. I also anticipate that Facebook will offer a way to publish your Facebook Timeline profile into a print version to have a hard bound autobiography of your life.

Final Thoughts on the Future of Facebook Timeline

As I mentioned earlier, the creep factor that comes along with Facebook Timeline is something that one needs to be aware of. Make sure you group your friends into different groups and post your status updates to only the groups that you would like to have access.

Once you get a handle on managing your privacy on Facebook Timeline, you can then sit back and enjoy all the benefits it allows. The older I get, the more interested I become in the lives of my passed family members and by keeping my own Facebook Timeline profile, I am confident that those who come after me will have a way to gauge who I was as a person, what aspects of life I was most interested in and what I enjoyed the most in life.

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

Posted in facebook, future, history, social media, Technology, timeline, Trends | No Comments »

Cancel Spotify Premium Free Trial Reoccurring Payment

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

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For those of you who have tried the Spotify Premium Free Trial you may or may not be aware that after the 30-day free trial period is over, your credit card will automatically be charged for another month of Spotify Premium.

In order to avoid Spotify charging your card, you need to cancel the Spotify free trial before the 30 day period has ended.

Like most free trial cancelation processes, there are multiple confirmations that you need to go through to finalize the cancelation.

How to Disable or Remove Facebook Timeline

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

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Since the public release of Facebook Timeline there have been mixed user reactions regarding the update but one of the most common questions related to the new interface is how to delete, remove or disable it.

Although I understand why many people are asking this question, I regret to inform all of you that no matter how hard you search for a solution, there is no way to get rid of Facebook Timeline.

It is a global change that is being rolled out to every single Facebook account and Facebook user.

I do have some suggestions and tips for those of you who are upset about this drastic change to the Facebook user interface.

Prepare and Protect Your Facebook Timeline Profile

When Facebook Timeline was first released for developers, I wrote a tutorial on how to prepare your Timeline profile. I highly recommend you take a look at this article. One of the main aspects of Facebook Timeline that users are upset about is that, when the feature is first enabled, your privacy is compromised.

This tutorial will help you protect your privacy while using Facebook Timeline and it will help you prepare your configure your profile so that only information you want to be available, is actually available.

Try Out Google+

I have been using Google+ since it was released for beta testing and, although I actually do like the Facebook Timeline update, Google+ is a great option for those who no longer want to be a part of the Facebook community. The interface is much simpler in comparison to the Facebook Timeline interface and Google+ integrates will all of the other Google Apps services.

I’ve written lots of Google+ tutorials so if you’re really that upset about the direction Facebook is headed, create a Google+ account, add me to one of your Google+ circles and never look back!

Delete Your Facebook Account

If you’re really that upset about Facebook Timeline then you can always “stick it to the man” and delete your Facebook account altogether.

I personally have not gotten to this point yet but I know many people are considering it. Before you decide to delete your account it is important to realize that you will not be able to recover your information. If you have pictures, comments or other Facebook activity that you would like to be able to access at a later date then do not delete your account.

Be Patient and Keep an Open Mind

There is no doubt that there are some privacy concerns with Facebook Timeline. Once you configure your visibility for past posts and become acquainted with the new interface, Facebook Timeline is really pretty cool. It allows more personalization and being able to look at your life in a timeline format is really quite interesting.

Try to keep an open mind with Facebook Timeline and learn as much as you can about it before quitting Facebook altogether. Once you’ve gotten familiar with the new interface you may be surprised how much you end up enjoying it!

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Posted in facebook, privacy, social media, timeline, tips, Trends | No Comments »

Top 5 Spotify Apps for 2012

Monday, February 13th, 2012

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Spotify announced the release of Spotify Apps Beta in November of 2011. The social music giant is taking a play out of Facebook’s playbook by allowing third party services to connect and interface with Spotify.

Since the release of apps for Spotify, users have had some time to test and provide feedback on the first batch of Spotify Apps.

See also: Try Spotify Premium with Free Trial

The applications for Spotify that were part of the Apps Beta launch included apps that provide suggestions for new music, information and lyrics on music currently being played and other applications to help improve your social music experience.

: TuneWiki

The TuneWiki apps for Spotify turns your social sharing service into a free karaoke machine as well. Play a song in Spotify and then head over to the TuneWiki apps to see the lyrics of the current song as the artist sings them.

This is a great addition to Spotify in case you can’t quite understand what the artist’s intended message is. Now only if you could turn on an “instrumental only” version of each song to host your very own Karaoke parties!

We Are Hunted

This app is great for those who want to listen to the most popular artists or artists that are rising up the charts.

We Are Hunted uses current ranking from the music industry to provide top charts for multiple genres of music including Rock, Pop, Hip Hop, Alternative and Electronic.

Using this app alongside the Billboard app ensures that you will never miss out on today’s most popular music.

Songkick Concerts

This app could have easily been ranked #1 in terms of usefulness when talking about apps for Spotify. The SongKick Concerts app will can through the artists in your Spotify playlists and notify you when and where your favorite artists will be playing live.

It can be a daunting task to aggregate data from across the web and determine which of your favorite artists are close enough to go see but this great app makes the task significantly easier.

Last.fm

The Last.fm Spotify apps automatically tracks your listening statistics to show which tracks you listen to most often. It also allows the user to create playlists based on commonly listend to artists and tracks.

The most useful feature of this app is that it will provide the user with song and artist recommendations based on your listening trends. This is a great app for those of you who enjoy the randomness of Pandora but also prefer the control over music selection that makes Spotify so practical.

Billboard Top Charts

This app is exactly what you would expect the Billboard Top Charts app to be. From directly within Spotify, users can view the current Billboard Top Charts and play songs directly from the app.

This app is a must for those who enjoy staying up to date with the newest and hottest hits. GA_googleFillSlot("InPostLeaderboard"); All Currently Available Spotify Apps: Last.fm

Personalized recommendations based on the music you play.

Songkick Concerts

Track your favorite artists so you never miss them live.

Billboard Top Charts

Billboard Top Charts highlights songs from the popular weekly charts.

Rolling Stone Recommends

Hear the best albums, songs and playlists, by Rolling Stone editors.

We Are Hunted

Add the world’s hottest and new music to your collection.

Top Lists

The hottest tracks, artists and albums.

Soundrop

Discover, share and listen to music with friends.

TuneWiki

Get synced lyrics and sing along to your favorite songs!

Moodagent

Instant playlists to match your mood.

Radio

Create radio stations of music based on any song or artist.

Pitchfork

The Essential Guide to Independent Music and Beyond.

ShareMyPlaylists

High quality curated playlist & a unique playlist generator.

Top10

Create & share Top10 playlists of the music you love!

The Guardian

Latest reviews from our critics.

Posted in app, apps, music, Products, social media, spotify, Technology, Trends | No Comments »

Facebook Error- Database Write Failed

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Update 02/08/2012: The Facebook error explained below seems to be occurring again. Facebook has been rolling out some updates to the photo viewer which may be contributing to the problem.

Original Facebook Error:

Facebook seems to be very buggy this morning. I’ve been receiving multiple errors while liking posts. This is a list of the error messages people have been receiving:

“Database Write Failed- An error occurred while writing to our database. Please try again later”

“Unable to hide minifeed story”

The first error message is appearing when trying to “like” certain status updates.

I’ve also experienced some errors with our company website. The like buttons are not properly displaying the number of likes for the given article – crisis I know! If I run the page’s URL through the Facebook Debugger it shows the proper number of likes for that page.

After doing some research, I’ve also discovered that many people were unable to access Facebook at all last night. Apparently Facebook was down for “server maintenance”.

A friend of mine brought it to my attention that Facebook has been changing around the chat interface for a couple days now. Maybe that has something to do with the database errors as well.

I find it interesting that these errors are occurring only a day after Anonymous announced they will attempt to destroy Facebook on November 5, 2011.

As soon as I find out some information regarding Facebook’s bugginess, I will update this post. If you have more information on the situation please let me know in the comments section!

Solutions:

Unfortunately no fail proof solutions have been found up to this point. I would recommend refreshing the page a few times and if that does not work, log out of your Facebook profile, clear your browser’s cache and log back in to Facebook.

As I discover additional solutions, I will post them here so if you continue to experience problems, check back later and hopefully I will have a more permanent fix for ya!

Posted in bug, error, facebook, news, social media, Troubleshooting | No Comments »

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