20 tips, tricks, and tools to make your Facebook experience even better

Facebook is by far the largest social network on the web, and while Mark Zuckerberg has made plenty of great calls in its design, the site — and the way people use it — isn't as streamlined as it could be. These 20 tips, tricks, and tools will give help take your Facebook experience to the next level. From simple settings options you may have overlooked, to browser plug-ins dedicated to making the social network even better, you're sure to find something on this list that will make your Facebook time even more addicting than it already is.

Tweak your Facebook settings

1. Appear offline to certain friends
By opening your Facebook chat window, clicking the settings icon in the upper right corner, and then navigating to "Advanced Settings," you can customize your chat experience by appearing offline to certain people on your friends list. This tweak will be especially helpful for those of you with chatty acquaintances who like to talk your ear off when you're online.

2. Reposition your Timeline photos
When uploading a new photo, it might not always appear on your feed the way you intended. Particularly long or wide photos have a tendency to be cropped awkwardly, but you can fix this rather easily. By clicking "Edit Photo" from your Timeline page, you gain access to a "Reposition Photo" option. Using this tool, you can move your photo around the preview window so that it appears as you intended.

3. Add photos to your worldly travels
If you're a fan of Facebook's "Places" feature, you can very easily decorate it with pictures to show off your various activities all over the world. On the main Places page, simply click "Add Photos to Map," and start tagging away! If you frequently upload photos directly to your Facebook profile using a mobile app for iPhone or Android, you might find that your map is already pretty well populated.

4. Easily hide app notifications for a cleaner experience
By going into your account settings, then navigating to the "Notifications" tab on the left side of the page, you can browse the applications that have permission to populate your news feed. If find that a friend has spammed your feed with an excessive number of app notifications, simply deactivate the offending app. It's easier than breaking off the friendship.

5. Upload photos in high resolution
Sometimes you'll find that a gorgeous photo you wanted to share with your friends appears tiny and blurry after adding it to your social network profile. Remedy this by going into your Facebook albums and, before uploading a photo, click the "High Quality" box.

6. Use the "View As" option to tweak your appearance to specific friends
Knowing what your friends can see on your Facebook Timeline is an invaluable tool to ensuring your virtual reputation stays intact. From your Timeline page, click the settings icon next to "Activity Log," and then click "View As." From here you'll be able to see what specific friends see when they visit your page.

7. Download your entire Facebook history
Ever wanted to browse your entire Facebook profile at once — including every status update you've ever submitted? Facebook makes it easy: Under your Account Settings page, a small link will appear at the very bottom of the options list. Click "Download a copy of your Facebook data" to begin the process of securing your entire archive.

8. Forward your Facebook conversations
Having to repeat yourself is annoying in day-to-day life, and it's even more of a bother when online. Rather than copying and pasting directions or instructions to multiple people, click the "Actions" tab at the top of any Facebook message thread to access the option to forward it to others. Ta-da! No more double-talk!

9. Turn chat sign-in off by default
Can't stand endless chat when you're simply browsing your status updates? No problem. Click the settings icon in the main Facebook chat window, and click "Turn off chat" to have all future messages sent to your inbox, rather than pop-up in realtime on your screen.

10. Use Facebook to design your business card
If you've put a lot of work into making your Timeline page reflect exactly who you are, consider using it as a pre-designed business card. Clicking the "About" link — located under your name on your Timeline — lets you browse your social network details. In the Contact Info window is a small business card icon that will direct you to Moo.com, where you can customize a Facebook-flavored business card and place an order.

Get the most out of Facebook using these web tools

11. Analyze your Facebook history with Wolfram Alpha
For the most comprehensive breakdown of your entire Facebook history, Wolfram Alpha can't be beat. Simply type "Facebook Report" into the main search bar, approve the app's use of your Facebook data, and wait for the system to break down your history. Once it's finished, you'll be treated to a seemingly endless number of graphs and data points showing your update history, most liked photos, and much more.

12. Schedule Facebook updates with Sendible
Believe it or not, thieves are big fans of Facebook. By finding out when you'll be away from your home, security experts believe would-be robbers target those who go on a Facebook hiatus. Sendible — an application that allows you to schedule updates even when you're not near your computer — can keep your online persona active, even when you can't.

13. Use Twitter to update Facebook
Sometimes you just don't have enough time to keep all your social networks up to date, but thankfully Facebook and Twitter play nice together with a little tweaking. Head to the Twitter app page on Facebook to begin the process of syncing your virtual social lives. After authorizing the Facebook app via Twitter, all your tweets will appear on Facebook as status updates.

14. Export your Facebook calendar to your PC
Make sure you don't miss any important events by exporting your Facebook calendar to either Microsoft Outlook or Apple iCal. Head to your Facebook calendar (located under the "Events" tab on the Facebook navigation bar) and click the settings icon. Click "Export," and then choose either your Facebook birthday list or upcoming events. Your desktop's calendar app should launch immediately, making the process even more streamlined.

Make Facebook better using Chrome extensions

15. Facebook Photo zoom
Using this extension, you no longer have to click on the photos in your news feed in order to view them in full size. Simply move your mouse cursor over the image thumbnail and the larger version will pop up right in front of you. You can even adjust the zoom by moving the mouse back and forth over the photo itself. It's like magic.

16. Revert Facebook Photo viewer
If you're not into real-time photo zooming, this extension turns back the clock on your Facebook's photo feature. Rather than displaying pictures in the new "Theater" layout, photos will appear on their own pages, complete with the full comments section and "Like" options.

17. Facebook Chat notifications
Have you ever left a Facebook tab open on your web browser and missed an urget message from a friend? This handy plugin produces a pop-up window on your desktop to notify you when someone needs to chat, ensuring you never miss an important bit of info.

Firefox add-ons that make Facebook a joy to use

18. Like the Page
If you're a Firefox user, you can use this add-on to instantly share any web page they come across, even when the site doesn't have a built-in Facebook share button. A small "Like" icon will pop up at the bottom of every browser window, and all it takes it a click to share your find with the world.

19. FB Purity
This plug-in returns your Facebook to an earlier day, back when spammers and useless clutter wasn't a hinderance to your browsing habits. You can hide any type of notification you wish, including birthdays, relationship updates, tagged photos, links, and much more. You can make your social experience as simple as you wish.

20. Facebook auto-logout
Do you hate it when you accidentally leave yourself signed in to the social network, only to come back to missed chat messages and anxiety over whether someone else was browsing your digital life? This handy add-on will automatically sign you out of your Facebook windows if you've been inactive for too long, ensuring that nobody can snoop your info.

Micromax Mobile Secret Codes

Here are few Secret Codes for Formatting/Refreshing, Factory Reset and Software Version check for Micromax Mobile

Model	Default Phone Unlock Code	Restore Factory Setting Code	IMEI Check Code	Software Version Check Code	Refresh / Formatting
X1i	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X1u	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X211	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X332	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X4i	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X511	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X414	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X800	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X112	1234	1234	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X113	1234	1234	*#06#	*#8375#	*#8929#
X313	N/ A	N /A	*#06#	*#06#	*#73738#
X115	0000	0000	*#06#	*#18375# or*#67638#	N/A
X225	0000	0000	*#06#	*#18375#	N/A
X250	0000	0000	*#06#	*#67638#	N/A
X555	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	N/A
X280	0000	0000	*#06#	*#8375#	N/A
Q3	1122	1122	*#06#	*#84666*#	N/A
GC 700	0000	0000	*#06#	*#67638#	N/A
GC255	0000	0000	*#06#	*#6629#	N/A
X2i	1122	1122	*#06#	*#8375#	N/A
X116	0000	0000	*#06#	*#67638#	N/A

Disclaimer: Please use these codes at your own risk. Techwek won’t be responsible in case you end up with a bricked device or any other damage.

Browser Slow? How to Make Google Chrome Fast Again

Have you noticed your usually speedy Google Chrome browser slowing down, or even crashing on you? Unnecessary plugins, extensions, and even browsing data can slow your browser down to a crawl, or make it crash. Here’s how to fix it.

In this article, we’ll show you how to disable plugins and extensions and clear browsing data to speed up Chrome and prevent it from crashing on you.

Disable Plugins

By default, when you install Google Chrome, many unnecessary plugins are installed and enabled. Plugins help Chrome process special types of content, such as Flash, Java, Silverlight, or Windows Media files, but most of them aren’t even important to your daily browsing. Plugins can slow down the performance of Chrome, but you can disable plugins you are not using. To do this, type “about:plugins” (without the quotes) in the address bar of Chrome and press Enter.

NOTE: You can safely disable every single plugin, but you may want to keep Flash enabled, as a lot of sites use Flash to display menus, show videos, etc. Also, if you watch Netflix in Chrome, you need to keep the Silverlight plugin enabled. You can always enable a plugin again if you need to.

A list of installed plugins displays on the current tab. Scroll through the list and click the Disable link for each plugin you feel you don’t need.

NOTE: Plugins cannot be deleted or uninstalled, only disabled. An exception would be a plugin that was installed as part of an extension and you uninstall the extension. Then, the plugin is automatically removed.

Disabled plugins turn gray in the list, and the Disable link for each disabled plugin becomes an Enable link, allowing you to enable the plugin again, if desired.

Disable Extensions

Extensions are small programs available in the Chrome Web Store that add extra features and functionality to Chrome. They can be very useful, but if you end up with a lot of extensions installed, the browser’s speed may be negatively affected. You can easily disable extensions without uninstalling them to gain some speed. Some extensions install a button on Chrome’s address bar, and those can be quickly disabled by right-clicking on them and choosing Uninstall from the menu.

You can also install apps in Chrome, that are accessible on the New Tab page. These can also be disabled.

To access your list of installed extensions and apps, click the wrench icon on the toolbar and select Tools -> Extensions from the drop-down menu. You can uninstall extensions with buttons without accessing this list, but you might be surprised that some extensions are in the list that don’t have a button.

To disable an extension, click the Enabled check box to the right of the extension’s title in the list so there is no check mark in the box.

The Enabled check box becomes an Enable check box, allowing you to re-enable the extension at any time.

NOTE: You can also easily remove any extensions or apps you don’t want anymore by clicking the trash can icon to the right of the Enabled check box.

Notice that there are a lot less extensions on our toolbar now.

Clear Browsing Data

As you browse the web, Chrome’s history database collects URLs and cached texts for websites you’ve visited, your download history, cookies, and other website and plugin data. While the point of the history and cache database are to speed up your computer by caching things locally instead of having to download every time, sometimes the history database can become very large and may slow down Chrome.

NOTE: You shouldn’t clear your history regularly for speed purposes, as that defeats the purpose of a local cache. You can certainly clear it for privacy reasons though.

There are several ways to clear your browsing history, including clearing your entire history and clearing the history for specific sites.

Clear Your Entire Browsing History

To clear your entire browsing history, click the wrench icon on the toolbar and select Tools -> Clear browsing data from the drop-down menu.

NOTE: Clearing your entire browsing history prevents matches from displaying when you start typing URLs in the address bar.

In the Clear browsing data dialog, select the items you want to clear and select a time range from the drop-down list. Click Clear browsing data to clear the selected data.

When the Clear browsing data dialog closes, the Settings tab opens. To close it, click the red X button on the tab.

Clear Specific Items from Your Browsing History

If you want to delete the history for only specific webpages, click the wrench icon on the toolbar and select History from the drop-down menu.

Move your mouse over a webpage you want to remove from the history list and select the check box that displays. Once you have selected all the webpages you want to remove, click Remove selected items.

A confirmation dialog box displays. Click OK if you are sure you want to remove the webpages from the history list.

To close the History tab, click the red X button on the tab.

Clear Your Browsing History from the New Tab Page

The New Tab page displays thumbnails for the websites you visit most. You can clear your browsing history by removing these thumbnails from the New Tab page.

To remove a webpage from the New Tab page, move your mouse over the thumbnail for the site and click the X that displays in the upper, right corner of the thumbnail.

NOTE: You can reset the New Tab page to blank thumbnails by clearing your entire browsing history, as mentioned earlier.

You can also remove a thumbnail from the New Tab page, by dragging it to the Remove from Chrome trash can, which only displays once you start dragging a thumbnail.

Clear Your Browsing History Automatically when Chrome Exits

Earlier in this article, we recommended disabling extensions you don’t use to speed up Chrome. However, there is one extension that might be useful. The Click&Clean extension allows you to clear browsing data automatically when you close Chrome.

To install Click&Clean, click the link above and then click the Add to Chrome button on the webpage for the extension.

A confirmation dialog box displays to make sure you want to install the extension. It also tells you what the extension can access. Click Add to continue with the installation.

Once Click&Clean has been installed, a notification displays, pointing to the new button on the Chrome toolbar.

When you click the Click&Clean button, the Main menu displays. There are many tools available in this extension for maintaining Chrome and your computer. The gray buttons in the middle of the menu provide access to more tools.

To configure Click&Clean to clear browsing data when Chrome exits, click the Options button on the Main menu.

To select which types of browsing data to clear when you close Chrome, click the Clear Private Data when Browser Closes tab on the left. Click the plus sign to the left of Chrome in the list on the right. Check the items you want automatically cleared when you close Chrome.

For more information about the options available in Click&Clean, see the Help webpage.

Happy speedy browsing!