Top annoying facebook elements

Facebook is the number one social network website in the world. Ever since its launch in 2004 the popularity graph of Facebook has never gone down. As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users. The social interaction that Facebook provides is great as we can find many old friends and get to know all the latest happening of our interest, simply on our screens.

Beside having immense use and popularity many people agree that Facebook is not good to use due to reasons, some are known some are known. There are other people who use Facebook but don't like some parts of it. Lets discuss below some of the social disabilities, negatives and annoying bits there are in using Facebook.


Unknown Friend Requests :
This is the most common problem which many of the Facebook users face. Getting friend requests from unknown people is actually a disturbing part of using Facebook. If we look in our real lives, how often do you get people asking you to be their friends. Imagine yourself walking on the road and suddenly a person comes out from no where asking he wants to be your friend ! What will be your initial reaction be to such a question. This is what the problem is, despite Facebook being a real time social networking website it gives out opportunity to people to go against what is socially accepted.

Fake Girl Profiles:

Other point to be focused on is the increasing number of fake girl profiles which are there. These profiles have thousands of friends in them and are mainly used for selling some online product or anything else similar. There is nothing wrong in my opinion of such profiles being there, its just how these profiles can exploit the real social experience which Facebook was meant to be.

I Know You But I Can't Add You:

This is an annoying yet funny situation in which you can't add up some people even if you know them. They could be office colleagues, someone who is in the gym with you, your ex, mom or dad, old nerdy class fellow or any other person you most like to be away from. Well there are Facebook privacy options which you can use to add them and keep such people away from your stuff, but still such people with their friend requests are disturbing.



Facebook Game Requests:

Facebook games are very popular among people and are played at a very high number. The games are fun to play and are a very good way to pass time, but if you are not a fan of playing games the picture on the left side could be the case with you. This problem is faced by alot of people out there who just hate all the game requests and the end have to block these games from showing up the notifications to play or send a gift to your friend.



Video and Picture Tagging:

When you post a picture or video, Facebook allows you to tag your friends in it so they can be notified. This is a good feature but what happens next is not good, because every time someone will like or comment there will be a direct notification on the screen which is disturbing if you are doing some work. There are options which can help you to stop the tagging and notifications but you can't completely stop them because there might be some important videos of pictures you can miss by doing that. Its totally your choice at the end.

Facebook survives by giving its users a nice environment to catch on different stuff. There are always positives and negatives, Facebook may have a few annoying ones but still it provides a good platform  to interact with people but the users should keep the social ethics alive while using it. So no more friend requests from unknown people right !

BIOS Password (laptops)

Laptops in general have much better hardware security than PCs. Some of them even come with fingerprint reader build in.
Most laptops come with a very strong BIOS password capability that locks up the hardware and makes the laptop completely unusable. This is the password that has to be entered before the operating system loads, usually on a black screen a few seconds after the laptop is started.
Of course BIOS password can be set on a PC too, but there it is stored together with the other BIOS settings – date, time, hard disk size, etc. It is very easy to reset the BIOS settings (and the password) on a PC – usually there is a jumper near the BIOS battery on the motherboard that needs to be moved from connecting pins 1+2 to pins 2+3 for a few seconds and than moved back to pins 1+2. Next time the PC is started it will alert you “… BIOS settings invalid… Defaults loaded… Press F1 to continue…” or something similar, and…. the password is gone!
However most laptops store the BIOS password in a special chip, sometimes even hidden under the CPU, that is not affected when the rest of the BIOS settings are reset. This makes the removal of a BIOS password on a laptop almost impossible. The only option in most cases is to replace the chip which is quite expensive and risky procedure and, of course, not supported by the manufacturers.
Some manufacturers (like Dell) can generate a “master password” for a particular laptop (from their service tag) if sufficient proof of ownership is provided. Others (like IBM) would advise replacing the laptop’s motherboard (very expensive). On some old laptops (4 – 5 years or older) the BIOS password can still be reset relatively easy, usually by shorting two solder points on the motherboard or by plugging a special plug in the printer port, etc.
In almost all cases on newer laptops it is either a big hassle, expensive or even impossible to reset the BIOS password, making it a very good way of protecting your laptop from unauthorized use.
However what makes your computer exactly yours are your own files, documents, emails, pictures, etc. They are all stored on the hard drive. So, even if your laptop has a BIOS password that locks it up and makes it completely unusable to anyone that doesn’t know it, your hard drive can still be removed from the laptop and connected to another computer, and your files retrieved quite easily.

The USB BOX (laptop users edition)

USB Box

The best way to access your data when your laptop has a serious problem and wouldn’t start is to take the hard disk out and install it in an external USB box. These boxes are ridiculously cheap – starting at around $10-$15 and the whole transfer of the HD takes about 5 min. Then you will be able to access all of your files on another computer (even at an Internet cafe) and print whatever you need or copy the data to a CD.
This procedure is easily accomplished on most laptops, as the hard disk is usually held by 1-2 screws and is very easy to remove. However that will usually affect your warranty, so check the laptop’s documentation before starting.
However there are a few exceptions: on most Apple laptops and some light weight Sony and Toshiba models the hard disk is hard to remove as the laptop has to be disassembled completely to reach it. Removing the hard disk on these models would also invalidate the warranty.
Also some sub-laptops have a smaller hard disks, not the standard 2.5″ but 1.8″ HDs. Hitachi’s 1.8″ drives have the same pin configuration as the 2.5″, however Toshiba’s 1.8″ drives use their own special pin connectors (they are widely used in the hard disk based iPods). Finding an external USB enclosure for them is not that easy. It usually has to be preordered and would take a few days to arrive.
As an alternative to using USB enclosures, there are cable adaptors for standard 2.5″ HDs (including Hitachi’s 1.8″) and Toshiba 1.8″ HDs that would let you connect them to a standard IDE cable on a desktop PC.
* If you have password protected your laptop’s hard disk, transferring it to an external USB box won’t work. The only way to access it would be to connect it directly to another computer by using an IDE adaptor and then remove the password.