Facebooking from Bob Jones
If the title of this post threw you off guard a little bit . . . then it accomplished its purpose. It is a little bit misleading. Yes, Facebook is still blocked on campus. No, I’m not upset about it. In fact, it’s a good thing. I don’t want to check Facebook. I’m way too busy at school and I would get distracted easily. The last thing I need to be doing is to be wasting my precious free time facebooking. Most of my Facebook friends are here at school, too, so going online to write to them (as opposed to email) seems a bit pointless. As a side note, using the Facebook at School application is also forbidden (not to mention unethical in my way of thinking).
I have, however, found a work-around for keeping my off-campus friends up to date on my present status. I set this up over Christmas break and as I suspected, it works.
First, I set up an account with Twitter (twitter.com - which is also blocked on campus) over the break. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a social website which is basically a glorified Facebook Status Message. You’ll notice that I have my Twitter status posted in the right column of this site.
Next, I added the Twitter IM bot to my Google Talk buddy list. Now I can update my Twitter status via Instant Messenger. I simply type my status to the bot, and presto - it’s updated on Twitter.
The last step was to add a Facebook application to my profile which syncs my Facebook Status with Twitter. There are multiple apps that can do this. The one I use is called TwitterSync. This app checks my Twitter status every couple of minutes and updates my Facebook status accordingly.
Now I have a way to keep friends up to date via two methods - Twitter and Facebook. If you use one or the other, feel free to track me. What’s nice is that it’s effortless. A quick click on my buddy list and about 10 seconds to type a status is all it takes.
I hope that answers some questions. No, I’m not facebooking from campus. Yes, I’m updating my status. And how.
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