According to CNN.com today, the user base of Facebook is approximately equal to the population of the United States.  (http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/16/facebook.profit/index.html)

Do you ever wonder what all those people are doing?  Last time, we discussed how all those millions of people the world over were reconnecting.  But you can't do that all the time.  I mean, let's face it, you "friend" that old high school boyfriend, have a few laughs about his butt-ugly wife and his beer-gut; but then what? 

Lets talk about apps!

Applications on Facebook are elective additions to your profile.  Applications come in a wide variety of categories, including but not limited to lifestyle (such as support groups, wedding planners, travel trackers, and horoscopes), games (such as scrabble, mafia wars, or Tetris), and utilities (such as financial calculators, language translators, and book clubs). 

Applications can be fun, entertaining, and useful.  However, there is a side to the applications that is often overlooked.  Applications are not made or necessarily endorsed by Facebook.  This being the case, giving the wrong applications access to your profile and information can leave you vulnerable to viruses, spyware, and identity attacks.  There are a few ways to avoid this.

First, before allowing access to any application, take a look at the user ratings.  Poor user ratings will not only save you from playing around with a terribly boring app, but will also give you a good idea of problems others have experienced when using the app.

Second, be sure that any app you add has the Facebook safety rating.  Facebook will analyze various apps to ensure quality and safety.  This endorsement is not a requirement for an application to be availible, and an application without this seal of approval is not necessarily bad...but this is a good basic standard when all else fails.

Third, certain applications are known for problems as described above.  Most notably in this category are quizzes (such as the "which fairy princess are you" style apps).  As fun and tempting as they may seem, just say "NO."

The thing with applications is that they can really be a hoot and a great time waster, but like everything else on the internet, you still have to be careful about them.  The bottom line is, always know where your information is going.  Be careful to whom you give access to your information.  Staying private means staying safe.  And really, when in doubt, turn about...I'm sure you can find a better bootleg version of minesweeper somewhere else!  :)

Have a ball, and stay connected! 

I don't know when or how it happened...but it happened.  One day, I switched on the radio, and I hated all the music!  My tastes had transformed from contemporary to classic.  I was no longer part of the MTV generation...I had been redelegated to MTV2. A similar phenomenon occurs with computers.  As we roll up and through our 20's, new technology is fun and exciting.  But at some point, the excitement dies and we are asking our kids to reconfigure the router.  It's not an insult to our intelligence.  We are perfectly capable of learning the new stuff; we just don't care as much.  We have more important things going on in our lives.  We're desperately trying to scrub behind their ears as they reconfigure the router. Facebook generally falls under this category, the category of "it's not for people over 29."  Now when it comes to MySpace and some of the others, I agree.  Those are made for and used in a way that is definitely for teenagers and 20-somethings.  But Facebook...Facebook can be used by anyone.  In the next few weeks, I am going to discuss some reasons why the “perpetually 29” (as I like to refer to us more mature generation) can use, benefit, and enjoy Facebook.

Reconnect with Friends and Family                                       

With 75% (according to ABC news a month or so ago) of America using Facebook, you’d be surprised at who’s logging on.  It’s not just your kids and nieces and nephews anymore.  I have old high school classmates, college roommates, pretty much ALL of my in-laws, co-workers (current and former), my GRANDPARENTS!, my mom, brothers and sisters, and yes…nieces and nephews (my kids aren’t old enough yet).  The list is endless.  Even my Egyptian pen-pal from 7^th grade has found me on Facebook!  Not to mention the random old boyfriend who dumped me...and I was sufficiently pleased to find that his wife is ugly and chubby...man...did he miss out!  :) And this somewhat massive list (it makes me feel popular!) was not difficult to build.

Facebook uses email addresses from your existing email accounts to locate friends and family and other people you may have been in contact with.  If you are like me, I haven’t cleaned out that old Hotmail address book in many a moon….it has accumulated quite a few odds and ends here and there.  These people were all automatically added to my Facebook account.

However, you can also search by name or region or school or business name to find more "Facebook Friends."  I’ve found people searching under organizations such as my old community theater group, my college, my church site, and looking through the “friend list” of other friends!  One of my first Facebook addictions was logging on every day to see how my friend list had grown!  Of course, I’ve grown out of this minor form of narcissism…sort of…

Facebook is now commonly used to organize weddings, family reunions and high school reunions.  Rather than actual invitations or phone calls, many people just create a page for their party or gathering, and invite guests using Facebook.  An invited guest can indicate yes, no or maybe giving the host a fairly decent guess regarding how many people to expect, and plan accordingly.  This is so much simpler than the old RSVP’s and stamps!

Many a parent has found this a useful tool to stay in touch with their children as they move away to college, get married, and have children.  It is a private, central location to post pictures and report updates.  While some use a blog, Facebook is requires no additional protection or programming to maintain privacy.  Facebook's privacy filter is much easier to use (need only be set properly when registering for the first time) and requires no additional passwords than your regular log-in. 

These days it's easy to get scared by audio / video technology. After all, there seems to be a different speaker company offering different speaker options around every corner, in every store, and on every web page. Talk about spooky!  With so many options and choices, it's enough to send chills down even the most discerning audiophiles neck.  

But never fear, TruAudio has introduced a type new Ghost that will insure things that go bump in the night will do so with the up most clarity and precision.  Introducing the first wave of the in-ceiling Ghost series from TruAudio. 

What's the big deal?? 

What makes the Ghost series speakers stand out? These super flush, frame-less speakers have specially designed speaker housing that hides the entire frame once the magnetic grill is installed. With this new design, the speaker blends seamlessly into the room’s environment, meaning you will never need to fear the wrath of your snarling, growling interior decorator, or just your significant other, whatever form they take on.  

Now, while this may be good news for keeping the peace on the home front (or whatever front your waging in), we must not let the monster within become un-caged by sacrificing sound quality for really cool aesthetics. The Ghost series has combated this with arsenal of features. White poly and white carbon fiber woofer models that seamlessly blend into white backgrounds while producing solid and accurate mid to low frequencies. A brilliant 4½” model that has a small footprint that perfectly matches can lights. A High-grade crossover design and driver materials improve acoustic reproduction. And your choice of a Silk Dome or Titanium Swivel tweeter for precise frequency direction and Speaker equalization adjustments to fine-tune the sound. With the features and ingenuity that are built into these speakers, they sound even better then they look. In fact, with a lifetime warranty and superb support, the only features that are really missing in this line up is silver bullets and wooden spikes.

Where is all that sound coming from?

So, the moral of the story?

In my last post, 5 Reasons You Should Be Using Twitter, I covered all the great and wonderful things you can do with Twitter. And then I started hearing things like "but Web Monkey, I don't even know how to get started with Twitter!". Well, as it is our goal to make technology less intimidating and more accessible, I present to you - Twitter 101: A Guide to The Twitterverse.

What is Twitter, and how do get to it?

Twitter is what's called a micro-blogging service, an Internet service where you can post short messages known as tweets. These tweets are no more than 140 characters in length and can be read by anyone (unless you specify otherwise in your privacy settings). You can tweet about what your doing, something cool you saw, something you overheard, or whatever else is on your mind. If people like what you have to say they can 'follow' you, which is essentially subscribing to your tweets. You, in turn, can follow people, from your friends and family, to your favorite celebrities. You can even use Twitter Search to find people tweeting about things your interested in. Of course, You'll want to make sure you follow High Tech Customs!

As far as accessing Twitter, your options couldn't be greater. There are several desktop applications, such as TweetDeck & Twhirl, iPhone and other mobile apps such as Tweetie & TwitterFon, and you can even tweet via SMS text message. However, the most obvious way to connect to Twitter would be on the web via twitter.com. Once your logged in you'll see a spot at the top of the page where you type your tweets. Under that is a list of tweets from all the people you follow. On the right you can see who is following you, as well as who you are following. There is also a place to create a short profile, as well as many other setting, including tying your mobile phone to your Twitter account so you can send text message tweets. You can even have the tweets of any of the people you follow sent directly to your phone via text message.

I'm on Twitter, but what do I tweet about?

Really, you can tweet about whatever you want, although you should use some common sense while tweeting and try not to get fired. But more specifically tweet about things like the new car your buying, that terrible movie you saw with Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson, are why your cat is so lazy. Tweet a link to something cool you found online. Tweet something that will trigger a conversation with your followers. You can even tweet pictures using Twitpic. Because Twitter wasn't built to share photos, you can upload your photos to Twitpic, which will create a link to your photo with a short URL so you can tweet the photo and save your precious 140 characters. And don't worry about signing up for a new service, because you login to Twitpic with your Twitter username. Plus many of the desktop and mobile apps covered earlier tie right into Twitpic, so you don't even have to visit the Twitpic website.

RT, DM, @reply, #hashtag... WTF?

You may see thing tweeted or mentioned that include the phrases RT, DM, #hashtag, or @reply. Let's quickly go through what each of these are and how they can help you in your tweeting.

RT simply means re tweet. When somebody tweets something you like and you want to share it with others you just start your tweet with RT, followed by the original tweeters username proceeded with an '@' (@HighTechCustoms), then the original tweet.

DM stands for direct message, and an @reply is a reply to somebody else's tweet. The difference between a direct message and an @reply is this: A direct message just that, a message that goes directly to who it was intended for, not viewable by anybody else. An @reply is a tweet where you include somebody's username proceeded by an '@'. It shows up in to them as a mention of their name, but it also shows up to anybody else following you. Basically a public conversation, so be careful what you say there, others are reading.

A #hastag is a tag you can put in a tweet, so that your tweet can be grouped with other tweets on a similar subject. To add a hastag just place a # in front of whatever tag you want to add, such as #tech. To see what tags are getting the most tweets at any given time checkout hashtag.org.

Hopefully this is enough to get you started on your journey through the Twitterverse, happy tweeting!

So let me guess, 6 months ago you signed up for a Twitter account because everybody else had one, and you thought - 'Hey, if I can Facebook, I can Twitter!' Once you signed up you thought to yourself, 'Why did I sign up for this, I already spend a bunch of time trying to figure out clever status updates for Facebook, now I have to do it in two different places?', and you haven't updated your Twitter status since.

Well, believe it or not, there actually are practical uses for Twitter. With the use of Twitter's API (application programming interface) web and software developers are able to create new applications using the information stored by Twitter. This has resulted in a wide range of useful tools, and it's all FREE! So if your not using Twitter here are 5 reasons you should be.

P.S. Don't forget to follow High Tech Customs!

1. Find Deals & Save Money

As the Twitterverse continues to grow, so do the number of retailers living in it. So why would you want to follow a company that is using Twitter to advertise to you? Because in order to gain followers they tweet exclusive deals and coupon codes, and tough economic times or not, everybody loves a good deal. However following all those mearchants could leave you drowning in a sea of tweeted coupons and other various promotional tweets, and cause you to give up on it all together.

Luckily, sites like CouponTweet and CheapTweet collect all these deals and coupon codes and publish them in a easy to follow list.

2. Twitter Petitions

Most petitions probably don't end up accomplishing thier stated goal,but they can be a great way to rally people around a cause, and raise awareness. With the instant communication Twitter gives us with one and other, sometimes it can raise a little too much awareness.

In the old days a petition required a clipboard anda lot of door knocking, but with the help of Twitter through sites like Act.ly, TinyPetition, Twitition, and Twibbon you have the tools to give your cause some traction.

Of course if you have a little money to put behind your petition, you can always have your own custom petition built using Twitter (get a quote on building a custom petition) . It could be what makes your cause stand out, gain more coverage, and in turn more support.Take for example the Fix Outlook campaign. Ever since Office 2007 Microsoft has been using Word to render HTML emails. This has caused a nightmare for email designers (myself included) trying to create good looking emails that work well in all email clients, especially since Outlook has such a large marketshare. The Fix Outlook campaign has gathered over 25,000 signatures, and displays them in an awesome graphical representation.

3. Manage your budget

Keeping track of a budget can be a daunting task. So much so that some of us (myself included) just avoid it all together. That is what makes Tweetwhatyouspend so valuable, you simply record your purchases via Twitter Direct Messaage. You can categorize your entries, even add multiple items in a single tweet. It makes managing you budget just a text message away.  There's even a Wall Of Shame, where you share your shameful spending with the Tweetwhatyouspend community.

For you business travelers there's Xpenser , because nothing quite sucks the life out of you like filling out expense reports. With Xpenser there's no more time spent recording stacks of receipts and preparing your reports. You can track milage, convert international currency, import bank and credit card statements and more. Plus you can record your expenses with more than just Twitter, you can track all of your travel costs using email, iPhone, SMS, voice, Twitter, or IM.

4. Be More Productive

Productivity probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. MANY can argue that they are the cause of their lack of productivity. But it doesn't have to be that way. Timer sends you reminder tweets. Simply send a Direct Message to @timer, and Timer will send you a message at the time you specify. For example, send “d timer 15 buy webmonkey donuts” and in 15 minutes you’ll get a message reminding you to buy me some donuts.

Tweet Later helps you tweet more productively.You can schedule tweets for later (like the name says.), save and reuse drafts, automate Direct Messages to new followers, automatically follow those who follow you and more.

5. Network and Build Relationships

In light of the fact that all of these great tools have been built using the Twitter backbone, the original intent of Twitter was to make it easier for people to connect, and yes, there are plenty of tools available to help you do that.

You can connect with tweeps locally by using Nearby Tweeps to see who is tweeting in your area. It automatically determines your location and loads a list of tweets within a specific radius. You can change your location, the radius, or even look for certain keywords. 

Another great local Twitter tool is the Twellowhood, which is the local directory on Twellow, which is a yellow pages directory of Twitter users.

Of course if you're more interested in finding friends with similar interest than close geographic location, be sure to check out TwitterFriends where you can find friends that are relevant to you, and even see which of your friends are online.