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Facebook apps can now access your phone number and home address

In the past we’ve warned about the importance of keeping an eye on which Facebook apps have access to your account. In future, that will be all the more important as Facebook has announced that it now lets developers access your phone number and address, if they choose, when you use their apps.

It’s worth noting that Facebook is only making this data available if you specifically approve it – apps you’ve already approved won’t have automatic access to the information. So, next time you install a Facebook app, look out for the “Access my contact information: Current Address and Mobile Phone Number” permission request.

There are perfectly legitimate reasons why a Facebook app might want your home address and phone number. If it’s an address book app or some kind of telephony app, for example, that data would be incredibly useful. While it’s easy to imagine particularly disreputable developers selling your contact information on to unwanted marketing mailing lists, Facebook itself requires developers to only request data they need to operate their apps, not to sell data on to third parties and to display a clear privacy policy.

So, now more than ever, it’s important to check the permissions and read the small print of any new Facebook apps you install.


Inside Facebook, Image source

Soon, your life will be nothing but Facebook

Via AgencySpy.

CityVille's monthly user population now 100 million strong

We had an inkling this CityVille thing our mom keeps sending us requests in would be a big deal, but we underestimated just how big. After launching and quickly overtaking FarmVille's active monthly user count, Zynga's latest casual hit has now approached "sensation" levels of interest: it's enjoying over 100 million active users right now.

Casual Gaming reports there are now a total of 100,064,578 monthly active users. FarmVille's active monthly user count hovers around 57 million. Now, in case you don't quite get how big a deal this is, know that CityVille only launched on December 2, 2010 -- FarmVille's been on Facebook since June of 2009. So, in under seven weeks, Zynga's managed to usurp the most popular game on Facebook and almost double its user count.

Actually, now that we think about it, can you usurp yourself? Eh, we're sure Zynga's far too busy counting cash money to ponder such matters.
Source: Casual Gaming,Joystiq

Create an LED Blinker to Notify You of New Messages on Your PC

While your computer has on-screen ways of notifying you of new email, IMs, and other messages, they aren't much use when your display is asleep. DIY web site Instructables show us how to create a small LED blinker for notifications.

This little hack makes use of a parallel port on your computer (which you might have to add yourself if your computer is new) and a small Greasemonkey script. All you need to do is stick some LEDs inside the open, female end of a parallel connector (as shown above), download the blinker application (Windows only), and load the user script into Firefox or Chrome. The user script was designed for Facebook notifications, telling the app to blink one LED for new messages and the other LED for other notifications.

While it was originally designed for Facebook notifications, you could probably tweak it to notify you of just about anything—perfect for when you're letting your computer's display sleep but are still in the room doing other things. Check out the video for a demonstration, and hit the link for detailed instructions on how to put it together.

Facebook LED Blink on New Notifications and Messages [Instructables]

Send an email to Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com.

Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys?

I was spending some time browsing around Facebook today (translation: wasting time), when I noticed that they have some shortcut keys for navigating around the site using the keyboard, so I put together a list for everybody.

Note: for each of these shortcut keys, if you’re using Firefox, you’ll need to use Shift+Alt instead of just Alt, and for Internet Explorer you’ll need to hit the Enter key after the shortcut to trigger it. If you’re using a Mac, you’ll need to use Ctrl+Opt instead of Alt.

New Message: Alt + M

This shortcut key doesn’t seem to work in Internet Explorer at all, but if you’re using Google Chrome or Firefox, it should work fine, though Firefox will use Shift+Alt+M instead.

Search Box: Alt + ?

This shortcut key is the same in Chrome and Internet Explorer, but is Shift+Alt+? in Firefox—it’s really a very useful shortcut, since the search box gets you access to all your friends easily.

Home Page: Alt + 1

This shortcut takes you to your home page—if you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+1 and IE is Alt+1 and then Enter.

Your Profile: Alt + 2

This shortcut takes you to your profile page—if you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+2 and IE is Alt+2 and then Enter.

Friend Requests: Alt + 3

This shortcut is somewhat useless unless you’re the most popular person in the world, as it opens up the friend requests page. If you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+3 and IE is Alt+3 and then Enter.

Messages: Alt + 4

This shortcut opens up the Messages dialog. If you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+4 and IE is Alt+4 and then Enter.

Notifications: Alt + 5

This shortcut opens up the Notifications dialog. If you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+5 and IE is Alt+5 and then Enter.

There’s a couple of other shortcut keys, for Alt+6 through 0 on the keyboard, which take you to the settings, privacy, about, terms, and help pages.

Via How-To Geek