A few readers contacted me with several questions around restricting access to the recent activity section on Facebook. Everyone said they are able to remove the different items in their recent activity, but that doesn’t remove the posts from their freinds news feed.

Following the rollout of the new privacy settings, there is no currently an effective way to control how Facebook notifies all your friends about all content you post, new people you are in touch with, groups you joined and pages you became fan of. This has apparently annoyed several Facebookers, who even created several Facebook groups focusing on bringing the old news feed and wall privacy settings back.

As there is no simple solution to hide the recent activity stream, the only viable option will be to customize the privacy settings of all content you post on Facebook (not only status updates but also photos, notes, videos etc’) to exclude people from being notified about your recent activity updates:

• On Facebook, choose Settings | Privacy Settings | Profile Information
• Navigate to the Posts by Me section
• Set its value to Customize. Then select restrict access to your posts as you see fit.

Clearly, this doesn’t provide a solution, but it can be regarded as an intermediate workaround until (hopefully) the recent activity privacy settings will be restored.

Doris emailed me the other day asking for a simple way to schedule status updates to her Facebook wall.

Facebook doesn’t provide a means for scheduling posts, so the simplest way to post stuff upfront to Facebook is by using a 3rd party service such as Sendible or HooSuite.

Sendible is more of a marketing tool that reduces the burden around managing multiple profiles by allowing you to post to several social network accounts from a single interface. That said, they also offer a free version that, among other features, allows you to schedule your updates to Facebook, Google Buzz, MySpace and Twitter. Note that you can not only post to your Facebook wall but also to any group you belong to or administer.

HootSuite is more of a super Twitter client that allows you to schedule your posts at Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Ping.fm.

Can you guys recommend similar tools ? Feel free to join the discussion by posting a comment.

With over 350 Million registered users and millions of pages, groups and applications, it is becoming increasingly hard to find the right information on Facebook. Gladly, there are ways to enhance your Facebook search experience and do it like a pro. Here are some great tips and tricks to get you started:

1. How to search for people on Facebook easily:

Firstly, if you are searching for a person, start your search with user: or people: or name:. These tags tell Facebook that you are only looking for a person and are not interested in groups or applications. You can narrow down these searches by appending the age range and company name.

For example we want to look for a person called Tim who is somewhere between 20 and 23 and works for Apple. We would enter the search query:

user: Tim y1: 20 y2: 23 company: apple

2. Search Facebook for two things at a time:

You can combine two search terms by adding the | sign between the terms. For example, you want to search for people who are named Tim Johnson as well as people who are named Michael Jordan. You will enter the search query as:

Tim Johnson | Michael Jordon

3. Narrow down your search:

If you can’t remember all these tags, simply enter the keyword in the search box and once you have the results, narrow them down by clicking on events, groups, applications, pages e.t.c.

4. How to find classmates or coworkers on Facebook:

If nothing else works, do remember that Facebook has special search options to find your old classmates and coworkers on Facebook. Classmate search allows you to search by High school or college while Coworker search lets you search by the company name.

5. How to search Facebook for content:

If you are searching for content on Facebook, do remember that you can narrow it down by posts from friends: and posts from everyone. You can either use these tags in the search bar or narrow down your results once they are displayed.

Hopefully these tips will help you search Facebook more efficiently and smartly. We would love to hear other Facebook search tips from you!

With the recent changes to Facebook’s privacy policy, should you be worried? Well the quick answer is yes, and the reason is: your privacy and personal information is at stake. Get in the driver’s seat by learning how to control your Facebook privacy settings. In this article, I will show you some quick tips that will make it a little bit easier to sleep at night.

1. Learn the basics

There are three basic Facebook privacy levels:

• Friends
• Friends of Friends
• Everyone

Another option is to create your own custom Friend lists. Use these lists to control who may see your personal information. For example, you could create three Friend lists: Family, Friends, and Work. Then, choose to only share your photos with Friends and Family. This will stop your co-workers from seeing any embarrassing photos of yourself. This is only one using Friend lists to control your Facebook Privacy

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2. How to Control your personal information

Navigate to Settings | Privacy Settings | Profile Information and also Settings | Privacy Settings | Contact Information. Choose who can see your vital personal information.

3. How to Stop receiving Application invitations from specific friends

Do you want have a friend that sends you all types of annoying application invitations? Block those invitations by clicking on Privacy Settings | Applications and Websites | Ignore Applications Invites

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4. How to Remove your name from search engines

If you don’t want the whole world to be able to search for your Facebook page, then use this tip: Choose Settings | Privacy Settings | Search | Public Search Results and uncheck the Allow box, then you’re safe.

5. How to Block somebody

Sometimes you may have to resort to blocking one of your friends. Click on Settings | Privacy Settings | Block List. Then, either insert their name or their email address in one of the boxes, then voila! They will never bug you again! It’s important in this age of identity theft and crime to safeguard your Facebook privacy. Stay safe and as always, have fun!

Facebook is much more than just talking to friends. A huge chunk of users’ time on Facebook is spent playing games and competing with friends. The social aspect of these games has had a tremendous impact on their growth. If you are not that much into playing Facebook games, this list of 15 awesome games might help to get you started:

Adventure Games on Facebook:

1. Farmville:

With 27 Million people playing it daily, Farmville is the most played game on Facebook. The game lets you build, maintain and grow a farm to earn money.

2. Fishville:

Instead of a farm, Fishville lets you raise and feed fish and even decor your tanks with your friends. Almost 7 Million people play it daily.

3. Pet Society:

With around 5 million daily users, Pet Society lets you have fun while playing games, decorating your house and bringing gifts for your friends.

4. Bejeweled Blitz:

A casual yet fun gem swapping puzzler, played by 3 million Facebook users every day.

5. Cafe World:

Create your own restaurant and cook whatever dish you want to. Slice, chop and bake ingredients to create that awesome dish. Earn your way to the top of the culinary world. Over 9 million daily users.

6. Treasure Madness:

Explore maps, collect treasures and play lots of mini games.

Mind Games:

7. Brain Buddies:

Test your brain in four different categories and compete with your friends.

8. Word Challenge:

You are provided a 6 letter word and you have to create as many 3-6 letter words as you can. Play alone or challenge your friends to the game.

9. Mindjolt Games:

Over 500 mini mind games involving strategy, puzzles, arcade and sports.

10. Know-It-All Trivia:

Think you know it all? Challenge yourself and your Facebook friends to test your knowledge.

11. Scramble:

Unscramble the letters to find the word. Have fun playing it alone or challenge your friends.

Action/Arcade Games:

12. Mobsters 2 : Vendetta

In the world of mobsters, everybody has a Vendetta.  Pick your weapon and claim your victom.

13. Mafia Wars:

Start a mafia family, buy powerful weapons and fight your enemies.

14. Vampire Wars:

Fight in the world of Vampires. Kill your enemies and drink blood.

15. Street Racing:

Pimp your ride, get a crew and race to WIN!!

These are only some of the Facebook games that you’ll have fun playing. There are thousands of other amazing games to choose from. Which one is your favorite game on Facebook? Fell free to let us know.