By using simple pieces of Javascript code, or by applying Firefox Greasemonkey userscripts, users can change the appearance and workings of Facebook themselves.

Learn how to hack Facebook accounts for fun, or tweak something useful. Believe me, it really is all in your hands.

Facebook Account Javascript Hacks

In these following hacks we’ll be using basic Javascript to toy around with Facebook. Note that we’re not going to hack into Facebook accounts, or anything of the like. Most of these ‘hacks’ are temporary and will disappear once you refresh the page. They also won’t be visible to users on other computers. So why are we doing it? – Because it’s fun!

These Javascript snippets, which we’ll supply below, simply need to be pasted into the address bar. Hit enter, et voila!

Changing Profile Colour

This will change the colour of your Facebook bar to a color of choice.

Just paste the following code in your address bar and hit enter. You can replace ‘red’ with any color you want – black, white, green or even orrange. If you want to reverse the effect, press Ctrl+F5 for a hard reload of the page.

javascript:void(document.getElementById('fb_menubar').style.background='red');

View Chat History with Offline Friends

Unfortunately, you can’t normally view the chat history of online friends. If you’re trying to remember something that was said, waiting for them to come back online is one hell of a bother. Instead, you can just use this – pretty useful – Javascript hack.

First of all, we need to get your friend’s Facebook ID. When you visit his page indirectly (through your friends list or by using the search engine), you’ll be able to see it as a number in the address bar.

Another way to retrieve someone’s ID is by going to the Friends widget on their page, and right-clicking See All. Then you’ll have to copy the link location and paste it in your address bar.

Once you’ve got someone’s ID, simply paste the following code in your address bar, replacing 1122334455 with the relevant number.

javascript:buddyList.itemOnClick(1122334455);

Other Javascript hacks

The preceding two hacks are without doubt the most impressive or useful ones. Below are some of the other tricks you can pull off by using Javascript. We’re not going to deep on this because they’re all things you can do manually as well.

Change chat status to invisible:
javascript:statusControl.sendVisibility(false);

Change chat status to visible:
javascript:statusControl.sendVisibility(true);

Close all chat windows with person 1122334455:
javascript:chatDisplay.tabs[1122334455].tabXOnClick();

Open application tab:
javascript:applicationDock.toggleTab();

Bring up notifications:
javascript:presence.toggleTab('chat_status_control','chat_status_control_tab');

Bring up friends list:
javascript:buddyList.toggleTab();

Facebook Greasemonkey Hacks

Greasemonkey is one of the best firefox add-ons in existence. By using ‘userscripts’, you can customize nearly every website. Read more about Greasemonkey in .

Facebook Auto-login – One of the simplest, but perhaps also one of the most useful userscripts you’ll find. This one will automatically log into Facebook, as long as Firefox remembers your password, saving you a lot of hassle.

Auto-Colorizer for Facebook – This script will recolor your Facebook page by applying the color scheme of the most dominant picture currently showing on the page. As you can imagine, this can create some exciting, and also ambient effects.

FacebookDeletes – If you want to get rid of a lot of people at once, this is your man. This script can bulk delete friends, making the masacre all the easier.

Remove All Facebook Ads – Adblock still tends to miss a lot of Facebook ads. This script, frequently updated, will remove all thinkable Facebook ads, creating a completely click-safe Facebook environment.

External Apps Blocker – One of the most irritating things on Facebook are the abundance of quizzes, quote generators, and the like. Filtering all external app ’stories’ from your homepage will be a lot easier if you use this script.

Want some more? Userscripts hosts 1112 Facebook related userscripts at the time of writing. Check it out and have a blast!

If you know any other cool Javascript tweaks, or Greasemonkey hacks, feel free to mention them in the comments section below!

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Now, thanks to the power of the Internet, there is a proliferation of websites where professional programmers offer these modules to the general public for absolutely free. For other application developers, these libraries are a goldmine.  Whether you write in VB, C, C++, C#, Perl, PHP, Ruby, or any other programming language, there’s a website out there where you can find such reusable sample code.

Choosing the Top Websites for Sample Code

Every developer has a list of their favorite websites where they not only search for free sample code, but they also take part in the developer community that exists at these sites.  Programmers often develop a very passionate attachment to some of these websites.

The following is, by no means, an exhaustive list of the best developer websites online.  Such a list would be difficult, since there are thousands of excellent resources throughout the net. The following is simply a list of ten of the best places to start if you’re looking for high quality sample code.  So please, folks, no food fights if your favorite isn’t mentioned. The following websites are listed in no particular order.

#1 – Programmer’s Heaven

Programmer’s Heaven is a huge online resource that is very much a community of many different programmers.  The site includes information, tips, and forums on languages like Basic, C++, Delphi, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Visual Basic and more. You can also search the site by application or platform.

Programmer’s Heaven has forums, blogs, articles, files, links and news for every single programming language listed on the site.  The size of this website is impressive, and the community is growing quickly into one of the largest developer communities on the net.

If you need sample code that’s not already on the site, just ask for help in the forums.

#2 – SourceForge.net

It goes without saying that SourceForge is one of the most significant open source communities on the Internet.  When you need to review sample code to learn how to do something, this is a great place to search.

From the main page, just click “Find Software,” and then “Development.”  The next page will astound you. You’ll discover an entire world of open source projects.

You read that right, that’s over 54,000 listings under “Software Development.”  If you find a software project that sparks your interest, and you can see how the software could be greatly improved, you might consider joining up with one of the many open source projects.

See the SourceForge overview for how this works. Open source is a way of life, and these coders take it very seriously.

#3 – CodeGuru

CodeGuru is also a cool site for developers. It mostly covers just Visual C++/C++, .Net/C# and Visual Basic. While this isn’t a huge selection of programming languages, the site is filled with articles that are far more comprehensive than your standard short forum posts that you find at other websites. CodeGuru offers useful explanations of how to accomplish specific tasks.

The example above is an article on how to load images from or save images to a database using Visual Basic. The article has quality screenshots and well written sample code.

#4 – The Code Project

CodeProject is a booming developer community that’s organized very much like a free article directory website, except in this case the content producers are actually programmers who are trying to provide the best programming articles available.  Most of these come complete with well written explanations along with the sample code.

The Code Project isn’t your run-of-the-mill resource where you’ll sift through the site for the code you need and then run. You’re likely to get sucked into the many prize competitions, surveys, articles, message boards, or even the job board. This community is a lot of fun and a good way to connect with other programmers with common coding interests. Before you know it, you may be tempted to write an article yourself!

#5 – DevX

No list of developer resources would be complete without a mention of DevX. This site is a massive programmer’s paradise – a huge portal to other huge sites covering the most popular programming topics such as Java, C++, Database programming, Visual Basic, Mobile programming and much more.

Running your mouse over the left menu bar, as shown above, will display the sub-communities that exist under the DevX umbrella portal. When I had a significant Visual Basic project to complete in 2001, this website quickly became my home away from home.

#6 – Planet Source Code

Planet-Source-Code is one of those websites that you hate to like, but you need it anyway. It’s horribly designed, with a weird tiny-font menu listing at the top and ads splattered throughout the page, but if you know where to click, you’ll find a huge library of very useful sample code. At the top right where it reads “To start, just choose:” select the programming language of your choice. The site covers most of the major languages. On the next page you’ll see many categories of sample code to choose from.

Most of the languages have search filter options, and as you can see here, each category has tens, and even hundreds of thousands of lines of sample code available.

#7 – GNU and The Free Software Directory

If your thing is Open Source, then you can’t miss out on the Free Software Directory that’s linked directly from the GNU home page. This directory is just an impressive list of free software within categories like audio and video, database, email, games, graphics, Internet apps, communications and much more.

#8 – Google Code

Google has also joined the open source crowd with Google Code, a site that offers mostly web based sample code within categories like browser apps, website ads, product APIs, and social networking apps.

Google Code received a honorary mention in the MakeUseOf article “10 Google Services that Get No Love,” by Mark.

As always, Google uses its standard format – a very clean and easy to use website where you’ll have no problem quickly finding exactly the open source code that you need.

#9 – DevelopersDex

DevelopersDex is another developers community that has rewarded some of the highest quality contributors with “guru” status.  The site is essentially a giant developer’s forum, currently approaching just under 50 thousand members. The site covers ASP, C#, SQL, VB, and XML.

Each programming category features complete subcategories such as FAQs, job directories, news, and of course forums and newsgroups.

If you’re a developer using one of these languages and you’re looking for a massive web portal to browse through, this is a good one.

#10 – DevArticles

Saving one of my favorites for last, DevArticles offers one of the most comprehensive directories of articles offering sample codes on the Internet.  The list of available software categories is astonishing, including like Flash, embedded tools, and even mobile Linux.

Clicking on any one of those categories turns up a list of useful articles complete with sample code and full descriptions.

Is There More?

This list of developer resources that offer quality sample code snippets is nowhere near complete.  The internet is chock full of resources, and everyone has a list of personal favorites, which often depends heavily upon which software languages you prefer, and what type of programming you’re doing.

Are you a regular visitor to any of the websites listed above when you’re looking for sample code?  Do you have any personal favorites that aren’t listed here?  Share your own favorite sample code resources in the comments section below.

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But if we look it from the perspective of the site owner, giving the readers the ability to ‘PDF-print’ your pages will improve your site likeability by several points, and increase the site’s exposure to new readers.

We have discussed the RSS to PDF option using Feedbooks, but the service is limited to RSS feeds and feeds are sometimes only a fraction of the full articles. Moreover with this option, there’s nothing you can do but get ALL the feeds.

For website owners who still don’t offer an RSS option on their site (if any still exists today!) and/or wants to give their readers more freedom to PDF-print individual articles directly from the webpage, you can use the script from Web2PDF Online.

Here’s how:

1. Getting the code for ‘Save as PDF’

• Register at the Web2PDF Online Site
• Set the conversion options such as paper orientation and margin (in inches)
• Click the “Generate The Javascript” button.
• Copy the script provided in the next window

2. Using the code

Actually, all you have to do is paste the code into the HTML of the page where you want the “Save as PDF” button to appear. This could be a lot of work for those who want to put the button on all of their pages.

But Wordpress users can save time by using the code as a widget.

• From the admin panel, go to Design –> Widgets
• Find the Text widget on the left side of the Widget’s page and click “Add”
• The Text widget will appear on the right side of the page, below other widgets which already been activated before. Click “Edit”
• Give a title to this widget (or not), then paste the Javascript code on the body of the text.



• Click “Change” and then “Save Changes”
• You can drag and drop to these widgets to rearrange the order. But don’t forget to click “Save Changes” again afterwards.

From here on, your readers are able to print your web page(s) to PDF. Everytime they click the button, the page will be converted to PDF and a new window will appear showing a download link to the PDF file.

Do you know any other ways to offer your blog readers PDF functionality? Let us know what tools you offer in the comments.

(By) Jeffry Thurana is a blogaholic who has just started his own self-improvement journal “Supersubconscious” and manages an Indonesian tech blog “InterNeTips“. He actually thinks there are 30 hours everyday.

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As any blogger will tell you, the comments section of the blog is pretty much the life-blood of the site. The blog community revolves around the comments section. Discussions, arguments and relationships revolve around the comments section. Spammers go wild in the comments section! I spend a good part of my day in the comment moderation section of Make Use Of making sure everyone behaves themselves and that the Viagra & male organ enhancement salesmen take their business elsewhere.

I have tried lots of things to jazz up my comments section on my blog (I’ll be discussing another one in my next post) but I particularly liked NicEdit because of its simplicity. As I said, it’s just two lines of javascript and you just have to copy and paste it ANYWHERE in the comments page of the HTML template of your blog. Save the whole thing then go to one of your blog pages and check out the comments. You’ll now see that the comments form has a RichText WYSIWYG functionality.

This is what my comments box looked like before NicEdit was installed :

Functional and straight-forward but rather boring right?

Now here’s what it looked like AFTER NicEdit was installed.

Suddenly you can offer your commenters a wide variety of fonts, font sizes, formats….they can even insert photos and links! Not bad for free!

So why not add this to your blog (seems to work on all blogging platforms) and next time I’ll tell you about a Wordpress plugin that I found which also has the potential to personalize and liven up a boring blog comment!

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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