A person who is a die-hard fan of Game of Thrones hears that the
first episode of the season is out and it might be a few hours before he
can watch it. So, probably he would lock himself in a room, throw away
the key and cut every communication through social media and WhatsApp
and all that just to save himself from the spoilers. Not just Game of
Thrones, spoilers can ruin almost any movie and TV show for you that you
have been waiting for months. “Did you hear about Jon Snow’s ****?” | Shutterstock
Most of these spoilers are from popular social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.
Some of your friends consider it their birth right to spoil the movies
just for fun but they really don’t understand that how important it can
be for an individual who has waited for quite a few months just to enjoy
the show like everyone else.
So today, I will share with you a few tricks that you can use to
fight such spoilers on Facebook and Twitter and make sure you enjoy the
show or a movie without any spoilers.
Blocking Spoilers on Facebook
We will be using a tool called F.B. Purity
which is a browser extension available for most of the modern day
browsers. The extension works out of the box to fight irrelevant content
on your Facebook timeline and hides them to show only the ones which
matter to you. Most of these contents that F.B. Purity hides from newsfeed are game requests, application spam, ads and sponsored stories.
When you install the extension and load Facebook, you will see the
F.B. Purity link under the Status Update box which will tell the number
of updates that the extension has hidden from you. If you click on the
F.B. Purity link, it will open up the F.B. Purity Options.
Under the Newsfeed Filters section, you will see a
lot of options to filter the news feeds that you get on your FB
timeline. Under the option where you see Text Filter, enter the
words or phrases (on separate lines) that you wish to filter from your
news feed. For example, for Game of Thrones, it should be GoT, Game of
Thrones, Jon Snow and whatever you think might be used by your friends
in their status updates.
That’s all, once you are done, you can click on Save and Close to save the settings. You are now safe from spoilers as far as browsing Facebook on your browser is concerned.
Blocking Spoilers on Twitter
There are extensions like Open Tweet Filter and Larry filter for Twitter
available for Chrome and Firefox respectively using which you can block
tweets containing specific keywords while you are browsing the official
website. You just need to install these extensions and enter the
keywords, hashtags and even the users you wish to block on your Twitter
timeline.
It’s as simple as that. These extensions will protect you to a great
extent when it comes to spoilers and other useless updates you get on
your Facebook and Twitter timeline.
What About Smartphones?
For Facebook, there is no app or settings that I am aware of that can
block keyword based updates on the official app. You can anyways
uninstall the app and do your phone a favor with huge battery drain and unnecessary background app activity.
For Twitter, there are various third-party apps available for
Windows, Android, and iOS using which you can blacklist certain keywords
on your timeline. We have already covered some of the top tools with
this feature in one of our previous articles and you can have a look at.
Conclusion
So that was how you can protect yourself from spoilers on Facebook
and Twitter. If you would like to share any additional tips for our
readers that can help in fighting spoilers, please reach out to us
through comments or our forum.
Especially if it’s about filtering updates on Facebook for smartphones, I would love to hear.
When it comes to online media sharing,
photos and videos are the only two things that come to our mind. While
Photos are evergreen, videos carry much more emotions with you being
able to see all the moments. However, we are not always comfortable with
videos and mainly because of the large file size and believe it or not,
also because of the background sound that comes with these videos.
Then there are GIF files which carry the best of both the worlds.
They are fairly small in size and thus are ideal for online sharing and
at the same time, they are motion pictures and looks more of less like a
video with lesser details. Now, as I mentioned, they are a sequence of
images which moves so fast that they look like a motion picture and at
the moment, the internet is full of it. There are many websites that
host public GIF images that you can use and share online. We have also
shared quite a few ways on how you can make GIF files from photos and videos and you can have a look at the previous articles for some brush-up.
This article, however, is to guide you on how you can use these GIFs
on social media like Facebook, Twitter or a personal blog. To get
started, you will either have to find a GIF that you would like to share
on Giphy or Imgur, the largest online database of GIFs. Do explore them
before you begin and if you have created a personal GIF that you would
like to share, I would recommend you to upload the GIF files to one of
the two mentioned services to ease things.
How to Share GIFs on Facebook
Now to share a GIF on Facebook, it’s utterly important to first
upload it online and Imgur or Giphy are the two best sources to do that.
If you don’t have a personally created GIF, you can use the online
library and select a GIF to share. In the article, I will take Giphy as
an example, but the process would be same across other image hosting
services.
Basically, for Facebook, we need the direct URL of the GIF image file with ends with the extension .gif. To do that, open the advanced tab on Giphy and copy the URL against the option GIF Download. To make sure it’s the right link for Facebook, just make sure it ends with .gif.
Now all you need to do is, copy the link and paste it in the Facebook
Status Update box. Facebook will automatically fetch the GIF file and
once it’s done, you can delete the link pasted in the box. Additionally,
you can write additional text and finally click on the publish button.
That’s all, your GIF will be shared with friends.
How to Share GIF on Twitter
Now moving on to Twitter. Unlike Facebook, Twitter has an integrated
button search and embed GIF directly using Giphy. If you have already
searched for a GIF on Giphy, you can copy the link from the Twitter
section and paste it in the search box. Finally, when your GIF shows up,
you can click on the Tweet button.
Twitter gives the option to upload GIF files as an image directly and
if you have a personal GIF, you can upload it directly to Twitter
rather than first uploading it to Giphy. But if you choose to use the
GIF more than once on social media and blogs, it would be best to upload
it on Giphy.
Sharing on Blogs
If you have shared any YouTube video on your blog, you can relate it
to sharing GIFs as it’s almost the same. You will have to get hold of
the iframe embed code and then paste it to the blog in HTML
format. The code can be found under the sharing option and it’s the
first sharing option on both, Imgur and Giphy. Just make sure you paste
the HTML code in HTML format and not the right text format.
Apart from that, if you have unlimited online web space, you can
upload the Gif files directly to your server and insert then just like
any other image files.
Conclusion
So that was how you can share GIFs on Facebook, Twitter and personal
blog Thanks to Google Plus, other social networking services saw
potential in GIF image sharing and included the feature in due course of
time. Now all I am looking forward to is the feature to be included on
WhatsApp and once it does, I will make sure I update it on the post.
It happens to everyone: sending a message to someone or posting something you shouldn’t have and being unable to take it back. You’re solely responsible, and once it’s out there, it’s out there – or is it?
The luxury people once had of being able to write out a letter and shred it to pieces before mailing it is no longer available. Emails, texts, and tweets all get sent through the internet instantaneously, and in a typically busy life, there’s no room for waiting or reconsideration.
The best tactic to use to avoid the occasional online blunder is to prevent the unfortunate from happening.
Enable Undo Send in Gmail
If you use a Gmail account, there’s a feature hidden away in the Labs section of the Settingsthat can bring you sweet relief from an embarrassing email. It’s aptly named Undo Send.
Each time you send an email with Gmail, a yellow confirmation message appears. With Undo Send enabled, this is accompanied by an option to undo sending the message so it never gets to the receiver’s inbox. The option only appears for a few seconds so you’ll have to act quickly after initially clicking Send.
To enable Undo Send, click the Settings gear in Gmail and then click Settings in the menu. Click the Labs tab and scroll to find the Undo Send lab. Click the Enable radio button and be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes. Henceforth, you should be able to successfully retract emails you send.
Note that the feature is only available for Gmail and more specifically on gmail.com. If you use Gmail on your mobile phone or in a third-party client, you will not be able to undo emails you send.
Tip: If you’re still using the old Microsoft Outlook 2010 or 2013 desktop client for email, there’s a similar feature to Gmail’s Undo Send. If you head to Sent Items and click the Actions menu, you should see Recall This Message… as an option. Select whether you want to only delete the unread message or delete the unread message and replace it with a new one to send.
Use the Airplane Mode Trick for Undoing Text Messages
For iOS and Android devices, you might be surprised to learn that Airplane (or Flight) Modeshould become your best friend if you have a bad habit of sending text messages (or iMessages on iOS) that you regret.
On an iPhone, for example, the blue or green progress bar at the top of a conversation displays how far long it is sending the message. Unless you have a very high-speed connection, this is typically present. To prevent a message from being sent, you’ll have to act quickly by turning on Airplane Mode.
On the iPhone, do this by sliding your finger up from the bottom of the display to reveal Control Center. Then tap the Airplane Mode icon, which disables all forms of data and connectivity.
On Android, swipe down to reveal your notifications, then if necessary, swipe down again to view your toggles. Tap Airplane Mode to disable it. (Some Android devices call it Flight Mode.)
If you receive a warning that the message wasn’t delivered, you saved yourself in time.
No feature exists to un-send a text message on either platform, at least not one that works conveniently and effectively. This means that you’re only left with one choice: disable your connectivity as fast as you possibly can. If you aren’t connected, that message can’t go anywhere. If you try to disable Wi-Fi in time, your phone will probably just fall back on your cellular data connection.
Prevent a Potentially Regretful Tweet in TweetDeck
The main Twitter client and Twitter website have never particularly been showcased for power features, but luckily an app that Twitter owns is: TweetDeck. TweetDeck introduced a feature called Confirmation Step that makes you click to verify your tweet before it sends. This gives you a chance to avoid typos and make sure you’re tweeting from the right account as TweetDeck supports multiple accounts.
This feature is a saving grace for anyone who has made one too many tweet faux pas, but you first need to enable the feature. Visit TweetDeck online (or download the Mac or Google Chrome apps) and log in. On the bottom of the sidebar, click Accounts and select the account you want to enable this feature for. Click Confirmation step so the switch turns on. Then close this pane.
Now, when you click New Tweet to compose, a question appears under the text box asking you if you’re “ready to tweet?” with a checkbox. Before the Tweet button is enabled, you must first check off that you’re ready.
It’s not a foolproof way to prevent tweets you didn’t intend to send, but the second step surely adds a welcome protective layer.
