We all have those Facebook friends that constantly ping us for no reason other than to distract you. You tried ditching AIM and Google Chat to avoid encountering them online, but they remained persistent.

Hey Tony!
Whatcha doin?
How was your day?
What’s you favorite color? Mine is brown. Because it’s the color of your eyes.

But if ditching Facebook isn’t an option for you, what can you do?

Mashable(ugh) noted in an article that Facebook can allow you to selectively hide yourself from chat. Start a Facebook chat as you normally do, and then click on the cog icon on the top-right of your chat box. You will find an option that says “Go offline to [name].” And like that…you’re gone!

Mashable also has a more detailed walkthrough for this process if you are interested in hiding from multiple people. You can check it out here.

My sister finally joined LinkedIn recently. Unbeknownst to her, every update she makes is shared with all of her connections. Distraught with this unanticipated exposure, she pleaded to me to fix this injustice. Visit the privacy settings I suggested to her. Good luck I smirked.
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In this hard economy, one can never be too careful about what they put on the web, and this holds especially true for (would-be) employees.

Here’s a question for you to ponder: Can employers, potential or not, ask you to divulge your Facebook profile login information?
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In what many is calling the deal of the year (possibly even the century), social networking behemoth Facebook is reportedly planning to file papers with the SEC to go public as soon as Wednesday (yes, that’s tomorrow).

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg salivating about a potential $100 billion IPO

As first reported by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook’s planned IPO could value it anywhere from $75 to $100 billion, which would make it the biggest Internet company offering ever.

Assuming the company sells the majority of its 7-10% of available stock, that means it could raise as much as $10 billion. That amount would place it fourth all-time amongst U.S. companies.

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I recently noticed one of my friend’s Facebook update was a tad bit…peculiar. Under the message, the status said that it was posted “via Gameboy Color.” I was confounded, curious, and ultimately madly envious. A quick Google search led me to the answer posted in a reddit thread.
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As the debate over the merits and pitfalls between Facebook and Google+ rages on, Facebook announced today a wide array of upcoming features that will give users better control over the content they share. In Facebook’s own words:
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Have you ever read the Facebook Terms of Service? Hell, have you ever read any Terms of Service in your life? Do you even know what a Terms of Service is?
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This past week, I’ve been reading David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect, the book that was based on in 2010′s Oscar-winning movie, The Social Network. Through the first couple of chapters, Kirkpatrick describes the early events in 2004 when Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow Harvard roommates launched Facebook from their dorm room. The service quickly gains traction as they expand across to other colleges in the country including Yale, Stanford, and Columbia. At the forefront of the team’s concerns however, was being able to scale, something that plagued fellow social network FriendFeed’s early days. With ad revenue barely covering the cost of keeping Facebook up and running, the team’s finances hinged at the brink of a major setback.

In Chapter 5′s Investors, we find the small group of Harvard undergrads teamed up with Sean Parker, of Napster fame, in their new Palo Alto digs. As the social network entered the new school year in the fall, the total user count exploded, reaching nearly 1 million users by December.
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