SOLUTION: How to make Facebook only show you posts from your friends and family

Most of my real-life family and friends have Facebook accounts, so it's theoretically the best way to digitally keep in touch with the people who are most important to me. But while Facebook used to live up to that promise for the first 10 years or so of its existence, in recent years the site seems much more interested in showing me ads and promoted posts that I have zero interest in seeing than it is in showing me content from my actual Facebook friends.

I recently discovered a way to make Facebook show me only posts from people on my Friends list. As of this time (May, 2024) this method currently works to see a chronological feed of only posts from people I care about, and nothing else (except for the occasional ad). The steps to do this are slightly different depending on whether you are using a computer or a phone, so I will provide illustrated instructions for three different ways of accessing Facebook.

If you are using Facebook via a web browser on a computer

1. Open up your web browser of choice, navigate to facebook.com, and click the little house icon to make sure you're on the main Facebook landing page.
   
   
   
   
   
2. If you see a "Feeds" link on the left side of the page, continue to step 3. If you don't see "Feeds" listed here, click the "See more" link.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Click the "Feeds" link on the left side of the page.
   
   
   
   
   
4. On the Feeds page, click Friends. This will display a chronological list of posts from people on your Friends list.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Once you open the Friends feed, you can bookmark that page so that when you visit Facebook you automatically go to that feed! (In the picture above, that little "fb" icon under the address bar is my bookmark that points to my Friends feed.) You might have also noticed there are several other options on the Feeds page. Below are some descriptions of the different feed options, plus bookmarkable links to the different feeds:
   
   All feed - This is the default Facebook view (which mostly comprises ads and promoted content).
   
   Favorites feed - This feed shows posts from any Facebook friends, groups, or pages that you have explicitly marked as a "favorite." Steps to do this are coming up next.
   
   Friends feed - Only shows you posts from your Facebook friends.
   
   Groups feed - Shows posts from Facebook groups you belong to.
   
   Pages feed - Shows posts from Facebook pages you follow.
    
6. These next steps explain how to customize your Favorites list so you can prioritize content from the Facebook friends, groups, and pages you're most interested in. On the Feeds page, select the Favorites feed, and then click the Manage Favorites button.
   
   
   
   
   
7. On the Manage your Feed dialog box, click Favorites.
   
   
   
   
   
8. The Favorites dialog box will automatically populate with a list of people, groups, and pages that you interact with the most, but you can also type in names to locate anyone or anything not already listed. Click the star icon next to the person, group, or page to toggle that item's "Favorite" status. A white star means the item is not favorited; a blue star means that item is marked as a favorite. After doing this your Favorites feed will now only show content you're interested in.
   
   
   
   
   
9. If you have a very long friends list or belong to a lot of groups or pages, you can narrow down your search by selecting one of the filter options from the All dropdown list.
   
   
   

If you are using Facebook via a web browser on your phone

Steps on how to do this in the Facebook app are in the following section. This section here is about browsing Facebook on your phone's web browser, which might make sense for you once you get to step 3 below.

Facebook looks a little different when you access it via a phone's web browser versus how it appears on a computer, although the overall steps are mostly the same. I will just show some images of how things are different.

1. Open up your phone's web browser and navigate to facebook.com. Scroll to the very top of the page so you can see the "three lines" icon (also called a "hamburger menu) in the upper-right of the page. Click that icon to open the menu.
   
   
   
   
   
2. On the Menu page, click Feeds.
   
   
   
   
   
3. At the top of the page, click Friends to only see content from your Facebook friends. For descriptions of the other feeds, see the previous steps about using Facebook on a computer. (Note: You can bookmark the Friends feed, or any of the other feeds here, and then save the bookmark to your phone's home screen, and use that as a way to directly open Facebook to your desired content- this is an advantage over using the Facebook app, which will always open to the default, mostly-garbage algorithmic feed.)
   
   
   

If you are using the Facebook app on your phone

1. Open the Facebook app and scroll to the top of the page so that you can see the navigation buttons on the screen. Click the menu button in the lower-right corner of the screen.
   
   
   
   
   
2. On the Menu screen, click Feeds. (If you don't see a Feeds option, click "See more" to reveal it.)
   
   
   
   
   
3. On the Feeds screen, click Friends to only see posts from your Facebook friends (and the occasional ad). You can see descriptions of the other feeds in the steps for using Facebook on a computer earlier in this post.
   
   
   
   
   
4. If you would like to narrow down the content you see to only your closest Facebook friends (and the Facebook groups and pages you like the most), you can customize your Facebook favorites. To do this, first select the Favorites feed and then touch the Manage Favorites link.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Facebook may have already added a number of people, groups, and pages to your Favorites list based on how often you react to their content. To remove any items from the list, click the "..." icon next to one of these pre-existing entries and then click "Remove from Favorites." To add more items to your Favorites list, type their names in the Search box and then click the Add button next to their results when they appear.
   
   
   

Why Battery 3 Is Better than Battery 4

I've been complaining about Battery 4 ever since I first loaded it up and realized that several features I'd always relied on in Battery 3 were nowhere to be found. Native Instruments gave Battery 4 a beautiful user interface and a nice, modern set of kits- but the cutting of not one, not two- but several of Battery 3's most important and distinguishing features makes so little sense that I almost felt betrayed.

I'm thankful that as a Komplete 6 and 8 owner I have access to Battery 3, and that it still works fine on modern DAWs and operating systems. But every time I hear someone ask, "Hey, what's wrong with Battery 4?" I end up reciting the same list of omitted features. I finally sat down and put together a video that demonstrates some of the most significant differences, and hopefully illustrates why Battery 3 is by far the better tool for people who like to make their own kits and customize their sounds.

Here's an official Battery 3 trailer, I presume from 2006 when B3 was first introduced. It even lists a feature or two that I didn't mention in my video. Native Instruments- you tarnished your own classic!

Worst Purchases of 2011

These days, when the cost of just about everything seems to increase faster than our annual raises are able to cover, it really stings when we invest time and ever-more-precious money into a product or service that falls short of expectations. These four things I bought in 2011 didn't just fall short; they did a full-on Chevy Chase faceplant into failure. I'm calling them out here to highlight the very specific mistakes these manufacturers and service providers made, and to also recommend some alternatives that worked out for us in the end.

HP Photosmart e-Station C510a

Our requirements for a replacement for our previous HP printer were pretty straightforward:

• We wanted it to have wireless support, so we didn't have to leave a computer powered on 24/7 for other PCs in the house to print on it.
• It needed to scan and make copies.

Of course, it should also print- but we just sort of took it for granted that a printer would do that. Who would ever make a printer that wouldn't print?

The thing is, the HP software required to send print jobs from the various PCs in the home to the printer sucks. Sometimes it crashes, sometimes it can't find the printer, and sometimes your print jobs just vanish into the aether. It's quite possible that the directions to a Cub Scout meeting that my wife repeatedly attempted to print landed on the output tray of some hapless HP owner in Namibia. We will never know.

Something that seemed neat at first but turned out to be awful is the printer's touch-screen control panel (irritatingly called the "Zeen"), which is actually a detachable Android tablet. It's a thick, sluggish, artificially crippled Android tablet, but at least you can (slowly) browse the web from the toilet with it. (As long as you don't need Flash.) Problem is, the tablet failed at its primary job of operating the printer. Half the time it didn't realize it was docked on the printer. The rest of the time it openly defied any of my wife's attempts to make it do anything related to printing, scanning, or copying. Oh, and every couple of weeks it randomly lost all of its settings, requiring me to run through the setup wizard in order to make the printer "work."

What we bought instead
The Canon Pixma MX882 Wireless Office All-in-One Inkjet Printer. This thing does everything the HP claims to, without requiring you to reboot your computer or re-run initial setup procedures every time you need to use it. The support software is a little clunky, but it works.

Safe Eyes

My son and daughter are blossoming nerds, and the Internet is a vital and regular part of their lives. Unfortunately the Internet is dangerous for kids anyone with eyes, so we needed a way to give our kids access to the sites and programs they needed while completely blocking out the rest of the web. Safe Eyes seemed to do the trick at first. We set up a whitelist (where you explicitly specify which sites the kids are allowed to access) and I used a network sniffer to determine which sites the kids' online games (Minecraft, Roblox, Toontown Online, and Lego Universe) needed to access.

Wait... why in the hell did I have to set up a network sniffer? How many parents even know what a network sniffer is? Well, funny thing- Safe Eyes only seems to understand traditional browser traffic. It doesn't quite know what to make of the proprietary protocols that games tend to use, so it just quietly blocks them. Problem is, it doesn't record which sites it's blocking when this happens like it would if you attempted to browse to a blocked website in Firefox. And there's no way to whitelist at the application level; in other words, you can't tell Safe Eyes "never block traffic from this program." (You might find a couple of technical articles explaining that this is possible, but those articles are wrong. You can only block applications in Safe Eyes, not allow them.)

Unfortunately, online games are dynamic; they can add new servers and change content providers and file hosts in the background any time you log in. Every couple of weeks one or more of the kids' games would break again, and I'd have to set up the sniffer and figure out which new sites we needed to add to the whitelist.

But there was another problem! Since Safe Eyes doesn't "get" online games, if a kid played a game for more than 15 minutes, Safe Eyes would mistakenly assume that no one was using the Internet and quietly log out, blocking ALL Internet access on that PC. This is not a documented feature, and there is no way to keep Safe Eyes from doing it. (Actually, I wrote a little program that randomly connects to various web sites in the background to trick Safe Eyes into thinking someone was using the Internet. Again, how many other parents would be able to do this, and why should they have to anyway?) It really screws up games, too; my son would just spontaneously lose his connection in the middle of a quest, and have to quit his game, sign back in to Safe Eyes, and log in to the game again, typically losing progress in the process.

Oh, their support sucks too. Email support never wrote back to me the two times I contacted them, their overseas phone rep had zero idea what he was talking about, and there is no forum for customers to help each other.

What we bought instead
NetNanny does everything Safe Eyes does, in addition to allowing you to explicitly whitelist applications. All of the kids' games simply work. It also doesn't time out in the middle of gameplay. I had a problem the first time I installed it on one of the computers (it accidentally blocked all Internet access!), but I cleaned up the system and managed to get it to work right on the second install. Their web site is pretty dodgy (even moreso now, after a recent redesign), but the product mostly works. I'm trying to figure out a problem that seems to prevent my son from running a Minecraft server accessible only on our local network, but that's a low-priority issue. There is (or at least was?) an official support forum, but I'm having trouble getting to it on their new site. I'm watching you, NetNanny. Don't let me down!

Sony MDR-NC 40 Noise Canceling Headphones

Here's an electronics marketing protip: If a major selling point of your product is part of the thing's name ("NC," "Noise Canceling"), the product should have that feature. Even if it does a crappy job of it, the product should at least try to do what it's named for, yeah? These headphones don't.

I needed a pair of noise cancelers for when I watch my iPod at the gym. All those treadmills make it mighty hard to hear Dexter Morgan mumbling his voiceovers. These headphones are comfortable and they sound all right for consumer-grade 'phones, but the only ambient noise they block is accidental, due to the fact that the pads cover your ears- not because of any fancy circuitry. There's a little module in the middle of the headphone cable (which is a real annoyance for something you're using at the gym) that houses a battery which seems to serve the sole purpose of illuminating a red LED.

Other complaints: The headphones feel flimsy; all of the joints have more wiggle than seems necessary. They are supposed to collapse small enough to fit into this cute leather pouch they come with, but my pair doesn't fold all the way in the center, so I have to forcibly jam the things into the pouch to zip it up.

What I bought instead
The Bose QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones are pricey but they do exactly what you expect them to. When you flip the switch (which is on the right earpiece instead of a stupid dongle on the cable) the sounds of what's going on around you quickly fade into the background. They also feel great and so far have demonstrated pretty good battery life. Note that these headphones don't work at all without the battery, so you'll want to keep some AAAs on hand.

I also own a pair of Audio Technica ATH-ANC7B Active Noise-Cancelling Closed-Back Headphones, which I use at work (long story). They're half the price of the Bose, but honestly just as good-sounding- and they at least work a little bit when the battery runs out (but they sound much better when powered).

HTC Status

The Status is AT&T's version of the HTC Chacha. It appealed to us because we were total smart phone n00bs who'd finally outgrown our ancient flip-phones, but were apprehensive about these new-fangled touch screens. We wanted real physical buttons for texting and dialing, and the Status's Facebook integration was desirable.

Reviews I'd read before selecting the phone mentioned that the 150MB internal storage was pretty small, but I figured that wouldn't be an issue since I knew AT&T included a 2GB SD card with the phone. We could just move stuff off to the SD card as needed or uninstall unnecessary apps to free up space, right? Right???

Well of course, now we know better. AT&T locks the phone down so you can't move or uninstall any of the bundled apps. You basically only have about 40MB total for downloaded apps and personal data. After about 3 weeks of use my phone stopped downloading calendar updates, email, or Facebook statuses. Forcing sync never seemed to do anything. Also, my phone kept telling me I was out of room... but it wouldn't let me do anything about it! A couple weeks after our 30-day exchange window ran out with AT&T I spent a week learning how to root ("jailbreak," unlock) my phone so I could delete some of the things I knew I would never need. That worked at first, but rooting had unexpected consequences: If I turned off the phone and then plugged it in to charge, the phone wouldn't power up again unless I opened it up and removed the battery (which is a non-trivial task on this phone with its smooth, cornerless body). Also, it no longer displayed the battery charging screen when in standby, and the keyboard layout was permanently messed up- I had to use the Symbols screen to type @ signs or question marks. And then the phone started telling me I was out of space again.

Also, the Netflix support sucked; the audio was hopelessly out of sync with the video, even on a WiFi connection. Seriously, fuck this phone.

What we got instead
Since we were no longer eligible for subsidized phones from AT&T, I did serious homework when researching our next phones, because this time we were going to be paying full price. We ended up choosing the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Android Phone. Aside from the power and volume controls, it doesn't have any physical buttons, but boy do I ever love this phone. It's fast, refined, and it just plain works. Actually dialing the phone is a bit easier on this than on the Status, because the virtual keys are nice and fingertip-sized, whereas the teeny buttons on the status were hard to use in situations where you had to type numbers for automated phone menus. Oh it also has literally 78 times more internal storage than the HTC Status. Our phones are specifically the SGH-I777- they actually look just like the newer Galaxy S II Skyrocket, but lack that phone's faster processor and LTE support.

Here's hoping 2012 treats us better.

Speeding Up AVG Anti-Virus 9

Update 1/12/2010: I have just uploaded an updated version of AvgFixer, which now supports 64-bit Windows, and also automatically asks if you want to disable the cache server if the server module is detected. If you already installed the original version, just go to the Add/Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista, Windows 7) control panel and uninstall AvgFixer. You will then be able to install the new version as instructed below.

If you regularly connect to the Internet with a Windows-based computer that isn't protected by some form of anti-virus you are a tool. For one thing, you are probably already infected, and your Windows user experience is worse than it should be. Now that wouldn't be so terrible (since you are bad, and you should feel bad) but the bigger issue is that your computer is probably busy infecting other systems, sending torrents of spam to people you will never meet, or engaging in denial of service attacks against online businesses who crossed the organized criminals of the Internet.

Unfortunately, most anti-virus software on the market is bloated crapware. The "Internet Security" packages that ship on most new PCs are often over-invasive, limiting what you can do with your computer, consuming system resources, and slowing you down when they aren't trying to sell you anti-virus definition subscriptions or other products. For years I have used and recommended AVG Free Anti-Virus. Traditionally, it's been fast, reliable, free, and relatively unobtrusive. In the last year or so, the upsell notifications have increased, but the product was generally solid. Sadly, AVG really fumbled with their latest release, AVG Anti-Virus 9.

Version 9 includes a new "optimization scan" feature which is supposed to decrease the duration of scheduled "Whole Computer" scans. The idea is that AVG keeps a database of files on your system that don't need to be scanned, so it doesn't waste time on them during system scans. The problem is that for this new feature to work, AVG frequently searches your computer for files to ignore (no, that wasn't a typo... it ties up your computer looking for stuff to ignore), and these scans cause a LOT of hard drive activity, which can significantly slow your computer down, affecting everything from launching programs to switching between windows to browsing the Internet.

Complicating matters, AVG never indicates in any of its user interfaces when it is doing these background optimization scans. It doesn't let you schedule them, and doesn't let you abort them if you happen to realize that your computer has suddenly slowed to a crawl. I don't care about this optimization feature; I run whole computer scans overnight, when they won't interfere with my day-to-day activities. AVG keeps saying that the optimization scan is a "low priority process," as if that means anything when your hard drive is spinning non-stop, causing every program that needs drive access to wait in line, making the system generally unusable. (Anti-virus engineers really live in this continual state of denial regarding how severely their software affects users. They schedule whole-system scans in the middle of the day, when people are at work, and they don't write their programs to defer resource-intensive tasks until nobody's using the PC.)

If you have experienced random slowdowns as a result of installing or upgrading to AVG Anti-Virus 9 (either the free or pay versions), there is yet hope. I have developed a little program that disables the new "Cache Server" module that runs the unnecessary optimization scans, putting control back into your hands.

How it works

AvgFixer locates the cache server module on your computer- a file called avgchsvx.exe- and renames it so that AVG Anti-Virus doesn't load it the next time your system starts up. After renaming the file, AvgFixer asks whether you would like to restart your computer. That's it. You can use AvgFixer to restore the cache server later on, if you ever decide you want to do that.

You can perform all these steps manually, but I wrote this program for people who are not Windows experts. With AvgFixer, even your mom can fix her AVG 9 problems.

Where to get it

You can download the AvgFixer installer right here.

AvgFixer runs on the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

How to use it

1. Locate the AvgFixerSetup file you downloaded from my web site and launch it. If you're running Vista or Windows 7, you might see a dialog box like the one below. This happens whenever you run a downloaded program if you have the (terrible, annoying) User Account Control feature enabled on Windows. Click Yes or Allow to continue with the installation.
   
   
   
2. Follow the setup instructions until AvgFixer is installed.
3. When setup is complete, locate the AvgFixer icon on your desktop and launch it. The icon looks like this:
   
   
   Again, on Vista and Windows 7, you might see a dialog box like the following one. Just click Yes or Allow to continue.
   
   
4. The first thing AvgFixer does is determine whether you have version 9 of AVG Anti-Virus (either the free or pay versions) installed. If you do not, it will tell you that it couldn't find AVG 9, and you won't be able to do anything with the program. This is good, though, because it means you haven't been suffering like the rest of us. (Beginning with the 1.01 version on 1/12/2010, AvgFixer will ask you whether you wish to disable the cache server right away if it detects the module. If you answer No, you will see the following screen.) If AvgFixer does detect AVG 9, the screen will look something like this:
   
   
   The screen indicates whether it located the offending cache server module, and whether it found a backup of the cache server (which would only be there if you ran the program before). The Disable Cache Server button is the one you click in order to fix the performance problems related to AVG Anti-Virus 9. If the button is grayed out, it means the cache server was not found, and therefore isn't causing a problem. If you have successfully used AvgFixer previously, you can use the Restore Cache Server button to re-enable the cache server (why you would want to, I don't know). The button will only be clickable if a backup is found, and no cache server is currently active (it is possible that automatic program updates might install new versions of the cache server, and you might have to disable it more than once, over time). The Open AVG Folder button just opens an explorer window to the hard drive location where AVG 9 is installed. (It's there in case you wish to look at the AVG files yourself.)
5. If the Disable Cache Server button is not grayed-out, click it. If the operation fails, it might be due to the privileges of your current user account. You might want to make sure you're logged in as an administrator and that you have logged out of any additional user accounts if there are multiple accounts that you switch between on your PC. If the operation succeeds, you'll be asked whether you'd like to restart your system. Click Yes.
   
   
6. You're done, for now. After you restart your computer, you should not encounter any more AVG-related slow-downs (other than your regularly-scheduled system scans), unless AVG installs an updated version of the cache server on subsequent updates. After a successful run of AvgFixer, subsequent runs of the program should look like the following (unless AVG installs a new cache server, in which case it will look like it did the first time you ran it):
   
   

Here's hoping AVG gets on the ball and gives users more control over features like this in the future. It is difficult to find the right balance between security and ease-of-use, but the gross impact that the cache server feature had on many systems was just absurd.

Dear Nintendo

Dear Nintendo,

I congratulate you on the amazing and continued success of the Wii and DS. You've really changed the way that people think about video games and introduced some true innovations in an industry increasingly notorious for risk avoidance. I also want to apologize for writing the DS off as a "gimmick" and for making fun of the Wii's name. (Although I think you missed an opportunity when you chose to name the Wii's built-in Nintendo Entertainment System emulator "Virtual Console" instead of "WiiNES.")

I was curious, though, Nintendo- do you ever sort of get the feeling that you're successful despite yourself? Allow me to clarify:

Why don't your first-party games have voice?

Even though you adopted DVD-ROM as the storage medium for Wii games, all in-game dialogue in Nintendo-produced titles is printed on-screen, rather than spoken. Now, I like to read as much as the next person, but since your games are designed for standard definition television sets, you can only fit about three words per line on the screen. Also, you apparently think players like to watch every single character individually rendered on-screen as we're trying to read... as if a little Mario is packed inside each Wii, dilligently typing out every word. A typical gameplay session with a first-party Wii game usually goes something like this:

[Press Start]
[Watch cutscene]
[Wait for page 1 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 2 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 3 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 4 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 5 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 6 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 7 of text to render and press A to continue]
Three seconds of gameplay! Wewt!
[Wait for page 1 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 2 of text to render and press A to continue]
[Wait for page 3 of text to render and press A to continue]
[repeat.]

Did you know that this actually isn't fun? Well, that's not completely accurate. It is fun, but perhaps less so than undergoing unanaesthetised dental work. Don't you guys do focus groups or anything? Do people who playtest your games understand that they're intended for entertainment, or do they think you're designing thumb-torture simulators?

Why do all your first-party games have General MIDI soundtracks?

I remember being really blown away the first time I ever saw a home video game that used the power of MIDI to generate its soundtrack, but the novelty wore off sometime in 1988. Is this just a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?"

Did you know that it is now possible to actually record music digitally and then play it back inside a video game? Take a look at, say, every video game produced by anyone other than Nintendo in the past 17 years for an example. I thought that maybe you were just cramming too many standard-def, low-poly graphics onto your game discs to accomodate digital music, but I looked at a bunch of your titles under good lighting and it's obvious you're nowhere near filling your discs to capacity, so what gives?

Why does the Wii Shop Channel suck so bad?

The first time I ever bought a Virtual Console title through the Wii Shop Channel, I thought, "Gee, entering all my credit card and address information with the Wiimote really sucks ass. At least I'll only have to do this once. Right? RIGHT???" But no- every single time you purchase anything from the Wii Shop, every Wii user must fumble through the process of providing complete credentials and payment info with probably the least appropriate text-entry device ever. Dude, Steven Hawking has an easier time entering text than the average Wii user.

And yes, I know that there are now keyboards you can plug in to the Wii- wait... I bet you call them "Wiiboards," don't you? But even websites remember customer information, and websites can work from any computer. You only access Wii Shop from your own Wii- there's no excuse for you to not remember who your users are, is there?

Why isn't the new Animal Crossing game any different from the first one?

Ususally the idea behind a game sequel is, "Ditch the things that didn't work, keep the things that did, but make them better." Oddly, the idea behind Animal Crossing: City Folk appears to be, "Put the original Animal Crossing disc in a new box." Seriously, after seven years of development you can't evolve the gameplay or graphics at all, other than make the player character look like less of a serial-killing clown?

This franchise is in dire need of a reboot. Let's just pretend City Folk never happened and release a true "Animal Crossing 2." As you're obviously starved for ideas, let me recommend how to bring this game up-to-date: The new game will be an open-ended stealth action FPS sandbox thriller with occasional first-person parkour segments. You're an undercover vice detective and the guitar-playing dog K.K. Slider is your in-game companion (controlled by AI in single-player or your friend in co-op mode). Together you go into deep cover in Tom Nook's megastore chain, investigating his textile sweatshops and alleged prostitution and drug trafficking operations. This should serve as a good jumping point; contact me if you need more detail.

Oh yeah, and what the FUCK is up with bringing back Resetti? It's not bad enough it takes 10 minutes just to load a goddamn game of Animal Crossing (even if you DO save before turning off your system) but you have to continue torturing players once the game finally loads? Just for this, I am officially putting you on notice: If I ever see Reggie Fils-Aimé in person I am totally gonna punch him in the piinis.

iTunes Plus Library Upgrades Failing Massively

I was stoked about the news that the iTunes Music Store was getting rid of DRM and offering unlocked, higher-quality tracks to replace the protected songs that customers had already purchased. Stoked, that is, until I actually attempted to upgrade my library. When I click the little Upgrade My Library link at the iTunes Store front page, I'm presented with the option to buy the Plus versions of 96 individual songs and 11 complete albums for $61.80 USD. (By the way, it kind of blows that you can't pick and choose which tracks to upgrade. Apple is only offering complete library upgrades- well as complete as possible, since the labels haven't turned over all the DRM-free songs yet.) When I eagerly click the big silver Buy button, I'm presented with a little message box that says: "Your iTunes Plus upgrade is now processing" and instructs me to wait until I receive an email containing download instructions.

Well after 20 minutes or so, the email arrives and it always says the same thing:

Your iTunes Plus Upgrade Could Not Be Processed

Your iTunes Plus music upgrade could not be successfully completed because there is a problem with your payment information. To go to your iTunes Account Edit Payment Information page, please click the link below. Please check your credit card information, ensure that it has not expired, and check your billing information and then try your upgrade again.

So I return to iTunes and open up my account information, only to find that my payment information is not only intact, but correct. I have bought hundreds of songs in the past year alone with exactly the same information, and the card's good for another few years. Supplying the info for a second card didn't work either.

As the day wears on it's becoming clear that I'm not the only one. The Apple Support forums are filling up with posts from people all over the world having the same problems. It's nice, I guess, to know that I'm not the only one, but what's frustrating is that we have no idea what the issue specifically is, and whether Apple is even aware of the problem. There is no apparent way to submit a support ticket. (Clicking the Report a Problem button in iTunes simply loads your purchase history.)

Not everyone is having the issue. When it works, the tracks just queue for download automatically- no email involved. From the several successful reports I've seen, it appears that the upgrade is working better for people with fewer than 100 songs to replace. My own failed attempts involved 244 songs, and most of the complaints I've seen on the Apple forums seemed to involve triple-digit song counts.

I presume that Apple is just plain overwhelmed with upgrade requests and the system is just failing in bizarre and misleading ways. Anyway, if you are having similar problems to what I've described here, just know this:

• You're not alone.
• It's probably not anything with your payment information- especially if you've recently bought stuff through iTunes and the card's still valid.
• It's not regional; it appears to be a global problem.
  

Why Boingo needs to suck my nuts.

Boingo is a wireless roaming provider. The idea is that you can have a single Boingo account that you can use to connect to for-pay WiFi hotspots around the globe, freeing you the hassle of having to sign up to a different wireless service provider every time you wish to connect to the internet while you're traveling. Earlier this year during a layover at some shitty airport, I signed up for Boingo, as it was the preferred Internet access method in their terminals. Rather than sign up for Boingo's monthly service, I purchased a $7.95 'day pass' to just cover the period when I'd be traveling. The only time I ever needed to use Boingo was that day, however over the past few months, at various free hotspots, I've gotten GoBoingo pop-ups saying that Boingo service was available, and prompting me to log on.

Sometimes I'd hit Cancel and continue surfing, while other times I'd hit Login, figuring "well it's a free connection, anyway, who cares." Well, I should have cared, because I just discovered last week that each time I had blindly clicked the Login button while I was at hotspots that were already free and operational, Boingo silently charged me $7.95. To use a free hotspot.

Why the hell is this? Well the way that Boingo gets existing hotspots and partner service providers to become Boingo hotspots is to pay daily commissions to the operators of active hotspots, and special commissions each time a new subscriber signs up for the Boingo service. I reckon that these various hotspots where I got dinged didn't really understand what the service was; they just heard about the daily commissions and said "Hellz yes, sign me up!"

At least one time in my travels I also got charged for allowing GoBoingo to connect while I was already using a for-pay hotspot that I had already paid for.

So, do heed my warning: If you've got GoBoingo installed, only click the login button if it's not a free hotspot and you haven't already paid someone else for the connection. If you log in to Boingo after you're already connected, you will be charged but you will not get even a teeny amount of extra connectivity or functionality. Of course this only applies to day-pass people like me. If you've already got a monthly Boingo account, log in all you want. It won't do anything for you, but at least you won't get charged any extra... I think.