Facebook Update for BlackBerry

BlackBerry devices are the smartphone sort of devices that I don’t even use smartphones as I don’t contact people through the phones. Like always, I make contacts with people through the email information. The ways I contact people will be the emailing and chatting and that sounds way too social enough to communicate.

Facebook for BlackBerry is apparently updated to Version 3.3 with newer features and increased BlackBerry Messenger connectivity. Other new stuffs include the new look and feel with refreshed icons and navigation.

Using BBM Integration, you can invite your Facebook friends to BlackBerry Messenger provided that they have the BlackBerry devices. And as BlackBerry series is the smartphone series, you can make calls in addition to various Facebook features.

Unfortunately, having to share your PIN is a controversial thing to me as this is supposed to the private sort of passcode thing you should not reveal to. First of all, you may end up sharing your BlackBerry PIN on Facebook in your Facebook profile which may be kind of bullshit anyway and Facebook already had tightened the security in doing their best to keep parts of your profile settings private.

The Photo feature is redesigned for modern navigation and somehow, it looks similar to the Photo apps in other smartphone devices and you’re able to view the photos in higher resolution. Even better is that you can save photos from Facebook to your device and media card.

Microsoft Socl

Another social network by Microsoft? It may look like a research under Microsoft Research Fuse Labs according to the official blog. There were already previous social networking sites by Microsoft but they don’t seem to be having so much momentum whatsoever.

Feature-wise, it contains wall posts, interests, people/me and parties. Interests are probably the tags of interests in your profile that people can search for you based on the interests like trying to add you into Socl. The People feature may seem to be like Friends on Facebook or perhaps mistaken for being like People Metro App and Parties feature, well, whatever it is, it is the video related feature that allows you to watch videos with others in Socl and chat together as you watch.

Facebook Messenger for Android

Starting two days ago in the western region or whatever, you can make the Facebook Messenger account with your name and phone number and start messaging your mobile contacts. You can install the app straight away and get started easily and start the group conversations, share photos and more stuffs. Over the next few weeks, the accounts will become available with the app update.

YouTube for PS Vita Version 2.0

Can Sony do even better with this update to YouTube app on Playstation Vita? Well, here is the list of the improvements.

• Subscriptions and channels – Like the YouTube home page today, you can view the subscriptions and channels you’ll like to browse the videos on and check out the information in the About This Channel menu option.
• Improved controls: Other functions include the Next and Previous buttons which may be optional and Video looping which may be useful for music or some sort and even the ability to play multiple videos at once.
• Playlist Settings: You can manage playlists and add videos to the playlists, including your favorites and water later videos and lists. Jeez, I don’t know if the smartphone versions have this sort of feature.
• Closed Captions: I don’t know if this one is in smartphone versions of the app as well but this one is quite handy for sharper understanding of what is said in the video as the sound quality or the person can sometimes sound mumbled.
• Continuous playback: Oh man, what are you gonna use this feature for? For music, tutorial or some other stuff? I may be speechless about this.
• Share: Cool and brave feature that you can tweet, email or group message your friends the video you’re going to share. You can also invite people to check out on YouTube via group message.
• Improved Search: The filter feature is available as well. Holy cow, what a shame to smartphone version, lol.
• Console buttons: Unnecessary here unless you want to treat your freaking Vita as the upgraded PSP.

Facebook Messenger for Firefox

The latest version of Firefox has Facebook Messenger feature! Once you enable it, you’ll get the social sidebar with your Facebook chat and updates, like new comments and photo tags. Perhaps the social sidebar on the right is similar to the one on Facebook website itself. You will also get notifications that you can respond to right from the Firefox toolbar similar to getting those notifications in Rockmelt web browser. With that feature in the latest Firefox, you can chat with friends and stay connect with their Facebook updates without having to go to the Facebook website itself. Like Rockmelt, you can chat with your friends while doing other stuffs on the browser itself.

Today’s Facebook integration is just the start of making Firefox more social but can other web browsers have the similar feature as well?

Office 15 now available for business customers

Finally, they can purchase the on-premises versions of Office 15, Exchange Server 15, Lync Server 15, SharePoint Server 15, Project 15 and Visio 15 through Microsoft Volume Licensing. For such an example business like that, they can buy Exchange Server, Lync Server, SharePoint Server, Visio and Office for business use but this kind of super-plan can be seriously expensive and fulfilling the licenses like these may not be quite easy for legal business use. Broad availability through the retail and online channels is still planned for the first quarter of next year.

To begin for business use, you may want to ask your Microsoft Account Team or your Microsoft Partner. In the meantime, there’s also the trial version of the product that you can try today and let the developers of Office 15 know what you think.

Rooms on Windows Phone and other phones

Well, at least people are able to use this feature due to the fact that this app is available on multiple platforms starting with Windows Phone, Iphone and Android. You can invite your friends to use this feature provided that they use the Hotmail account which is now the Microsoft account. Room app lets you share notes, calendar, photos and participate in a group chat with people you choose but Microsoft surely recommends that the whole group of yours should be having Windows Phone 8 as it has the best feature list.

I don’t know if this can work on Ipod Touch, IOS tablets, Android tablets and Windows 8 devices but here’s how for Calendar. If you’re using Windows Phone 7, IOS or Windows 8, add your Microsoft account as an email account on your device. Then, the room calendar will shop up alongside your other calendars with the same name as the room. But if you’re using Android, get the Hotmail app from Google Play and sign in to the app with your Microsoft account. Then go to the calendar app to turn on the room calendar. Once again, this feature works best with Windows Phone 8.

For photos and videos, get the SkyDrive app and sign in to it with your Microsoft account. The room photos and videos will show up as the shared folders with the same name as the room. This applies to Windows Phone 7, IOS, Android and Windows 8 users. Lastly for notes, get the OneNote app and do the same thing as you do for SkyDrive app. It also applies to four platforms as already mentioned.

I guess that Windows Phone 8 already has those apps as part of the operating system but it is a shame that you surely have to follow the instructions above if you’re using Windows 8 which sounds kind of bullshit in the first place.