Facebook Fulminations

I decided to post a photograph on the so-called “wall” of a Facebook “friend.”
Fasten seat-belts; bury head in lap.
I’ve had Facebook hang on functions like this.
Begin photo-posting procedure. Click photo icon; select photo from ‘pyooter.
BAM! “Share.”
Seconds pass; turning into minutes.
“Good old Facebook,” I say. “Um, I don’t have all day.”
I switch to something else.
Meanwhile, Facebook is cranking away in the background.
I can do that.
My FireFox® Internet-browser can keep multiple sites open, one of which is Facebook.
I never log out — which means I never have to log in.
Often Facebook will hang, in which case I dump it; a log-out I guess.
I thereafter log in and try again.
I look again about an hour later, and Facebook has posted the photograph.
Probably took at least five minutes, during which I did something else.
Sorry, I’m not a Windoze user. I’m not into the hourglass.
My having a Facebook is inadvertent.
I wouldn’t have one, but Facebook pulled a fast one.
They sent me an e-mail whereby an old friend from the mighty Mezz invited me to be her Facebook “friend.”
Sure; I dutifully filled in a form, little knowing I was setting up a Facebook of my own.
“Welcome to Facebook,” said another old friend.
I could just dump this whole Facebook thingy, or walk away from it, as I did an e-mail provider.
But people I like pay more attention to Facebook than e-mail.
Another factor, and probably why I wasn’t suspicious, was my younger brother in northern DE had become a Facebook evangelist.
For years he had been administrator of my family’s web-site, and it looked to him like Facebook could do all our family’s web-site was doing, without his administration.
Trouble is, Facebook can be far more public.
I suppose you could limit “friends” to only family members, but even then it fires right up for any “friend.”
Our family’s web-site you had to log in; it was more private.
My wife also initiated a Facebook, but with an alias, and her “profile-picture” is a previous dog.
The Facebook “search” function won’t work, unless the searcher knows the alias.
Plus our family’s web-site was much more user-friendly. Facebook makes you jump through hoops.
I poke around my Facebook.
“Anyone know the difference between ‘live feed’ and ‘news feed?’” I ask no one in particular.
I had tried each, and noted no difference — although now I do.
“I think it might be the order stuff is in,” my wife says.
“I’ve given up on trying to figure out Facebook,” a Facebook “friend” in VA says.
I have a few other “friends” who according to Facebook are novitiates. They’re about 50-75% into Facebook “initiation.”
How, pray tell, do they figure this?
The fact I have 27 “friends” means I’m no longer a novitiate, where those with only four or five are?
My aunt has only one “friend” — surely a record — whereas my brother in DE has almost 400.
I guess that makes him more viable as a person, kinda like your viability as a person is a function of the number of e-mails ya receive.
Various “friends” trumpet how great social networking is. Well of course it is, but they never had a family web-site.

• “Windoze” is Microsoft Windows. Apple Macintosh users claim it’s inferior, and slow. Posturing — I don’t know as it is any more; but it used to be. The “hourglass” is what Windows flies on the screen during “please wait;” although other icons have been developed. With Macintosh it’s a spinning soccer-ball. (I use an Apple Macintosh.)
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• My younger brother in northern Delaware is “Bill.”
• My wife of 42 years is “Linda.” She retired as a computer programmer.