Facebook: Disable Notification Sound

Facebook recently implemented sounds when you receive a new notification.  It's akin to the Sonic the Hedgehog game checkpoint sound.  Click on the screenshot and follow the steps to disable this new sound.

Facebook: Blocking Unwanted App Requests

Your Facebook friends may send you invites to try their game or application.  Some games reward players for sending requests after they've achieved a milestone, gained a new score, or finished for the day.  If they comply, then they'll be rewarded with virtual points, gold, loot, and/or other goodies.  You can filter these requests from your newsfeed while they can still fulfill their games requests and gain their virtual bonuses.   Here's how to hide these game/application requests:

1.  You receive an invitation to play a game.  Click on the game link:

2.  At the bottom right side of the application/game page, click on "View in App Center"

3. At the bottom right portion of the App page, click on Block:

 4.  Click Confirm to block the App/Game: (there will be a confirmation page after your click)

5.  If you wish to view all of the applications/games you have blocked and wish to manage that list, find the gear icon at the top right portion of your Facebook page and click on Account Settings:

6.  Locate Blocking on the left side and click on it: 

7.  Towards the bottom of the Block page, you'll find all the blocked applications.  You can add more by typing in the name of the program and pressing the Enter key.  You can also choose to unblock programs by clicking on Unblock next to the application name.

Facebook: Hiding Suggested Pages

Fine tuning your Facebook news feed is a constant task.  To help bypass uninteresting items, simply perform the following:

1.  Find the down arrow located at the top right portion of the feed item to hide.

2. Select "Hide" or "Report Story or Spam" as you see fit.

3. You'll see confirmation that the story is hidden.

Facebook: "Share Posts to Group" Google Chrome Repair

I was unable to share posts, links, and pictures to my newly created Facebook group from my main News Feed.  Performing some web searches, I found that some folks had success using different browsers and one person suspected the web browsers cache caused this problem for Chrome.  One alternative is to drop your membership of all groups then get reinvited back in.  Instead, I cleared a weeks worth of browser information and now I can share posts to my group.  If you're using Google Chrome, here are the steps to take:

 1.  From your Facebook News Feed, select an item and attempt to share it with your group.  Verify that your groups name does NOT show up in the autofill list.

2.  From your Google Chrome web browser, click on the upper right button labeled "Customize and control Google Chrome." Click on Tools, Clear browsing data...

WARNING: This next step will delete information from your Google Chrome web browser.  Read more if you're concerned about this.

3.  I most likely overkilled my data abolishment but start with "the past hour" and select "Empty the cache" and "Delete cookies and other site and plug-in data."  After you've selected these items, click on "Clear browsing data."  Close Chrome, start Chrome, log back into Facebook and try sharing to your group again.  If you still can't share to your group, increase the deletion period and/or add checkboxes to the "Obliterate" list.  Your success will vary based on your browsing history, sites visited, and other web-based events, add-ons, Chrome Extensions, and such.

4.  Your group will autofill once you've successfully deleted the group of data that was messing up your Facebook experience.

Facebook: Stop Trending Videos in your News Feed

Trending Videos is a new unwanted Facebook addition to your News Feed.  Since the Trending Videos is grayed out, you can't directly block any Trending Video application.  Instead, the easy way to remove these news stream entries is by individually hiding all the source applications such as Socialcam.  If Trending Videos has no source app videos to select from, then you've stopped Trending Videos from appearing in your stream.  Here's how to block the source apps:

Move your mouse cursor to the upper right corner of the linked video and click on the X that appears
(note that the Trending Videos article is shaded gray)

Select "Hide all by Socialcam"

You'll receive a confirmation that Socialcam posts will be blocked from your News Feed

Here is another example blocking Yidio trending articles:

Facebook: Blocking Zynga Slingo

I enjoy Facebook but some "features" are annoying.  One pet peeve of mine is application requests from friends playing their Facebook games.  Facebook's Help Center provided nice information on how to stop these requests from showing up.

1.  To remove Zynga Slingo application requests from appearing on your Facebook page, type "Zynga Slingo" into the search field at the top of your page.  Select the resulting Zynga Slingo App Page and NOT their Game page.

2. Go to the right side of the "Play Game" drop down menu and click on the down arrow.  Select Block App.

3. Click Okay to block the app.  You will no longer see your friends' progress in the game nor will you be pestered by their Zynga Slingo app requests.

4.  This technique can apply to any Facebook application.  Some software developers name the app the same as the page so when you try to directly block the app by clicking on the X next to the request, it goes to the App page which assumes you want to install the program instead of removing the request.