Mafia Wars on Facebook - How To Play?

A week ago, I (finally!) got a Facebook account. I was still in the process of exploring the so called ‘it’ thing, when my friends kept bugging me– again!– to add an application called Mafia Wars. With all the energy I could muster, I declined. Mainly because I was still getting the hang of using Facebook. It was not until Jason, a Facebook friend (and the hottest guy in our class), asked me if I know how to play Mafia Wars on Facebook and that if I would be interested in joining his family, did I add the application– pronto! (I would be crazy to pass up the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to interact with Jason!)

I then called Jenna, a certified Mafia Wars fanatic, for some pointers.

‘How do we play Mafia Wars on Facebook, Jen?’ I inquired.

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The Battle for Social Networking Supremacy Continues: Is Facebook Safer Than Myspace?

With the advent of the internet came the introduction of many high-tech forms of communication and services. Our socio-cultural awareness has been revolutionized by social networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Multiply and the like. These online communities have widened our reach from just within our local neighborhood to the entire world. However, in so doing, they have also posed danger to our privacy and safety as they have become a vehicle for criminals to invade our lives through stalking or sexually harassing us, stealing our personal identities or performing similar other forms of cyber-bullying. While some of us just bear witness to these perpetrators, others are unfortunate enough to have become their victims.

Despite this setback, I don’t think that any one of us is ready to rid our system of all these networking sites. What we can do, however, is to look for the safer venue where we can hang out and make friends, and use our heads to make valid decisions.

Let’s examine two of the leading networking sites in the last few years - Facebook and Myspace. Over the years, both sites have battled criticisms regarding the security of their members, and although Facebook has been regarded as the “safer” choice than MySpace, let’s try to probe some more to really answer the question Is Facebook safer than MySpace?

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Facebook Unblock - How Can I?

My sister-in-law, Nana, burst into my room one afternoon looking really irate. She just came home from school while I was finishing up a web design for my new site.

‘Hey! Problem at school?’, I asked her.

‘Yeah! Major problem!’, she yelled raising her arms dramatically.

‘Our school administration blocked Facebook’, she explained. ‘How can they do that?! Facebook connects me to my friends. It’s where I upload photos, share video and music… it’s part of my teenage life!

‘Calm down now’, I said chuckling. ‘It’s not the end of the world’

‘Oh, it is for me! , she retorted. ‘I need that site!’

She eyed me sheepishly. ‘You’re the computer geek. How do we get a Facebook unblock at school?’

‘Well, since you are my favorite sister-in-law, I’ll tell you how’, I replied tapping her hand, and straightened up and started my lecture.

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Frequently Asked Questions - Expressions Layouts Application

Here are some of the most common support questions and answers we receive.

• How come my Expression is not showing on my profile?

  If by profile you mean on your wall page, then the answer is, it won’t. Please refer to our Answer #3. If it is not showing up under your Boxes tab (where it should) then you may need to first add it to your Boxes tab.

  • Go to the application Settings.
  • Select Authorized from the dropdown list if you do not see Expressions Layouts in the list.
  • Click on Edit Settings.
  • Click the Profile tab in this popup window.

    

  • Beside Box it should say Added (otherwise click Add)
  • Click OK
• How come my full page Facebook layout is not showing on my profile?

  In order for your full page layout to show you will need to have: a) The Expressions Layouts application b) Yontoo layers plugin added. Please note you also should be running either Firefox or Internet Explorer for Windows, or Firefox for a Mac. Then you can apply one of our Facebook layouts.

• How can I see my Expressions on my wall page?

  Our banner like Expressions will only show up on the Boxes tab due to a height restriction Facebook has put on any content on the wall page. There is no way around this, we have tried. Our full page layouts on the other hand will show up on your wall page. View our full page Facebook Layouts here.

• How can my friends see my full page Facebook layout?

  Your friends will need to get the Yontoo Layers plugin and add the Expressions Layouts application as well. We have done this so Facebook does not turn into Myspace, in that the end user has the choice if they want to see blinged out profiles or not. We do not feel it should be forced upon users to see custom profiles.

• How do I remove my full page Facebook layout?

  In order to remove your full page Facebook Layout you will need to remove the Yontoo Layers plugin. Simply uninstalling the Expressions Layouts application on Facebook will not remove the full page layout. In fact if you just want to remove the full page layout we suggest that you keep the Expressions (banners) for your Boxes tab.

  Depending on if you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox the removal process for Yontoo layers is slightly different.

  Remove Yontoo Layers in Internet Explorer (Windows)

  • Click on the Start button.
  • Click on - Settings - Control Panel.

    

  • Open the Add or Remove Programs.

    

  • Scroll to the bottom to find Yontoo Layers.
  • Click on it and select Remove.

    

  • Click Yes when prompted.

  Remove Yontoo Layers in Firefox (Windows or Mac)

  • You will first need to open Firefox.
  • In your main menu go to Tools - Add-ons.

    

  • Click on the Extensions tab.
  • Scroll to the bottom to find Yontoo Layers.

    

  • Click on it and select Disable or Uninstall.
  • Click Uninstall again when prompted.

We hoped this has helped you. If you have any more questions do not hesitate to contact us.

Applying Expressions to Your Profile Has Been Fixed

You can once again apply Expressions to your Facebook Profile! This has been broken for quite some time and we do apologize.

The Fix
Go to the Order Page (where you change the order of the Expressions on your profile) Click Here to go to the Order Page

Once you are on the Order page:

1. Login if you are not logged in already.
2. Click on the Save button.
3. Check the Boxes Tab of your profile.
4. Apply more Expressions if you don’t already have 3

The Details

• Some of the folders that we stored our Expressions images in had spaces like “User Submitted”
• Websites, as a standard replace the space with %20 so the computer serving the page can understand it.
• Facebook made a change to how they show images on your profile and this change did not correctly handle this %20 / space issue which resulted in images not being able to be displayed.
• We received emails from people about their Expressions not showing up correctly but every time we would test it we could not reproduce the problem because we were applying images that were stored in folders without a space like “Music” for instance.

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