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Find, manage Facebook friends without frustration

Find Facebook a minefield to navigate? You're not alone. With these tips, you'll be using the social networking site like a champ in no time.
/ Source: Laptop

This mega-star of the social networking world started out as a way for college kids to connect, as the movie "The Social Network" demonstrated. Today people spend 700 billion minutes per month sharing links, pictures, videos, and their thoughts at any given moment. And people who use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active as non-mobile users.

Find friends
There are several ways to add friends, the most simple of which is Facebook Search. Your  friend list, on the top right of the screen, lets you find friends based on friends that your friends know. Or you can have Facebook search your contacts through AIM, AOL, Comcast, MSN, Skype, Verizon.net, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, and other e-mail services.

The most specific way to find people you may know is to click Friends on the top left of your profile. Then click "Other Tools" (under the list of e-mail services) and specify whether you’re searching for classmates or co-workers.  Find out who has unfriended you
There’s no formal Facebook notification to alert users that they’ve been dropped from someone’s friend list, but this handy app can help. Simply download it from UserScripts.org. Then install it in your Web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Safari), log into Facebook, and Unfriend Finder will do its work. It will not work retroactively.

Image: Unfriend Finder app
Unfriend Finder is an app you can add on to your Web browser.

Tag friends in status updates
Wanna give a special shout-out to someone and link back to their profile? Write your status and include the @ symbol before their name. Your status won’t show the @, but it will link to your friend. That friend will receive a notification linking back to your post. Change how certain people see your profile
To let your mom friend you without letting her view all your party pics, add her to a specific friend list, and then limit that list’s access. Start by going to your Friends page. Then click the Account drop-down menu, and select Edit Friends > Create A List. After you’ve selected the friends to be included in that list, give it a name.

To limit who sees what, go to Account > Privacy Settings > Customize Settings. For each of the items listed — including Birthday, Contact Information, and Photos and Videos I’m Tagged In — you can limit the information shared by clicking the drop-down menu on the right and selecting Customize. In the pop-up window, write the name of the previously created friend list in the Hide This From box. Then click Save Setting.

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Use power search secrets
There are a million and one John Smiths in the world, but you’re looking for someone specific who you know to be in his 20s. It is possible to narrow your search results by age.

Enter the name and the age range separated by y1 and y2. For example, “name: John Smith y1: 20 y2: 30” will produce search results for John Smiths age 20 to 30. Or, you can search for two terms at once using the pipe character (a.k.a.: “|”). This will combine the search for the two items into one. Create a group
This feature is a great way to broadcast information to a small set of people instead of your entire friend list. Go to www.facebook.com/groups and click Create Group. Then add the names of select friends and click Create. The group window works the same way as a Wall, and while what you write will appear in your Newsfeed, only members of your group will be able to see.

Share a document with a group
All the members of a group can collaborate on a single document. To create such a document, click on your group, and then select Doc from the top bar. Here you can give the file a name and start writing. When you press Save, that doc is available to the group to edit.

Image: Facebook screenshot
All the members of a group can collaborate on a single document.

Join a network
Networks can help you find people who work or study with you. To join a high school or college network, you must be a current student. Some companies also have a network, but you must have a valid work e-mail address to affiliate yourself with that business. To get started go to Account > Account Settings and click the Networks tab. From there you can search for a network to join.

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