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When Google+ was first announced, I immediately assumed it would be a hit. Not because of how Google is so interlaced with the rest of our internet, but because of “ href="http://everythingsysadmin.com/2011/06/facebook-fatigue.html">Facebook fatigue“. Change is very refreshing and exciting (as long as it’s not href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/enable-facebooks-timeline-profile/">Facebook changing… itself) and seems to have a gravitational pull online.New stuff is cool to us. The great transition from MySpace to Facebook was a clear example.

But, how does one fall victim to Facebook fatigue? While that’s a question that is conditional to the temperament of each individual user, I can bet that experiencing any of the following five antics will have you begging for a Dislike button.

We ranted a bit with href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-stop-posting-facebook/">5 Things You Need To Stop Posting On Facebook. I rant on with five more.

Indirect Status Updates

If you’re above the age of 30, you probably don’t experience this horrible Facebook phenomenon quite as often as the rest of us. This is the go-to move of every disgruntled 16-year-old girl. It’s also high up there with males who need a cowardly and passive-aggressive way to openly rage at their ex-girlfriend. In the end, both end up looking pathetic, psychotic, and/or immature. Come on, you know what I’m talking about:

• “I hate him so much. I can’t stand being around him every day of my life.”
• “I like how my best friend seems to never be there for me…”
• “Seriously, who hangs up on somebody in the middle of a conversation?”

All of these are cries for attention. All of these are very narrowly directed at one person or one small group of people. All of these are weird and annoying. All of these could just as easily point directly at the person, but that would still be immature. Send them a damn personal message, don’t go embarrassing yourself and looking like a wreck in front of your friends. Stop it.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;"src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/annoying_facebook.jpg" alt="things people do on facebook" width="525" height="300" />

I feel a little different about cute messages or ones that are positive and cheerful in nature. You get a pass on that, just don’t do it more than three times per week please.

MySpace-esque Behavior & “Games”

I hate to be the guy to claim, “That’s so MySpace!” but listen: The general quality of the Facebook community was at its peak when href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/myspace/">MySpace was alive and well. MySpace was for glittery graphics, profile songs, Mafia Wars, and comment spam. It generally seemed to appeal to kids in high school and younger. Facebook was for the clean-cut college student and above. It was for people who enjoyed an organized, no-nonsense approach to social networking.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;"src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/myspace-a-place-for-headaches.jpg" alt="annoying facebook posts" width="400" height="249" />

Unfortunately, that has all changed. Here are a few of the cancers that Facebook has unfortunately inherited:

• The “TBH” word game – “LMS TBH” (Like my status, to be honest) is a little social game where users who Like another’s status will receive an honest opinion about themselves posted to their Wall.
• “Inbox me numbers” – This is basically a private and more ridiculous mutation of TBH. You send a private message to a user with a random number. Instead of posting to your Wall, they post the numbers they received to their own Wall and then an opinion or memory about the corresponding person who sent them that particular number.
• Ridiculous chain messages – “Repost this status or 12 kids will die of cancer”, “R.I.P. David: Just kidding. If you had an emotional response to David’s fake death, repost this on your Wall”, “Facebook is going to shut down in three days unless you pay them $50 for an account, let’s repost this a million times and stop them”, etc.
• Friend-tagging word games – “Look at your friends displayed to the left. The first five are your co-stars in the next terrible sci-fi movie,” with five witty character names to label for each, etc.

There are more examples out there, but I’m annoyed in even describing these four.

Using Apps that Spam Walls or Tags

Okay, you definitely know this one. href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tips-tricks-avoid-farmville-facebook/">FarmVille? Sims Social? Horoscopes? The “Report Card” app that tags a ridiculous amount of your friends? Every birthday calendar app that obnoxiously invades your Wall?

This is just flat-out annoying. A lot of these applications spam your friends’ Walls, too. The fact that it spams yours is annoying enough. This hits hard because you’ve got to be considerate about things that not only affect your friends’ profiles, but yours as well. We see it on our News Feed. It spams the hell out of us. How about an application for horoscopes that messages you privately? Don’t get your hopes up, it’ll never happen because these apps thrive on virability and they need exposure through you so that they can be monetized.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;"src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/facebook_spammy.jpg" alt="annoying facebook posts" width="580" height="265" />

Being a Downer

Sometimes it’s like Frownbook. Lighten up! If you use your Facebook only to vent out your frustration and depression, you’re doing it wrong. I’ve never done it myself, but I can’t imagine that it is the best form of therapy. See a professional if it becomes a habit.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;"src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/sad_facebook.png" alt="annoying facebook posts" width="500" height="158" />

Again, it goes back to being considerate and we all see it. I don’t want to be brought down by your six depressing posts per day. If that happens, I’m going to have to remove you, and then what if you notice? That’s going to upset you even more, maybe!

Using Facebook as Twitter

You know that friend who blows up your News Feed with a new status every 30 minutes? Have them look into href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/twitter/">Twitter. Maybe they’ve heard of it. Facebook’s not the place to tell us you’re waking up, driving to the store, watching TV, eating food, feeling sick, and laying in bed all within the same day and in separate posts.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;"src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/facebook-vs-twitter.jpg" alt="things people do on facebook" width="580" height="295" />

So, who among you is saying – guilty as charged? Facebook is a social network. Just like our real world one, it falls upon us to keep it clutter free. Don’t you think so? What are your pet peeves when it comes to Facebook.

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The main reason why you would want to delete similar images is to save some space on your hard drive. Going through your image folder deleting extra images is too time consuming. Besides, many of the similar images can have different names which makes identifying them almost impossible.

Luckily, there’s a free tool to semi-automate the process.

href="https://tn123.org/simimages/">SimilarImages is a desktop application that finds similar (or duplicate) images on your hard drive among different folders.

The tool has already been mentioned in our round-up of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-to-find-duplicate-image-files-on-your-computer-windows/">ways to find duplicate image files on a Windows PC but the tool definitely deserves a closer look.

Settings

The best thing about the tool is that it lets you configure the “similarity” threshold with enables you to configure which image pairs should be shown when comparing.

Image file pairs with a comparison value greater than the set threshold are ignored. Some recommended threshold settings include:

• To find duplicates(fastest mode): 0 – 10
• To scan through photos: about 12
• To scan through folders containing scans: 50 – 60

You can also set the folder preferences:

• Inclusive Search will only compare files located in the same folder with each other.
• Exclusive Search means that only files not contained within the same folder will compared with each other.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/similar-images-02.jpg" alt="find duplicate pictures" width="550" height="383" />

Speed

If you have a lot of images and photos on your computer, the first check will take quite a while. However the great thing about the tool is that it keeps its own index of scanned images. Next check will run across id="KonaBody">its fast Graphics Library. This makes scanning much faster.

The program even keeps track of your not-a-duplicate decisions: if you enable Cache-System, SimilarImages will remember when you indicate that a pair is not a duplicate. When you later check the same folders again it would bring up the same false-positives.

You can access and clear the gallery from the tool “Cache” menu.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/similar-images-01.jpg" alt="Similar images" width="247" height="132" />

(Semi-) Automated Deletion

The tool also aims at making deleting duplicate files faster. Semi-automated deletion feature helps you choose which file to delete from a pair faster: when enabled, one file of a pair will be pre-selected depending on your rules.

For example, you can set to always pre-select a smaller image in a pair or the one with lower resolution or always the newer file. This definitely makes deleting extra images faster!

You can always set the tool to auto-delete a duplicate image in a pair (based on your above settings).

Working with Image Pairs

Once the application is done scanning the specified folders, it shows you the similar image pairs. Each image has a thumbnail, file size, dimensions, last-modified date and other properties. You can delete any of the files or replace one with the other.

• The X-icon lets you delete the file.
• The TwoFiles-icon lets you swap the file. (Swapping means in this context: The other file will be overwritten with this file, thus the contents of the first file will be kept but with the name of the second file.)
• The Clear-icon lets you delete both files.
• The Runner-icon lets you delete the file marked for semi-automated deletion.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/similar-images-03.jpg" alt="find duplicate pictures" width="550" height="368" />

Looks like a great tool to sort out your stored image files and free up some space. What are your thoughts?

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