Today's tip: Sort your Facebook friends
— -- Many of Facebook's frequent changes to its News Feed and privacy settings only seem to annoy users — almost as if the company is running a giant sociological experiment into people's tolerance of change (or trying to ensure continued work for the authors of tech Q&A columns).
But, as your Facebook news feeds change over to Timelines this month, there's one change introduced in mid-September that may make it easier to stay on top of your privacy and your friends' updates: the option to designate individual pals on the site as not just plain old friends, but valued "Close Friends" or mere "Acquaintances."
Those two categories, unlike any friends lists you might make, get separate, easily distinguishable icons in your friends list: a star for close friends, a business card for acquaintances. And the next time you post a new update, the first choice in the drop-down " audience selector" menu below that update form should be "Friends except Acquaintances" — a good choice if you're not sure you want to broadcast photos of your kid to your entire network.
(Note, however, that identifying people as "Close Friends" will also cause each of their updates to appear under the Notifications column. That can make for a noisy experience on the site; to stop it, select the Close Friends list from the left column when viewing your News Feed — you may need to scroll down to see it — and click the Notifications button at the top right to turn off those extra notifications.)
As a side bonus, the process of sorting Facebook connections into those dearer and farther friendships may cue you into whom you should quietly unfriend.
Q: Is there a way that I can sync my iTunes music from my PC to my Android phone?
A: "A way?" Arguably, there are too many ways to do that. Because most Android vendors have neglected to provide a simple tool for music syncing (Motorola's free, but ugly, Media Link for Windows is a rare exception), you're looking at a patchwork of third-party options.
In a situation like that, I prefer solutions that don't cost anything and don't require installing any new software.
If you run Windows 7, that means using Microsoft's own Windows Media Player 12, which supports both MP3 files and the AAC files sold in Apple's iTunes Store. (Any iTunes purchase made after April 2009 should be free of " digital rights management" restrictions that would thwart WMP; you can convert older ones to higher-quality, DRM-free "iTunes Plus" tracks for 30 cents each in the iTunes Store or by burning them to an audio CD, then copying them from that CD back into iTunes.)
Where iTunes ignores your Android phone, Windows Media Player should list it under its "Sync" tab. Drag over songs or a playlist to your phone, then click the "Start sync…" button. Both programs — WMP and iTunes — can coexist as long as only one is set to tidy up your music library automatically, which is not the default setting in either of them.
If you don't like Windows Media Player (seriously, give it a try; it's much better than its XP-vintage incarnations), don't run Windows 7 (WMP releases for earlier Windows editions don't speak AAC) or use a Mac, you'll have to enlist outside help.
I've had readers recommend Salling Software's Salling Media Sync, available in free-but-slower and $14.99-but-faster versions. This can also sync podcasts and photos, although the Windows version loses that last ability if you don't use Adobe's Photoshop Album or Photoshop Elements. Memo to Salling: Please support Microsoft's Windows Live Photo Gallery or Google's Picasa — you know, the programs most people actually use.
If you have a speedy Wi-Fi network at home, Highwind Software's TuneSync, a $5.99 set of phone and desktop programs, can send music to your phone from iTunes in Windows or Mac OS X wirelessly. A free-trial version will only sync 20 songs at a time; test that first.
If all else fails, you can resort to connecting your Android phone to your Mac or PC, than dragging and dropping MP3 or AAC files from the computer's music folder to the corresponding folder on your mobile device. But if you're like most users I know, your music files are stored in an archipelago of sub-folders that defy drag-and-drop management.
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Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based in Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, e-mail Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/robpegoraro.