Sometimes you just need a basic bit of information.

Today’s tidbit concerns the new Facebook Timeline. There are lots of tutorials for adapting to Facebook’s new way of doing things but I find that most of them leave out one simple and practical bit of information – the size of the images you’ll need to use. So, in the interest of being useful here they are:

• Cover Image – 851 x 315 pixels
• Profile Image – 200 x 200 pixels  (leave a 12 pixel  border to allow for Facebook’s auto-cropping)
• App Images – 111 x 74 pixels

Keep in mind that these images cannot include price or purchase information, contact info, calls to action or references to Facebook features such as Like or Share.

For a more in-depth look at the new Timeline check out my recent series on SixEstate – Grappling with Timeline Part 1 and Part 2. Part 3 will be online Monday morning.

Image by birgerking, used under its Creative Commons license.

[EDIT: If you've seen this message in someone's status on Facebook be advised it is only a partial fix.

To change back to Status Update Format: Look to the top left menu and click on MORE. Then drag STATUS UPDATES to the top. After dragging to top, click on it. That becomes your default and it is like before. Pass it on...

If you "fix" the feed that way you will miss your friend's posted links as well as everything but their status messages. Below is my quick how-to on the proper way to get your feed back to normal (or at least as close as possible). -Loki, 10-2609 5:13 EST]

Well Facebook has trotted out it’s new Feed and I see a lot of confusion from people who can no longer see content from their friends. There is an easy fix for this.

You see Facebook is now blocking our friends’ news feeds except for 250 they choose. If, like myself, you prefer to make your own choices you can undo this in a few quick steps.

• First, make sure you are on your HOME page.
• Then make sure your news feed shows LIVE FEED, once it does  scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Edit Options” in the lower left-hand corner. [It's in the blue bar.]
• At the bottom of the pop up box you will  see “News Feed Settings”. Change the 250 to 5000 (FaceBook’s friend limit) and your feed will work correctly again

you can then individually block the apps and people you do not want to see on your news feed by following the instructions in my earlier tutorial.

Thanks to Kathryn Jennex for the solution presented above. If you found it helpful go visit her blog and say thanks!

George “Loki” Williams is the owner of SocialGumbo, LLC

No offense meant to anyone who plays games on Facebook, but there are many of us who feel bombarded by the endless stream of Mafia Wars and Texas Hold ‘Em invites .

Today I’d like to share the easy way to get bothersome notifications out of your hair with only a click or two. That way if you don’t want to play you can opt out of seeing them when reading your wall. I’ll also show a quick way to block apps completely when invited.

Off The Wall: When you look at a Wall post, like the YoVille one pictured below, there is a small pull down menu in the upper left corner. See it? It says “Hide.”

When you pull down the menu it will offer you the option of hiding the person or hiding the app. Whichever one you choose will no longer show up on your wall. The fact that it works on people as well can be useful sometimes. You can preserve your friends status with someone but not be bombarded by their compulsive forwards (you know the type, the folks who post every fifteen minutes or so).

Stop It At The Source: Now this only removes the notifications from your Wall, it does not block invitations. What about those pesky invites you get every day? What about completely blocking an application? Look closely at the next invite you get.

If you look to the left underneath the blue Add button you will see Block This Application underneath it. If you never want to see that game or app again just click it.

When you do so the following pop up window will appear:

That pretty much sums it up. Click block and you’ll have stopped all of it at the source.

We all have different ways we use the Internet and social media, controls like these allows to do so with control over our experience.

Personally I block most of the games, simply because I don’t play them. (Well, okay, I play Zombies you caught me. That’s the only one though.)

I decided to write this post after have several people expressed surprise and pleasure when I showed them how easy it is. If you find it useful please share it with others!

George “Loki” Williams is the owner of SocialGumbo, LLC