Minimalist Website or Windows Application for Facebook Status Updating?

December 11, 2010 10:06 AM

Does anyone know of a somewhat minimalist Windows program (or perhaps even a website) that would let me merely type a Facebook status update with little distraction on the screen aside from a countdown of characters left -- a sort of WriteRoom or Q10 for updates, although it doesn't necessarily need to hide menu bars and taskbars and so on? Ideally an application I could bring up by clicking on a system tray update. I'm uninterested in Facebook notifications. Basically, I'm just looking for something that would let me quickly update my status with little visual distraction and then move on to whatever else I was doing at the time.
posted by WCityMike to computers & internet (20 answers total)

It doesn't fit all your criteria, but you can set up auto Twitter-to-Facebook updates and then enter status updates at twitter.com.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 10:16 AM on December 11, 2010

That's a potential avenue, but I am not a fan of Twitter's 140-character limit.
posted by WCityMike at 10:28 AM on December 11, 2010

There is a command line interface to Facebook (fbcmd) - I don't know if that's *too* minimalist, or involves too much set up (you need to install PHP in order to get it running.)
posted by baxter_ilion at 10:42 AM on December 11, 2010

It sounds like you want something a bit like Echofon, but for Facebook, yes?
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 11:04 AM on December 11, 2010

I think Skype can sync its status to facebook.
posted by oxit at 11:07 AM on December 11, 2010

How about a whole other screen? There's a cool little device called a Chumby that might be worth considering. Available in small 3.5" screens or a larger 8" screen (called an Infocast at Best Buy).

I find leaving Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds on the separate screen keeps be updated on the info without luring me into wasting too much time on the services themselves.
posted by wkearney99 at 11:43 AM on December 11, 2010

correction, keeps me updated not be.

Also, there are mefi widgets too!
posted by wkearney99 at 11:45 AM on December 11, 2010

Adobe has a really full-functional app (it does alot more than just upload photos) called Adobe Photo Uploader for Facebook, I think it has both a max and a minimal mode. Give it a try?
posted by stratastar at 12:18 PM on December 11, 2010

There are a couple of Firefox extensions that let you update from within the browser.
posted by COD at 12:47 PM on December 11, 2010

Sorry for not responding away -- got immersed in another project, for a family member.

fbcmd - Definitely the strongest similarity to what I'd like, although it looks like it'd require me dropping to Windows' command prompt every time I wanted to update ... not altogether ideal.

Echofon - Not really. Googling that seems to indicate a pop-up window with friends' status updates (albeit a small and condensed one), and that's not really what I'm looking for at all -- I'm looking not for viewing friends' status but for a distraction-free environment, and one that I can access fairly quickly (i.e. system tray, etc.), to update my status.

Skype - As a former frequent user of Skype, that thing has gotten more cartoonishly overloaded with gizmos, whatzits, unneeded blank space, etc. than I've ever seen. All due respect but it is almost the opposite of what I'm looking for.

Chumby - Thanks for the idea, but again, not looking for updates on friends' status, looking for a distraction-free environment in which to update my own status.

Adobe Photo Uploader for Facebook - downloading it now in order to check it out.

COD - Could you point me towards such extensions? In a perfect world, there'd be something for Facebook like TwitterBar is for Twitter.
posted by WCityMike at 1:08 PM on December 11, 2010

Adobe Photo Uploader for Facebook - Seems near identical to the actual Facebook interface; I'm not sure it's really what I'm looking for.
posted by WCityMike at 1:12 PM on December 11, 2010

Firestatus seems to do what you want.

Just as an aside, I can do this in Ubuntu out of the box. It's a feature of the default configuration of the OS. I can click on an icon on the task bar, an a text box pops up that will update Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is configured for. I think it's tied to the Gwibber social media client, which I have never gotten into the habit of using.
posted by COD at 1:54 PM on December 11, 2010

You probably want the Facebook for Google Chrome extension, if you use Chrome.
posted by yclipse at 2:29 PM on December 11, 2010

I wrote an app called attneveryone a while ago that did this. I stopped working on it before getting it to a 1.0 stage, but I still use it for myself.
posted by ignignokt at 8:32 PM on December 11, 2010

Go to this page while logged in to facebook, get your email token and simply email a status update to Facebook at that address and it will appear in your stream.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:24 AM on December 12, 2010

If you don't want to deal with the command line for fbcmd, you could create a Windows "prompt" for fbcmd using vbscript:

Here's some sample code:
---
Dim Status

Status = InputBox("Please enter your Facebook Status")

strCommand = "fbcmd status " + " + Status + "
WaitForProcess = True

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run strCommand, 1, WaitForProcess

---

Save that as a .vbs file, and drag and drop the .vbs file into your system tray.
posted by baxter_ilion at 8:05 PM on December 12, 2010

er... the strCommand line should be:

strCommand = "fbcmd status " + " + Status + "
posted by baxter_ilion at 8:10 PM on December 12, 2010

never mind...
posted by baxter_ilion at 8:11 PM on December 12, 2010

Got my answer. Sign up for ping.fm, then bookmark http://ping.fm/pingout/.
posted by WCityMike at 9:50 PM on February 26, 2011

Follow-up ... now that fbcmd is working again, a combination of it and a very slight revision to baxter_ilion's script seems to be doing the trick better than my previous solution -- bookmarking the 'pingout' window, despite its minimalist interface, kept requiring that I log in each time.
posted by WCityMike at 10:20 AM on March 28, 2011