CCleaner is one such application utility that can perform cleaning operations for you. It was recently released from its beta version for Mac users, and it can now be downloaded for free in the Mac App Store, or directly from the Piriform website. Windows PC users have been making use of CCleaner for a while, and now Mac users can finally take advantage of it. The interface is similar for both platforms, but the program is of course optimized to address the particular system clutter of OS X.

While CCleaner may not be as feature rich as say similar paid programs like MacKeeper , which is what I’ve been using, it is still a very powerful hard drive clean-up utility.

Back Up & Run

First off, if you’ve never used a program like this, I strongly urge you to back up your system hard drive (Carbon Copy Cleaner or Time Machine are two easy programs to use). This precaution applies to any program that could possibly wipe out important files or undermine the performance of your computer.

What Does CCleaner Do?

CCleaner scans your hard drive and cleans out junk files that have piled up over time and use. Many of its actions can be performed with default applications in your Mac, but CCleaner performs several operations within a single interface . For example, in Safari you can click the Reset Safari menu item and selectively clear out your browser history, remove webpage preview images and website icons, etc., which in turn might improve the performance of the browser if it’s running slow.

CCleaner performs similar functions for Safari and other web browsers you use, including Firefox and Google Chrome. You can select to have it clear the Internet Cache, browser and download histories, cookies, and application cache – all from within a single interface.

You can also select to have CCleaner empty your System Trash, repair permissions (which you normally do within the built-in Disk Utility application of OS X), and completely write over unused space on your hard drive or other disks, to prevent disk recovery applications from recovering deleted files that might still remain buried in your system.

Also, when you decide to trash applications on your hard drive that you no longer use, CCleaner will not only remove your selected applications, but also their related preferences files, caches and logs that otherwise will remain on your hard drive.

How To Use CCleaner

CCleaner only removes what you tell it to. So first off, if you’ve never used a utility like this, select and deselect only items that you understand how the program will affect. Before you run the cleaning action, click the Analyze button so that CCleaner will scan your hard drive and create a list of the number of files and their sizes that it will delete.

As you read over the report list, you can uncheck items that you don’t want to be a part of the CCleaner operations.

Under the Options pane, you can also tell CCleaner to retain cookies for only selected websites. Likewise, you can select which browsers you want CCleaner to perform cookie cleaning operations on.

As far as I can tell there is no software documentation installed with this first version of CCleaner for the Mac. Nor could I find documentation on the Piriform website. However, there is plenty of documentation for the PC version of the program, which should be useful in helping you understand more about CCleaner’s capabilities.

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)

The product is a bare board with a 700MHz ARM11 CPU and 256MB of RAM. It’s roughly the size of a deck of playing cards and has a powerful GPU that is reportedly competitive with that of modern smartphones. Developer prototypes of the product have been shown running impressive graphics demos and decoding high-definition video…

At the time of publication, the Farnell website is still spitting errors. The RS site has been partially restored and is intermittently available, but isn’t currently allowing users to purchase the Raspberry Pi. Instead, it displays a screen where users can register to express their interest in the product. The Raspberry Pi foundation managed to withstand the traffic by temporarily replacing the contents of its official website with a static page.

Alongside the launch, the Raspberry Pi foundation also announced that the cheaper $25 model, which will be launched at an undisclosed future date, got a spec bump and will have 256MB of RAM, just like the $35 model. The $25 board was originally expected to have only 128MB of RAM. The cheaper model will still lack several of the features found in the $35 model, such as the built-in ethernet controller.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Overall, this is actually a good thing, because the reduced visibility of irrelevant content makes room for what you want to see. But don’t be alarmed if your all your friends don’t like that awesome concert photo, they may just be offline.

After his Q&A session about ads during the Facebook Marketing Conference, I followed up with Boland, asking if the 16 percent average distribution rate hampered communication. He defended Facebook’s news feed, saying “No, there are pieces of content you create that are interesting, and there’s some that are not.” And the 16 percent doesn’t just apply to users. Business Pages have the same average reach, which is why Facebook is launching its new “Reach Generator” to help marketers buy extra distribution of their Page posts on the ads sidebar, in the web and mobile news feed, and even on the logout page.

The stat from Director of Product Marketing Brian Boland was backed up by VP Chris Cox who said this holds true “in aggregate across all profiles, all types of content, all interactions, all ages, and all demographics.” By reducing the reach of low relevance posts, Facebook leaves news feed space for compelling wedding photos, new job announcements, funny videos, and urgent questions. Still, it means the ambient intimacy of the news feed can’t completely replace the reliability for direct communication.

(Via TechCrunch.)

Follow along as we dive in and take a look at all of the great new features, updates and tweaks of your next operating system.

Mountain Lion is a huge leap forward for OS X

Notification Center

Notification Center is one of the biggest improvements in Mountain Lion

One of the most important new features in OS X Mountain Lion is Notification Center, which unifies notifications throughout the entire OS. If you’ve ever used an iOS 5 device, you should feel right at home using Notification Center. Right now only a few Apple created apps support the notifications, but from what I’ve seen, it does everything you’d expect.

Perhaps the most outstanding feature of Notification Center is the ability to have notifications pushed to you even when apps are not running. Make no mistake: this is a killer feature. Usually I have Twitter, Mail, and a Facebook Notifications app running at all times, but with Mountain Lion those can all be replaced by push notifications.

If you’d still like to use Growl notifications in Mountain Lion, check out Hiss, it integrates the user experience of Notification Center with the ubiquity of Growl Notifications.

Not only is this a huge benefit to your system’s performance, but it also goes a long way towards simplifying your OS X experience. Clicking the “dart” icon in the righthand corner of the menubar launches you into the Notification Center, which shares more than a passing resemblance to it’s iOS brethren, but Apple also went one step further by introducing a new finger gesture, a two finger swipe from the right of the touchpad.

This is the first OS X gesture to take advantage of where your fingers are on the touchpad, and it’s pretty intuitive. All things considered, Notification Center should make the switch to Mountain Lion worthwhile for almost any user, from beginners to professionals.

Notes

Notes is just about what you’d expect from an app called “Notes”

Notes has been a familiar face in the Apple world since the original iPhone, but for whatever reason Mountain Lion is the first time its been included on the Mac. Notes is essentially identical to what you’re used to on an iPhone or iPad, it has the same aesthetic, and the same basic feature-set.

In my opinion, this is a really nice stealth addition to OS X, it syncs seamlessly with all your other iCloud devices and I actually wrote a good part of this article within the app. Notes is also really lightweight, as a dedicated user of WunderKit (which takes almost 15 seconds to load), it’s nice to have an app just open an up in a split-second and get your thoughts written-out. It doesn’t do much, but thanks to the iCloud integration, I can see Notes becoming an integral part of my daily workflow.

Messages

Messages is really just a new skin on top of iChat with a little iMessage mixed in.

Messages is the most obvious addition to OS X Mountain Lion, finally allowing you to send and receive iMessages from your Mac. Sadly, right now it’s a just mess of good ideas that are poorly executed.

First off, Messages is really just a new skin on top of iChat, with some iMessage goodness mixed in. Right now, that’s not quite a winning combination. iMessages often failed to reach both my Mac and/or iOS Device, and when they did get delivered, the experience was too buggy to be useful.

In addition, FaceTime is still a separate app, which can be activated from within Messages. This really makes no sense, but that seems to be a reoccurring theme in this particular app. Messages is not doomed to fail, in fact, it has the potential to be an essential part of OS X, but in order for this to happen, Apple needs to clean up the interface and focus more on utility instead of aesthetics.

Game Center

Game Center’s interface is highly stylized, much like the iOS version of the service.

Apple is really pushing their online gaming platform, Game Center, and there seems to be no exception in Mountain Lion. Once again, if you are familiar with the iOS version of the service, the OS X version shouldn’t be too surprising.

Since Game Center is only currently available among developers, I couldn’t really try it out, but if it works as advertised you’ll be able to play against friends and strangers in a platform-agnostic experience.

In plain english; if you have a game on your Mac and your friend has it on iOS, you’ll be able to compete head-to-head. This might present some gameplay issues, but thats really up to developers to fix. It’s nice that Apple has included the ability to use Game Center, and it’s certainly a good sign for the future of gaming on OS X.

Twitter and Share Sheets

In OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has included their version of OS-wide sharing, aptly named “Share Sheets”. It works nearly anywhere with Twitter and Messages, and for photos and videos it supports Flickr and Vimeo, respectively.

You’ll probably notice that Facebook and Youtube are missing, among others. Apple is very picky about what services they’ll allow on their platform so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is intentional, but hopefully it’s just an oversight that will be eliminated when the OS is released.

While certainly not groundbreaking, Share Sheets should be a pleasant addition to your OS X experience, despite the fact that Apple seems to have been rather picky about which services to allow.

Airplay Mirroring

If you’ve ever used a PC with Intel’s Wireless Display technology, you probably understand how much Mac users are missing out on. Luckily, Apple’s own variation on the same idea of wirelessly extending your computer’s display onto your TV works just as well, if not better.

You’ll need an Apple TV to use AirPlay Mirroring, but at only $99 it’s not a hard purchase to justify. The ability to beam your music and video content to the TV wirelessly is just another amazing addition to Mountain Lion. Of course, since I was using a developer preview, the connection dropped occasionally, but Apple usually has these minor kinks worked out before the OS hits market, so I’m not worried. So if you’ve been holding out on an Apple TV, OS X Mountain Lion might just be enough reason to take the plunge.

Reminders

Reminders looks alot like its iOS counterpart.

Reminders is another app taken almost verbatim from iOS, and for most people, that’s a good thing. Functionally, it’s almost the same as the iOS app, allowing you to set reminders for yourself -and that’s it. You’ll lose the geo-fencing capability, but that’s probably just because your Mac doesn’t have GPS anyway, so we won’t shed to many tears over that lost feature.

In addition, you can export your reminders as Calendar events, which should be nice if you plan to take your task management full circle. Unfortunately, since Reminders is directly taken from iOS, it also includes a less-than-stellar interface which, in my opinion, looks a little childish. While some people may like it, i wish Apple would stick with classic UI elements instead of attempting to clone the physical world.

Security Settings (Gatekeeper)

Gatekeeper is perhaps the most controversial addition to OS X, as it locks down your Mac from potential security threats by preventing non-Apple approved apps from being installed. While this setting can be changed in System Preferences, it is symbolic of the shift towards an App-Store-centric universe.

If are a developer looking to make sure your app isn’t rejected by Gatekeeper, you’ll have to get a security certificate as part of the Mac Developer Program.

If you’re reading this article, you probably know a little about Macs, so Gatekeeper is probably more of an inconvenience than a feature, but from grandma’s point-of-view, it’s a lifesaver. Honestly, it’s not unrealistic to imagine that OS X 10.9 will do away with non-Apple approved apps altogether, but until that day comes, Gatekeeper is just one more setting for the true Mac geek to change when they set up their computers.

iCloud

If there is one thing I can say definitively about Apple’s strategy for the coming years, it’s that iCloud is really important. It’s everywhere now and Mountain Lion really pushes that concept.

For the first time, iCloud is beginning to dig deep into system level operations and that’s led to a far more robust user experience. When you first install the OS you are asked to set up iCloud and from that point on it is integrated into nearly every possible part of the experience; from syncing your notes to playing your music.

Although I found it to be considerably more useful than iCloud in Lion, there are still some glaring omissions. For example, “Documents in the Cloud,” isn’t really much better than it was in Lion. One notable addition is the ability to save files to iCloud directly from the “Save” dialog in some apps, but oddly enough though there’s no way browse those files you’ve uploaded. This particular feature might just need to be updated from within iWork, but I hope Apple addresses it before the OS is released; documents could use a little TLC. Otherwise iCloud in Mountain Lion is just plain useful; it works almost without fail in the background, and most users won’t even know it’s there.

Everything Else

Apple has integrated system updates with app updates through the App Store

Mountain Lion is really a huge update to OS X, and there are dozens of little tweaks you’ll likely notice. Below are the ones that stood out the most.

• Safari – The URL bar and search bar have been combined, Chrome style.
• Dashboard – For whatever reason, Apple hasn’t integrate the Dashboard into Notification Center, but they still seem interested in updating it. In Mountain Lion the interface to add and manage widgets is now similar to that of Launchpad, and the remove widgets feature has been updated for the 21st century. It looks like Apple still has a place in its heart for good ol’ Dashboard.
• Launchpad – You can now search in Launchpad. Why you’d want to do this instead of using Spotlight is really beyond me, but it’s there if you want it.
• Chinese Services – Since China is Apple’s fastest growing market, it makes sense that in OS X Mountain Lion they are integrating some popular Chinese services. Baidu now works in Safari and services like 126 and 163 are also included. I obviously didn’t test any of these, but they seem to really be Chinese extensions of Share Sheets.
• Software Update – Software Update is dead. In its place, Apple is managing system updates through the App Store. This is a pretty common sense move, and it works pretty well. It’s also a little zippier than what you’d expect from the old dedicated update app, so I’d imagine it will be a welcome change for most users.
• Mission Control – Hovering over fullscreen apps or spaces now shows you a zoom effect similar to the one in the dock. It’s not much, but at least it looks pretty.

Final Thoughts

Mountain Lion is a really impressive update to OS X. The sheer number of new apps and features is almost unbelievable for what Apple considers an incremental update. I’m excited, but I’m also more than a bit worried. Is this the end of OS X as we know it?

While I love many of the new features, the similarities to iOS are pretty outstanding. So one has to wonder, is Apple determined to unify their operating systems, at the expense of their power users? Sadly, that seems to be the way things are headed. Hopefully, though, that’s in a distant future; for now we can enjoy the massive improvements Mountain Lion brings to the operating system formally known as “Mac” OS X. Come this summer, Mountain Lion will be a must have update.

(Via Mac.AppStorm.)

(Via Engadget.)

I’ve been playing around with Screens 2.0 all day and I love it. The app allows you to connect your Mac or iOS device to another computer on the network, see its screen and interact with the computer. I tried it on my Mac and iPhone, but haven’t gotten around to the iPad yet, but I haven’t had a single problem. It took a couple of tries to nail the position of my finger when using the iPhone version, but that’s a minor user thing.

(Via The Loop.)

Apple has today announced the successor to its popular Mac OS Lion operating system, unveiling Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of its desktop platform which will bring more of its iOS features to the desktop.

Gone are traditional messaging apps like iChat, in comes Messages, Notes, Reminders and even Game Center for Mac, mimicking the iOS features on your iPhone and iPad, also delivering Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay.

If you wanted iOS on the desktop, you’re about to get it.

Apple has released the operating system as a developer preview, building iCloud support directly into the OS, making it easy to use and easy to operate with the integration of apps. As Apple works to fine-tune the platform, Mac users will be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion via the Mac App Store in ‘late summer 2012′.

“The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world’s most advanced personal computer operating system.”

Below is an overview of Mountain Lion. We have referenced the great article by Jim Dalrymple & Peter Cohen over at The Loop to do so. Again, a big thanks to Jim once again for his assistance.

iCloud

Given the fact that iCloud now has 100 million users, Mountain Lion is built to maximise the service and has support built into its core.

By registering iCloud in Mountain Lion, the service will then set up a number of apps and services on your system, integrating tightly with Mail, Contacts, Messages, FaceTime and a whole number of other services. So, if you have a lot of information already set up, the service will make it all available for you.

Apple will push Documents in the Cloud with Mountain Lion, perhaps serving as a Google Docs and Microsoft Office 365 rival.

Given it’s just a beta build at the moment, new features are set to be introduced until its release in ‘late Summer’.

GateKeeper

Apple wants to protect its customers, so it has released GateKeeper to block malware and malicious downloads.

The Loop explains the feature:

Mountain Lion is going to make it safer for users to install software and be free from the threat of malicious downloads. As part of the GateKeeper program all developers will be given a unique Developer ID, allowing them to sign their applications.

GateKeeper has three basic options. Allow only Mac App Store apps to be installed; Mac App Store apps and apps signed with a Developer ID; and Anywhere, which allows any app to be installed.

For me, using the Mac App Store apps and apps signed with a Developer ID seems like the best choice. I would imagine all of the developers that make the apps I use will sign them with their ID.

Using this setting I can download apps from a developer’s Web site and install it without any issues, but still be safe.

If GateKeeper is triggered by an app, you can still manually install or open it. All you have to do is Control-click the app and chose Open to reveal a dialog box that will allow you to install the application.

Social, Everywhere

Apple will allow data and information to be sent from anywhere on the computer with its new Share Sheets feature.

Share Sheets are available wherever you look in Mountain Lion and provides the ability to share files and media with Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, AirDrop, Messages and Mail services. The button is built into apps – Safari, for example, allows you to share via Twitter, Messages and Mail.

Mountain Lion works with your Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo and AOL accounts from a system level. Whether Facebook will be added to this remains to be seen, there is bad blood between the two companies.

Messages

Apple has decided that its instant messaging application iChat needed an overhaul, this has resulted in iMessage for Mac. With Messages, a user simply needs to dial in their Apple ID or phone number and they can start messaging iOS devices and Mountain Lion users from their desktop.

The app still supports AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, and Jabber, so it’s iChat but with a little bit of iMessage built in.

All conversations are synced between devices, so you can chat on the move and then come home to your iMac or MacBook and continue the conversation where you left off.

If text isn’t enough, chats can be switched to FaceTime for that face-to-face conversation, and the app will deliver read receipts and typing indicators so you can be aware of whether someone is away from their keyboard or iDevice and isn’t just ignoring you.

Messages is available for Mac owners today as part of a beta preview, you can download it here.

Notes, Reminders and other iOS apps

Apple brings Reminders and Notes to the desktop too, syncing your to-do list between your mobile devices and computers for easy on-the-go access.

Notes supports photos, attachments, bullets and links and all you have to do is drag a link into a note whenever you want to save something on your desktop.

Like the Stickies app, you can pin reminders and notes to the desktop. Double-clicking a note opens it in its own window and it will stay open even if the app itself is closed.

Notification Center

If you were a big Notification Center user on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you will be pleased to see it has been ported to Mountain Lion, allowing you to see messages and other notifications at-a-glance.

You might have loved Growl but Apple is set to do away with the neat little app with Notification Center. It will sit in the top right of your computer screen, by the Spotlight search icon on your menu bar.

Using a two-finger slide-down gesture on the right hand side of the screen will access the Notification Center, showing everything that has occurred since it was last accessed. In the current developer preview, the apps it supports includes:

• Game Center
• Calendar
• Reminders
• App Store
• Safari
• Messages
• Mail.

Like on iOS, you can choose which type of alert you want, picking either None, Banners or Alerts. Banners display for a short period and then disappear automatically, Alerts wait to be dismissed.

Game Center

By bringing Game Center to the Mac, Apple is going to push ahead with desktop app gaming and help connect users between devices.

The app allows users to find friends, discover new games that their friends play, recommend games, access a leaderboard and see the achievements they have earned.

Perhaps borrowing a page from Microsoft’s playbook, Apple has introduced a feature that allows users to play Game Center on any device, so Mac users will be able to play iPhone, iPad or iPod users.

(Via The Next Web.)

What Is iTunes Match, Really?

iTunes Match is cloud storage for up to 25,000 songs. Wherever possible, your music files are matched to a DRM-free, 256kbs high quality version on Apple’s server, if available. If not, your songs are uploaded as is.

You can overwrite your local, lower quality media, with higher quality 256kbs version from iTunes Match. And yes, this includes songs you have pirated, downloaded, borrowed off a mate, or ripped at a low quality from your own CDs. Bear in mind that a 256kbs file is going to be twice as large as one encoded at 128kbs though.

Once in the cloud, your entire music library is available to download or stream on up to 5 devices registered to your iTunes account.

Limitations

• Songs less than 96kbs cannot be matched.
• Only music and music videos are valid for matching – not audiobooks (there is a workaround with that if you classify audiobooks as media type: music and if they are ripped at 96kbs or better, they will be uploaded and stored in the cloud with every other track).
• Your ID3 tags will not be overwritten – if you have a track 01, iTunes will NOT automatically fix that for you. It will replace the audio with a higher quality version, but it will not give you missing tags, artwork, or lyrics. The meta-data associated with each song remains the same, even if it it’s broken. On the upside, this means your handcrafted ID3 tags won’t be replaced either.
• As mentioned, there is a 25,000 song limit, on up to 5 devices.

Getting Started

Once subscribed, you’ll see one of the following icons next to every track.

iTunes is then in the process of scanning your tracks to see which it has a match for.

Out of 7,400 songs in my library, it matched roughly 2,800 songs. The additional items took a total of about 4 days to fully upload, but you can start using everything else that has already uploaded in the meantime, and begin upgrading tracks that are eligible.

To Upgrade Songs to 256kbs Versions

This isn’t as easy as it should be, but basically you need to delete matched songs from iTunes, then download them from the cloud. The problem is figuring out which songs are eligible for an upgrade. To do this easily, create a new smart playlist with the following options:

• Media type – music
• Quality – less than 256kbs
• AND ANY OF THE FOLLOWING (option click on the + symbol to create this ANY rule)
• - iCloud Status is Purchased
• - iCloud Status is Matched

Any songs on this playlist are matched in the cloud and therefore a higher quality version is available to replace any you have locally. To trigger that upgrade, you need to delete those tracks from your library – by either right clicking and selecting delete or pressing option-delete.

When asked if you’d like to delete the tracks from iCloud too, make sure you DON’T. However, do move them to the trash / delete from your local computer. The tracks won’t disappear from the list though, instead they’ll be there still but with an iCloud download icon next to them. Highlight them again, right click, download.

Once downloaded, they’ll disappear from this smart playlist – that’s because they’ve been replaced with 256kbs versions, and therefore don’t match the list criteria anymore. Congrats, you’ve upgraded them. Continue for every other song on the list.

Note that this isn’t necessary for your iOS devices – they will automatically use the higher quality matched version when you attempt to stream or download to the device. This playlist is only to facilitate replacing the existing, lower quality songs on your computer.

Setting Up iTunes Match On iOS Devices

From the Settings -> Music menu, enable iTunes Match from the top of the list. You’ll be given a warning about the music on your device being replaced with iTunes Match. Continue.

Give it about 10 minutes to sync up with the cloud. Now when you launch the iPod / Music app, everything in your iCloud library will be there. If you still have some songs in the process of uploading, they’ll be greyed out.

You can either stream songs just by clicking to play them as usual (I experience about a 5 second lag before it starts sometimes), or you can download them to your device by clicking on the iCloud icon.

If you want to download a full playlist or genre, artist etc, just scroll down to the bottom of the list where you’ll see a button to download all.

Conclusion

I just upgraded about 2,800 songs to high quality 256kbs, legal DRM-free versions, which I can keep forever, legally. I can now stream my entire music collection to any of my iOS devices (including family if you share an iTunes store account). Of course, any music you add in the future to your library will also be automatically matched, if available, or uploaded if not. The library remains in sync across all devices. This is personal music streaming done right, and it’s even legal, which always gives me a nice fuzzy feeling inside.

What do you think of iTunes Match (assuming you’ve actually signed up)? For you, how does it compare to similar services like Google Music? Got any problems or questions about the service? Ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer!

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)

Even if you think you’ve maxed out the usefulness of your iPad there’s still opportunities to squeeze even more utility out of it. Read on as we show you how to use your iPad as a supplementary monitor for your PC or Mac.

The iPad is an enormously useful little tablet computer but when you’re sitting at your desktop or laptop you can’t easily use it in tandem with the larger computer. Rather than let it languish unused when you’re at your main computer, use it to extend your desktop. Whether you’re extending your laptop monitor for an instant second screen at the coffee shop or using it to park your Photoshop palettes while working at your desktop, the iPad screen is just the right size for parking IM windows, application interfaces, and other small but useful widgets and gadgets that you’d like to keep an eye on but don’t want to clutter up your main screen with.

(Via the How-To Geek.)

Facebook Timeline has been on the back burner for months now, after it was first announced at the company’s f8 conference in September. Despite much delay, it is finally rolling out to the public, starting with New Zealand. That means it’s only a matter of days before it comes to you, so brace your News Feed, because the fans and protestors are coming in full-force. In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know about Facebook Timeline.

New Features

The new features are significantly different than any other upgrade to Facebook before. Timeline presents a way to digitally document your entire life, from birth to present, via wall posts, photos, announcements and events. Consider it a neatly organized social scrapbook with a visually pleasing interface.

The New Facebook Profile: Timeline

Timeline is a radical departure from previous versions of the Facebook user profile. The most prominent feature is the addition of a cover photo at the top of the page. Users can change this to whatever they’d like it to be.

Click here to view this gallery.

If you haven’t already received an invite to Timeline, and don’t want to wait any longer, you can enable it now in eight simple steps.

Timeline was supposed to be released to the public in September. October. November. The feature was set back, possibly after a copyright infringement lawsuit was filed against Facebook by Timelines.com. Later, Facebook admitted it was taking its time to roll out Timeline to users, relying on more technically adept people to experience the features first. Mashable‘s Lance Ulanoff explains, “Facebook is trying to educate the media on the fundamentals and benefits of Timeline.”

What to Do With Your New Timeline

So, if or when your Facebook Timeline is activated, what exactly should you do with it?

That’s up to you, and how much you want to reveal to your friends and followers. But there are a lot of new features that have the potential to create a captive, visual biography. Regardless of how much information you choose to fill out, there are a few different methods and privacy-related points to consider.

1. The Timeline Menu Bar

As you scroll down your new Timeline, a floating menu bar will appear at the top of your screen. Use it to add new events.

Click here to view this gallery.

What does all of this mean for Facebook’s more than 800 million users? That depends on your stance about the new features.

Facebook Timeline is a way to document your entire life, from birth to present, but because the company began in 2004 for college students, it might take some time and effort to manually fill out.

Creative Inspiration

Some have already jumped into Timeline and are getting creative with their profile presentation, most specifically cover photos, which is a new feature that includes a personalized image at the top of the page.

SEE ALSO: Facebook Timeline: 5 Sites for Customizing Your Cover Photo

When Timeline entered beta in September, we gathered some stunning and mind-blowing takes on the new layout.

1. Ekkapong Techawongthaworn

Playful and fun, we’re big fans of Ekkapong’s rainy creation.

Click here to view this gallery.

What About Privacy?

Some have clamed, in criticism of Facebook Timeline, that by encouraging users to fill their profile, the company is seeking to capture more user data to further appeal to advertisers. Others have expressed concern that it is now easier to discover information about a person that was previously difficult to access. Further more, some believe these additional features regarding users’ personal information may encourage identity theft.

SEE ALSO: The New Facebook: How to Take Control of Your Privacy

(Via Mashable!.)