Q: I need my Facebook fix. You know, just for a few minutes every day. The problem is that, while I'm at work, I feel awkward signing in to my profile to check on my friends, even if only briefly. I don't want my supervisor to catch me.
A: The Atlantic's Technology Channel doesn't have its own Facebook page, and that's probably for the best. You can bet that if it did have a page, I would be spending massive amounts of time checking in on my friends' lives and writing it off -- both to myself and to others -- as just another requirement of the job. If you're in a similar situation -- you find yourself wanting to check Facebook, but really have no reason to navigate to the site anytime between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. -- Excellbook is one possible solution.
The new application, which can be downloaded for either Macs or PCs at the aptly named "Be Stupid At Work" URL, makes your Facebook page look like an Excel spreadsheet so that, should the boss walk by, you won't get busted.
The app connects to your personal account through Facebook Connect. All of your messages and the status updates from your friends are pulled from the social network and reconfigured into columns and rows. The simple tasks that you would normally perform on Facebook like updating your status or replying to someone else's note can be done in Excellbook's pop-up windows without ever navigating to Facebook's interface.
Tools mentioned in this entry:
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Image: Excellbook.
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