Special Forces 2011 If You Liked Act of Valor You Will Like This

I pulled this off Netflix, and I was a bit surprised.  No, not U.S. Special Forces, but a French commando unit sent into the tribal areas of Pakistan to free a French journalist (and relative of a French politician) from the Taliban.  This film has nearly all the strengths of Act of Valor: an exciting action film; a work of fiction, but fiction not too terribly far removed from real events; brave but human heroes; and bad guys who would have been close to unbelievably evil -- until the Taliban came along, who behave in ways that are practically cardboard cutout monsters.  And yet even the chief warlord here has his moments when brief glints of humanity intrude, before the monstrousness returns. 

Like Act of Valor, the film is exciting not just for the action sequences, but the exotic locales.  It was actually filmed partly in Pakistan and partly in Tajikistan, which is close enough to Afghanistan to do a convincing body double.  Unlike Act of Valor, these are all obviously professional actors, doing a more credible job of acting than our special ops guys did of acting in Act of Valor.  (And as I said when reviewing Act of Valor -- who cares?  Im sure our special ops guys, or French special ops guys, do a better job of acting than vice versa.)

The reviews of Special Forces are overwhelmingly negative -- and I am pretty sure that politics has a lot to do with it.  Unfortunately, it is subtitled, and as one of the few even half-fair reviews pointed out:

But the films U.S. commercial prospects are dim, given the widespread American aversion to subtitles, and its formulaic charms are unlikely to impress the art-house crowd.

The film is rated R for its violence, and the rating seems appropriate.  To its credit, a scene where someone is executed in al-Qaeda fashion is off-screen, and merely suggested.

Read More..

How to add Facebook Like Fan Box to Blogger

A Facebook Fan Box or Like Box is a great plugin that allows blog visitors to subscribe to your blog updates via their Facebook accounts, without leaving your blog. After subscribing (by pressing like button), visitors will receive your most recent blog updates on their Facebook page. This box also displays faces of the "likers" on your blog. Before creating a fan box you should already have a facebook fan page. If you havent yet created, click here to learn How to Create a Facebook Fan Page.

Add Facebook Like Box to Blogger

1. Find out your Facebook fan page URL by visiting your Facebook fan page and copy the url in the address bar, you can see how your url should look like in my screenshot:

2. Then visit this page: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box

3. Paste your url into the Facebook Page URL field as it is shown below:

4. Once you are satisfied with the looks of the Like Box, click on the "Get Code" button

5. Youll be given two codes, titled HTML 5, XFBML and IFRAME. You only need the iframe code.
Select it and copy the code generated for your box as it is shown in the example below:

6. Then go to your Blogger Dashboard > Layout > click on the Add a Gadget link

 7. From the pop-up window, scroll down and select HTML/JavaScript

8. Paste the code in the empty HTML box.

9. Click Save and youre done.

Read More..

How to Use Facebook Like Button on Site

How to Use Facebook Like Button on Your Website?

One of the questions were hearing a lot these days is: "Whats this Facebook like button all about?" Once we explain it, the next question we get is: "How quickly can I get that on my website?" So I decided to write out an explanation for how its done that anyone can read, understand and put into action for their own website.

Here are a few quick questions we often find ourselves answering that have quick answers:

Icons - Do I need to have a Facebook account to be able to add the "Like" button to my website?

No, you dont. Anyone can add it regardless of whether or not they have a Facebook account. Click here for our easy step-by-step guide on how to set up a Facebook account.
What are some of the key benefits to creating a "Like" button?

There are several very important reasons to get this like button on your website. Heres a list of a few of them:

> The Facebook brand carries with it a sense of safety, authority, trust and familiarity. Having their logo and a connection to them on your website will make your site look and feel more legitimate and trustworthy in the eyes of Facebook users. This is massive in building credibility, increasing traffic and driving sales.

> Your website has a chance to go "viral" as friends recommend you to their friends who then recommend it to other friends, etc... As the saying goes: "birds of a feather flock together" and this can be a fantastic way to penetrate your niche and have your customers spread the word in a low commitment way for them that can build amazing results for you.

> One great part of it is how much Facebook charges for it - nothing! Thats right, its free. A free advertising tool that relies on referrals and recommendations (we all know the value of those).

> A seismic shift is starting to happen and Facebook is squaring off against Google and looking to overtake them as the internets number one search engine. This wont happen overnight, but its wise to align yourself with Facebook early on so that you can get brownie points from Facebook for having got in on the ground floor.

So, now that you know whats at stake, here are some more general questions we get asked by people like you all the time. The answers are important for getting your head around how it all works - in simple terms.

What is the Facebook "Like" button?

The Facebook like button is used in two general places. One is on the Facebook site, the other is on sites outside of Facebook. For the most part well be discussing the button you can put on your website, but Ill just take a moment to talk about the like buttons on Facebook.

The like button on Facebook is a button you can click on after looking at pretty much any content on Facebook. This could be a friends photo, a comment a friend has made or even a group or application. The fact that you have "liked" these things is then reported in your friends news feeds. If you have "liked" a page on Facebook for a product, community, etc... then they can send you updates and information from them will appear in your news feed.

The like button were most interested in is the one you can put on your website. This is the one you can often see when you visit a website online, and it looks like this:

The one on the left is the i-frame version and the one on the right is the JavaScript version, but well get into that later.

When someone visits a website with this button on it, they can click on it to let their friends know that they like the site. After clicking on the button theyll have a pop-up asking them to login to Facebook (or sign-up if not already a member). Once theyve logged in, theyll see the button on the right above, which shows which of their friends like that page, along with their friends profile picture. After clicking the like button, a story will be posted automatically to their Facebook page telling their friends that they like the site!

If the button has been set up correctly, the website can also be placed on other parts of the Facebook users profile by using "tags". So if, for example, someone is looking at a webpage about their favourite movie and they click the like button. That movie can then be added to that persons profile under "interests". There are many categories you can tag.
How do I put the Facebook "Like" button on my website?

This is where it gets slightly more complicated - but only slightly. There are two kinds of like buttons you can add to your website. One, which is much more simple, is known as the i-frame. This button is simpler and gives users less information about who, specifically, likes your webpage. With this option, users wont get to see their friends profile pictures pop-up and the button is far less customisable.
laptop

The second option is JavaScript. This one is harder to add but allows users to see their friends profile pictures and names pop-up which makes a huge difference in terms of emotional connection and trust building. The JavaScript button also allows the user to write a comment about your page that will be shown to their friends. The i-frame just shows the link, whereas the JavaScript will show positive comments that can be worth their weight in gold.

To get the "like" button put on your just head on over to Facebooks page thats designed to help you add the like button to your site. They have some explanations there on how to add the button with lists of all the options and how to implement each one. It takes a bit of programming experience and know-how that anyone with a web design background can have up and running in less than an hour.

However, if youre interested in using the JavaScript options to really leverage the full power this button can unleash, or if web programming isnt something youre overly familiar with and youd like some help then you can get someone else to get someone else to set up your Facebook like button exactly the way you want it.

Read More..