Hacking MySpace

Hacking

MySpace

Customizations and Mods to Make

MySpace Your Space

John Pospisil

™

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Hacking

MySpace™

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Hacking

MySpace

Customizations and Mods to Make

MySpace Your Space

John Pospisil

™

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Hacking MySpace™: Customizations and Mods to Make MySpace Your Space

Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

10475 Crosspoint Boulevard

Indianapolis, IN 46256

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN-13: 978-0-470-04584-8

ISBN-10: 0-470-04584-1

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, No part

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Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher

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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the

accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of

fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies

contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in

rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional

person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or

Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the

publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be

aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pospisil, John, 1971–

Hacking MySpace : customizations and mods to make MySpace

your space / John Pospisil.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-470-04584-8 (paper/website)

ISBN-10: 0-470-04584-1 (paper/website)

1. Web sites—Design. 2. MySpace (Firm) 3. Social networks

—Computer network resources. I. Title.

TK5105.888.P587 2006

006.7—dc22

Trademarks:Wiley, the Wiley logo, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its

affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. ExtremeTech and the ExtremeTech

logo are trademarks of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, Inc. Used under license. All rights reserved. MySpace is a trademark of MySpace,

Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor

mentioned in this book.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

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To my wife, Rocio, and baby daughter, Grace, who in different ways

have transformed my life and made me a much better person

To my parents, Milada and Michael; my parents-in-law, Lidya and Segundo;

my sisters, Patricia and Daniela; my brothers-in-law, Carlos and Steve;

and my nieces, Marissa and baby Katie

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About the Author

John Pospisil is the founder of Cogent Insights (www.cogentinsights.com), a marketing

and communications consultancy specializing in new and converging media.

Originally from a journalism background, John was the product development champion and

founding editor of Computer CHOICE, an easy-to-read computer magazine launched by the

Australian Consumers’ Association in 1995, and still one of Australia’s most credible and inde￾pendent IT titles. In 1998 he teamed up with fellow journalist Tom Crawley to launch Free

Access magazine, and in 2001 they teamed with photographer Shelton Muller to launch Total

Image magazine.

John is the author of three books, including the best-selling How to Buy a Computer (which

went through four editions—1996, 1997, 1998, 2000), How to Get More from Your Computer

(2000), and How to Start a Small Business in the Real World (2002).

John has a journalism degree from the University of Canberra, and an MBA from the

University of Technology, Sydney.

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Credits

Executive Editor

Chris Webb

Development Editor

Rosanne Koneval

Technical Editor

Shawn Kessel

Copy Editor

Nancy Rapoport

Editorial Manager

Mary Beth Wakefield

Production Manager

Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive

Group Publisher

Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher

Joseph B. Wikert

Compositor

Maureen Forys,

Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader

C. M. Jones

Indexer

Melanie Belkin

Cover Design

Anthony Bunyan

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Acknowledgments

A lot of people have helped me with this book in one way or another, so here’s my attempt to

thank them.

The biggest thank you has to go my wonderful wife, Rocio, for her love and support during the

ludicrously busy period when I wrote this book. Sometimes it felt as though I was working

three jobs, well, actually, come to think of it…

Another big thank you has to go to my baby daughter, Grace, who was also very patient and

who carefully read through each chapter. Well, the truth is, Grace tried to eat each chapter, but

it’s the thought that counts. Also, thank you to my mother-in-law, Lidya, who was staying with

us while I was writing, and really helped to make life a lot more comfortable.

Thank you to my mother, father, and sisters, Patricia and Daniela, for their words of

encouragement.

A very big thank you to Laura Lewin, my agent at StudioB, who encouraged me to pitch this

project to Wiley Publishing, and a special thank you to Andrew Parsons who introduced me to

Laura. A thank you to Chris Webb and Rosanne Koneval at Wiley Publishing for guiding me

through the process of writing for a large publisher like Wiley. And a thank you to Shawn

Kessel for being a great technical editor.

A big thank you to the following MySpace members who helped me with critical sections of

the book: Ben Bledsoe, Valerie Burgess, Nate Burns, Nick Edwards, Dan Hill, Michelle

Mannor, Mark McDonald, Jessica Mellott, Elda Ramirez, Michael Sabine, Jesse Smith,

Willian, Kevin Turner, and the guys from rfp, Joshua’s Whisper, and North of Hollywood.

Thank you to Tom Crawley for his help with the photo tips, and to Shelton Muller for assist￾ing me with some of the photography (the nice shots, that is; the other ones were taken by me

alone). Thank you to Alex Zaharov-Reutt for allowing me to draw on his expertise in the field

of new media, and for his feedback on some of the later chapters.

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Contents at a Glance

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii

Part I: Introducing MySpace

Chapter 1: Making MySpace Your Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Chapter 2: Customizing and Hacking MySpace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 3: Introduction to HyperText Markup Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 4: More on HyperText Markup Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 5: Using a Text Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Chapter 6: Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 7: More on Cascading Style Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Chapter 8: Using MySpace with Image Hosting Web Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Chapter 9: Using MySpace with Your Own Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Part II: The Hacks

Chapter 10: Embedding Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Chapter 11: Using Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Chapter 12: Creating Animated GIFs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Chapter 13: Backgrounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Chapter 14: Background Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Chapter 15: Playing Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Chapter 16: Fun with Links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Chapter 17: Custom Cursors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Chapter 18: Changing Profile Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Chapter 19: Customizing Other Parts of Your Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Chapter 20: Adding a Comments Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Chapter 21: Using Marquees and Slideshows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Chapter 22: Changing Your Contact Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Chapter 23: Creating Your Own Navigation Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Chapter 24: Miscellaneous Hacks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Chapter 25: Div Overlays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

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Part III: Design and Photography

Chapter 26: Sending the Right Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Chapter 27: Profile Design for Maximum Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Chapter 28: Taking Winning Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Chapter 29: Photo Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Part IV: MySpace Music

Chapter 30: Finding Fame and Fortune on MySpace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Chapter 31: Final Thoughts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Appendix A: Color Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Appendix B: CSS Units of Measurement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

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