If you were unable to register a username (i.e. a vanity URL) for your Facebook Page or profile when they were first released on June 13 because your fan base wasn’t big enough or because you had only recently joined Facebook, then you may be able to score one now. Yesterday, Facebook open up usernames to more Pages (by lowering the requirement from 1,000 fans to just 100) and newer profiles.

Previously, Facebook stated the new fan number requirement for Pages would be set at 25, but increased it to 100 at the last minute, which, according to AllFacebook.com’s numbers, means over 401,000 Pages with between 25 and 100 fans are no longer eligible. However, AllFacebook.com says there are still over 429,000 Pages that are now able to register a username because of the lowered entry bar, and this group makes up over 30% of all Pages.

To register a username go to: http://www.facebook.com/username

FBHive would also just like to take this opportunity to thank all our Facebook fans who helped us reach the 100 fans mark earlier this week. We have registered a username and our Facebook Page can now be accessed at: http://www.facebook.com/FBHive

We here at FBHive love free stuff (who doesn’t?), and this includes Facebook gifts. We love giving them and we love receiving them, especially now that they come with +1 credit  (that’s 10 US cents worth!). Sure, we could get into a debate about the intrinsic value of a virtual gift, but when they’re free – who cares!

Sadly, we feel that Facebook doesn’t do enough to promote these free gifts. An ad will appear in the sidebar occasionally, but for the most part, new free gifts are usually something we discover ourselves while browsing the Facebook Gift Shop. There is currently no way to be notified when something new appears.

With the old Gift Shop layout, the free gifts were easy to find because there was an option to sort by price. Now, with the recent redesign, that option has disappeared. Not only that, but some free gifts don’t even appear in the Shop – they can only be found on the Facebook Page of the company/product that’s sponsoring them.

So, as part of our regular feed of Facebook news, we plan to inform you whenever we discover a new free gift. Stay tuned as we play a bit of catch-up and let you know what’s currently available to be given away and make someone’s day (without a cent to pay).

Go here to see all the free Facebook gifts as we post them:
http://www.fbhive.com/category/free-gifts/

Oh, and just so you know…

Facebook’s Free Gift Rules

• You cannot give a free gift to yourself.

• You can give away the same free gift multiple times, but not to the same person.

It’s been less than 24 hours since we published our first feature article, ‘Private Facebook info accessible with a simple hack’. The Facebook Security team contacted us early on and have since fixed the exploit, so what we’re about to show you is no longer achievable. (Which in our opinion is a good thing.)

The exploit involved fooling the “Edit Information” section of your profile to display another user’s Basic Information when you finish editing your own. This was the only section that had this loophole, with the hack failing to work with Contact Information, or any of the other details listed on the page.

There’s a stack of guides all over the net listing all the smileys you can send in Facebook and many forum posts discussing the formatting options. We’re yet to find one good one that lumps it all into one page, with the latest smiley codes, in a nice easy to read format, so we’ve decided to oblige. If you know of any fb chat smileys we are missing, let us know!

The first half of the article dumbs down how to send both bold and underlined text in Facebook Chat windows, and the second half lists every smiley and emoticon, including the hidden ones!