Need to know how to get an event on our calendar? Check out the video for a walk-through!

Now that we've taken a look at three of the most popular social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, it's time to figure out how to best utilize all three efficiently and effectively. Did you know you can schedule tweets and status updates? You can also see what your friends are up to in all three accounts without opening a new window. You don't want your real life to be a mess. Why allow your cyberlife to become a cluster you-know-what? There are two places you can go to organize your online life: TweetDeck and HootSuite. Both of these sites have an interface that allows users…

When did the pound sign become a frequently used key on our boards? Positioned inconspicuously above the number three, we have to hit the shift key to even use it on most laptops. Thanks to Twitter, that little symbol has become the go-to button for categorization. But why? Well, when we're talking about a social networking site that has more than 190 million users, it is easy for your tweets to become lost in the mix. Adding a '#' to any tweet – or hashtagging it– gives it a category, and ultimately a higher amount of views. For example, if you wanted your tweets about Chicago Heights to be …

Have you heard of Foursquare? If you're on Facebook or Twitter, you may have seen your friends letting the world know where they are at the moment. Perhaps you saw a status or tweet that said "Jimmy Jones just checked in @ McDonald's, 2400 Lincoln Hwy, Olympia Fields." This is Foursquare at work. These friends of yours "check-in" at different places and recieve points and rewards for their efforts. They can become the mayor at a given location by performing the most check-ins there. What's the use of this? Lets say you're at a big event and there are tons of people around, perhaps a free …

Many of us don't always comment on our friends' status updates or send messages to them. Well, if you have the "new profile" Facebook has been raving about, you might not be seeing those friends at all. The newest change on Facebook now defaults to a setting that allows you to only see updates from the friends you interact with most. That means if you don't comment, wall post, or message a friend, you won't see any new updates from them. We at Patch, want you to see our posts. They are always relevant to Chicago Heights, Olympia Fields and South Chicago Heights, and we know just because you …

There has been plenty of talk about Twitter and not everyone is up to speed on what it is or how it really works. I was pretty confused myself before joining the masses and creating an account. Twitter is a social networking Web site that allows you to talk to your friends and tell the world how you're feeling in a sentence or two. These short expressions are "tweets," and you typically have to keep the length at less than 140 characters, or the length of this sentence. There are ways around the 140 character limit, but we'll address those at a later time. Today we're just looking at how to …