Its been a well known issue that the facebook uploader fails miserably in ubuntu, and hence these packages rock! first i installed phatch

$ sudo apt-get install phatch

next, f-spot

$ sudo apt-get install f-spot

though i know that f-spot allows one to batch update photos, i preferred the intuitive and simple interface of phatch for doing so. i used f-spot's Facebook upload plugin (which is deactivated by default) to upload to Facebook. the f-spot plugin can be activated from Edit > Manage Extensions and used from File > Export > Facebook. happy photo uploading!