Think of a small group of your friends and write down a list. Then sign in to your Facebook account; you'll land on your Home page. From here, you have two ways of finding people; start by using the Search box. Type one of your friend's names in the Search box, as I've done in Figure 7-3. Just as when you're searching for anything on Facebook, a drop-down list appears — this one with semi-matching names.

If you're not sure how to spell your friend's name, just type in as many characters of it as you think may be right. Facebook will pick up the slack. Alternatively, you can type in your friend's last known e-mail address, but people change e-mail addresses so often these days, that it might not be valid anymore.

Figure 7-3. Figure 7-3

If your friend is not on the suggested list, click the See More Results link. You'll then see a page (or many pages) with results that match what you've typed in. You should be able to find your friend if he or she is a member of Facebook.

Remember that I said there were two ways to find friends? Look on the left side of your home page. See the Information area? Click the Friends link. The main area of the resulting page (shown in Figure 7-4) fills up with a list of Facebook members who want to be your friends. Also on this page, you can click the Find Friends link (that appears below your friends-to-be) and find friends using your e-mail account. Type in your e-mail password, and Facebook imports your contacts automatically.

This Facebook feature is called Friend Finder. It's perfectly safe and Facebook does not store your password. But even so, I don't like it; here are some reasons why:

• I'm a stickler for privacy and do not wish to share my online contact lists with anyone.

• Friend Finder makes automatic connections based on the e-mail addresses in your address book. Facebook says: "We may use the e-mail addresses you upload through this importer to help you connect with friends, including using this information to generate Suggestions for you and your contacts on Facebook. If you don't want us to store this information, visit this page." Then you have to go to that page and make your preference known.

  Making suggestions for you and your e-mail contacts may sound like a fair deal. But when you click the link to read the deeper details, you're told that once you import your contacts, you must manually remove each one you don't want — one at a time. Facebook adds a caveat: "Note that it may take some time before your name will be completely removed from Suggestions."

  
  

  Figure 7-4. Figure 7-4

  

If the features of Friend Finder are fine with you, feel free to add your online contact list. I can tell you that Facebook won't lie, but be sure you read every message before agreeing to any Facebook activity.

Other links at the left show you which friends have recently made changes to their Profile pages. The changes they have made are highlighted to the right of their names.