Point your web browser to www.facebook.com. If you’re on a Windows computer, you’ll get the best results with Internet Explorer or Firefox. If you’re on a Mac, use Firefox or Safari. (If you’re not familiar with Firefox [it’s free], check out www.firefox.com.)

Tip:

You probably don’t want to sign up for Facebook using your cellphone because there’s quite a bit of typing involved, but you can in a pinch; see Chapter 15 for details.

In the Sign Up area, fill out all the fields. Facebook doesn’t let you skip any fields, but you can change your answers later (Section 2.6).

• First Name/Last Name. Facebook expects you to use your real name, not an alias. Don’t type in the name of a group or company, and don’t include special characters like parentheses or titles such as Mr., Ms., or Dr.

  If you like, after you finish the sign-up process you can add your maiden name to your account so people you knew before you got hitched can find you. To do so: At the top of any Facebook page, click the Account link and click Account Settings on the drop-down menu. On the page that appears, click Name and type your full maiden name in the Alternate Name field. You’ll see that Facebook is already set up to include your maiden name on your profile and in search results should any old flame be looking for you. Click the Change Alternate Name button when you’re done.

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  Tip:

  For the most part, it’s up to you whether or not you give Facebook accurate personal details. But Facebook actually uses a combination of computer programs and real, live humans to weed out obviously bogus registration details. Type in Elvis Presley, Mickey Mouse, or The Joad Family for your full name, for example, and there’s a good chance your registration won’t go through.

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• Your Email. Make sure you type in a working email address. If you don’t, you won’t receive the confirmation message Facebook sends you, and therefore won’t be able to complete the sign-up process. If you’re interested in joining your employer’s or school’s Facebook network (see Chapter 3), use your work email address (kris_kringle@acme.com) or your student email address (kris_kringle@asu.edu), respectively. If you’re worried about privacy, sign up for a free email address from a site such as www.mail.yahoo.com or www.gmail.com and give Facebook this new email address.

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  Note:

  Facebook limits you to one personal Facebook account per email address. If you’re worried about losing access to your email account (and, therefore, to your Facebook account) you can add an alternate email address to your Facebook account; Section 2.6.7 shows you how.

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• New Password. Make up a six-character (or longer), case-sensitive password (you can use numbers, letters, and punctuation), and then jot it down in a notebook or some other safe place so you don’t forget it.

• Birthday. Make sure the year you choose puts you over age 12—Facebook doesn’t let under-13s use the site.

Tip:

Facebook requires you to hand over your birth date when you’re creating a personal account. But because not everyone wants to share her age with the world, the site gives you a way to hide your birth date from fellow Facebook members (see Section 2.6.1).

When you finish, click the Sign Up button. If you forgot to fill out any of the fields, you’ll see the Sign Up page again, this time with a message at the top that reads, “You must fill in all of the fields.” If you filled everything in to Facebook’s satisfaction, you’ll see a second Sign Up page; here’s what you do there:

• Type the security check words into the “Text in the box” field. This step is to make sure you’re a real, live person and not a computer (computers can’t read the squiggly text).

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  Tip:

  If you wait too long to type in the words that appear above this field—say you get called away from your computer and leave the half-finished Sign Up page overnight—Facebook may refresh the words and ask you to type in the new ones.

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• Click the green Sign Up button. Ideally, you should click both the Terms of Use link and the Privacy Policy link and read both of them before you click this button. In reality, though, you’d need 3 hours and a law degree to make sense of them. And because Facebook reserves the right to change them any time it gets the urge, you’d have to keep re-reading them every day. So just click Sign Up and be done with it. After you do, Facebook displays a three-step process you can use to find folks you know who are already on Facebook, and then describe yourself (by creating a Facebook profile and, optionally, uploading a picture of yourself) so that folks can find you.