If you are setting up a Facebook account for the first time, follow these steps and tips to get started:

*Setting up a personal Facebook account

1. Go to facebook.com. You will see a page asking you to either log in or sign up. Fill out the four fields under the Sign Up heading: First Name, Last Name, Your email address, and a password.

*Tip: Many of your friends who are trying to find your profile on Facebook will search for your name, so include the your maiden name, nick name, etc. if you want to make it easy for your old high school friends and colleagues to find you.

*Tip: Put your middle name after a space on the first name field, especially if many people know you by your middle name. Put your maiden name before your last name, using either a hyphen or parentheses.

*Tip: Use an email address to which you will want Facebook updates to be sent. Also, this will be your contact address that friends can see on your profile.

2. Select your gender and date of birth. You need to give your actual date of birth to comply with Facebook guidelines, but if you want to hide that information from your profile, you will have the option to do so later.

3. Click "Sign Up". You will need to type the characters given on the following page to ensure that you are not an automated software program (they can't read the letters in the picture). Click "sign up" again.

4. You now have an account! Now all you need to do is finish your profile and find your friend's profiles and link to them (this is called adding someone as a friend). Facebook will offer to find friends for you, by searching through your email contact list. If they find a Facebook account associated with an email address on your contact list, they'll list the profiles for you so you can add them as friends. To do this, you need to give Facebook your email password that you use to log into your email account to give Facebook access to your email contact list.

If you choose to allow Facebook to find friends for you, type your email password and click "Find Friends." Facebook will not store your password, so you don't have to worry that Facebook will go through your emails.

If you don't want to give your password, or if you don't care to search for friends, just click "skip this step."

5. The next step will ask you to provide your high school, college, and work information to help friends find you. Again you may skip this step if you wish.

6. The next step will ask you to upload a profile picture. You don't have to do this either, and you can load any picture other than one of you if you wish. Again, this will help friends find you when they are searching for people with your name.

7. Now you will be taken to a page with more options. You should be able to navigate through the options fairly easily. You can refer to the help section if you have questions. Be sure to check your email, to confirm your Facebook account and start getting notifications from Facebook! You're ready to start finding and keeping up with friend, load photos, play games, and much more! Start exploring-there's a lot to discover!