So first lets think about the theory behind this. We want users to go to our post-page, and then be asked to buy a token to post 1 article; we then want to send the user to PayPal, for them to pay us, and then be sent back to our site, where the same post-page now shows them everything they need to post an article. Sound good? Almost there, we need to make sure we prepare for something - say for instance the user has user paid, and there is a power-cut at their house, in that case they will have just lost the money they paid us, and will be rather angry that there is no way to get it back; so essentially we are covering for the user closing their browser without posting, having paid us. And for that we are going to enlist the help of the cookie monster! Nah, just kidding, we'll stick to just one cookie for now - which will be placed on the user's machine to tell our site that they have paid, and when they have posted we can alter the cookie to reflect that. So lets go ahead and start with our posting page, place this code above your form.

So what do we have here? Well at the top we can see we are checking to see if a posted variable is equal to "Completed" - this is something that PayPal gives us when the user has completed their transaction. We then set the $paid variable equal to true. Next we check a cookie to see if it's value is "true", and once again if this is true, we set $paid equal to true. And finally if neither of the above conditions validates we simply set the variable equal to false. Next we have an if statement which runs if $paid is equal to false - using the handy ! just before the variable. Now, after the else { statement is where you will want to put your form for posting an article, but not before you enter our crazy AJAX/Cookie-goodness code which follows.

Woah what the frick is that?! I hear you shouting. Right well lets go from the top. First off we can see that we are using JavaScript, and also jQuery - so make sure it's included, and we are also waiting for the DOM to have fully loaded everything before beginning our code. Then inside of this code we are setting up a variable named dataString and setting it's value to "cval=true" - more on this soon. Then we create an AJAX call using jQuery which will POST to a URL which is in our theme folder in the scripts sub-folder, to a file named "cookie.php" the data in the variable dataString. Make sense? Hopefully it does. Now you might be thinking, but wait a moment, I don't have a file called cookie.php, and even more annoying is that I don't even have a folder called scripts in my theme directory. Well don't worry - go ahead and create a new file called cookie.php in your theme directory, and if you tend to store scripts in another directory like me, go ahead and move it into that directory - just be sure to update the URL there - and if you didn't know that handy bit of code that reads <?php bloginfo('template_url') ?> just spits out the URL of your theme's directory. Now, copy and paste the following code into your new file.

So what does that code do? Well the first line sets up a variable named $expire which holds the value of the date two months from today using some basic maths. Then we use the PHP function setcookie() to create a cookie in the format setcookie(name,value>,expiry date,directory) - now you might be wondering what that final "directory" bit is about - put simply that is the location where your cokkie can be read from - if you leave out this parameter you won't be able to access your cookie, except from the cookie.php page you created it on - not ideal.

Now we have a good thing going now, but we need to think about when the user has submitted the form, and posted an article - we need to alter the cookie to tell our site that the user has used up the token he bought - simply by using the same JavaScript code that we used above, but changing "cval=true" to "cval=false". Now if you submit your main form using AJAX you can simply add this function in the success: parameter, otherwise you might want to do any number of other things - using jQuery's submit() function like so.

Or you could stick the code on the page to which new post data is posted (new-post.php). Either way, you just have to ensure, that when the submit button is clicked - the cookie is set to false.

Now we've done nearly everything without having touched PayPal - the subject of the next section of the article; but before we begin I want to eradicate any preconceptions you may have about working with PayPal. Many people think it will be rather difficult to use PayPal in the way I am going to describe - that because you are dealing with people's money there is a greater margin for error. But this isn't the case - because at the end of the day, PayPal is the one going all the ground-work, and if it doesn't like what you are doing - it's going to tell you, so don't worry - and just go crazy! So go ahead and replace that comment we created earlier "//User hasn't paid" with the following code - kindly provided by PayPal.

So above, we have a form with a heck of a lot of information in it, but if we break it down, it's actually rather simple. Firstly we set up the form and tell it to post to PayPal's website - we also specify a number of variables to post along with it - the values of which are highlighted in bold. Firstly we have return - where the user will be returned to, once payment has been completed, for this we use the page's URL, helpfully provided to us by WordPresss. Then we send it something called cpp_header_image - a 90x750px image which will be used in the header - using an image of your own will make the user feel more comfortable, and looks more professional. Then a variable called - cbt - which is the text used on the button which will send users back to the return URL specified above. The last variable is to do with PayPal posting values back to our page - including that of the handy payment_status - so don't change that.

The next value highlighted in bold is an email address - this is where you should enter the email address of the PayPal account holder to which all transactions will be credited. Next is the value "1000" - which is the amount you wish to charge your users to post - in this case $1000 - may be a little pricy - you decide. The currency is also set below and is currently set to US Dollars. PayPal provides a full list of variables for you to use, which is worth checking out for further customisation.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that! So now hopefully you can see just how easy it is to integrate PayPal with WordPress. As always if you have any questions/problems with the tutorial, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

So who won? Well thanks to a little random number generator, the winner is...

Jake Culp

Well done Jake!

I'd now like to say a big thank you to Digital Room for the sponsorship, and I hope you guys get to use their services at some point in the future, because they really are a fantastic company who offer a great service.

Thanks again to those who entered!

1 18x24 Poster Print
Semi Gloss / High Gloss

Isn't that great?! So now you can make yourself your very own poster to do with anything you like - whether that is boosting general awareness about your business or an upcoming event, or even if you just want a great big poster of freshly baked cookies in your office (who wouldn't?!). As always this competition is only available to US residents, 18 and over, and will run until next Tuesday - Tuesday 10th August 2010.

All you have to do to win is leave a comment down below - why not share what you would do with the prize? I'd love to hear some suggestions. Be sure to use your real name/email address as that's how I will be contacting the winner.

Good luck!

Twitterrific (Free)

First up is my Twitter client of choice. A number of people have been banging on about how great Tweetdeck for the iPad is, however I've never liked the desktop version, and I dislike the iPad version even more. Don't get me wrong, if you want all worldly information shoved down your throat at once, you should download the app, but for me Twitterrific comes out top. Below is the landscape view for Twitterrific, you can see that it's nice and simple, and does what it says on the tin.

Some nice features include inline photo viewing, that is whenever someone posts an image to a popular image sharing service, there is no need to leave the app - the photo will appear in lovely popup form. Also URLs are loaded within the app using Safari, meaning when you return, you haven't lost your place in the list of tweets, and you don't have to fiddle about getting back to the app. The client also features a well polished landscape mode (see below).

In this view you can quickly access the main time-line, as well as mentions, messages, favorites, and even search through trending topics. And if that wasn't enough the app also has a 3 second sound-byte for when new tweets are flown in - that's right, the tweeting of birds. It's the simple things which make this app great. You can also quickly view your own profile with the tap of a button in the upper right-hand corner (see below).

SketchBook Pro (£4.99)

This is an app which has had a lot of hype surrounding it, when I first bought it, I was skeptical, thinking that drawing on the iPad might be just too odd - after all I hadn't drawn with my finger for years. But this app lives up to the hype. Everything about the app is polished and really well done, and Autodesk have done a great job. It's not the simplest of apps, but in saying that it isn't all that hard to use. For example accessing the brushes palette is as simple as swiping three fingers down, which presents you with what you see below.

There is an extensive list of brushes, and a nice colour wheel to play with. But this app does far more than just paint. The app allows users to create multiple layers, draw shapes, "mirror draw" (not a technical term) - basically mirrors what you draw on one side, on the other, and even export to Photoshop. When on the go this app is really useful for just getting down an idea or two when it hits you; but more than that, this app is just plain fun to use, and acts as a valuable tool when trying to send messages across quite rooms, you can see such communication bellow

Sorted (£0.59)

Now you may not have heard of this app, but it's a hidden gem. On my Mac I use the productivity app "Things", and I must say it does a great job. But when it comes to the iPad the £11.99 ($18) price tag is a joke. Although I'm sure it's a great app, I just can't justify spending such an amount of money on what is basically a to-do list application. So I opted for Sorted, and I'm glad I did. The app itself is really simple and serves a great purpose - list making. In my case I'm off on holiday in the near future and I want to make sure I don't forget anything, and so this app is helping make sure I don't.

Above is the interface for selecting a list, you can swipe left or right to get to the list you want, make a new list, duplicate a list, send a list via email (in the form of bullet-points), search for an item, and finally delete a list. All pretty standard features. When you select a list you simply need only to tap "New Item", and you're away. From there you can complete, delete, edit, and rearrange your items; and on top of that you can colour code your items like so.

With that interface you can also set a due date and clear the coding. Once you've colour coded your item it will look like the following.

You are then free to set sort by priority (the red items), due date, completed, or just plain list. I really like this app because it's not trying to be your third arm, it's nice and simple, and makes making lists a heck of a lot easier.

TV Guide (UK) (Free)

One for my fellow Britons now, the TV Guide app is the app version of the website TV Guide - and that's right, it functions as an EPG. The guide is really simple, allowing you to view whats on on whatever channel, and provides a synopsis of every program when you tap on it. It's a good use of space, and it's nice to have an app for it, as I use it all the time. Users can customize channel lists by deleting and adding, and also by sorting them in whatever way you see fit. Below is pictured the landscape mode of the app.

WeatherBug (Free)

I've spent ages trying to find a good weather app, and I think I may have just found it. Weather but is a really nicely designed app, which has a map of your current location at it's heart. And although coverage may not be as comprehensive as I would like, the interface makes up for it. At the top (or on the right in landscape mode), we are shown all the current information, so things like temperature, wind chill, wind speed/direction, humidity, to name just a few, as well as the forecast for the day, and the next 6 days. You are then able to tap this forecast to view more details.

The app also allows you to observer temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, radar and various satellites as an overlay on the map, and alongside this provides animations as set out by the day's forecast. This is a nice feature, but again the coverage isn't as far reaching as I would have liked.

And for those of you wondering about the units - this is a setting. I've tried a number of other apps for the weather, seeing as how Apple sees fit to have an entire category dedicated to the apps, and I have found WeatherBug to be the best. The other all have minor issues that I just can't get over - some have too few features, while others act as a meteorologist's assistant - way too much information when all I want to know is the weather.

Pages (£5.99)

Right this is going to be short and sweet, as I know there are about a billion other reviews on the app, least of all from Apple. So from a user standpoint where does this app lye? Well it's excellent, and so it should be. All the controls are nice and intuitive, e.g. rotating photos is a matter of holding two fingers down on the image and then rotating - simple! Resizing images is just as easy, and when resizing from the corner handle, the image retains aspect ratio as expected.

Other really nice features include the navigation - which allows you to quickly skim to any page by holding down your finger on the right hand side. Another really well made feature is the ability to add charts with fully customizable data. For example you are presented with the following view when you double tap a pie chart.

This produces really nice results which look stunning. Besides from features such as the about, and customizing photo frames, the basic functionality, that is, word processing, is simple and easy to use. When you go to type, obviously the on-screen keyboard pops up, as well as the toolbar for the manipulation of text, allowing you to select justification for the text, styling sch as bold/italic/regular, and also to alter the margins, as you can see below.

Overall this is a really nice app, and if you are someone who needs more than just work processing (the notes app), and who often needs to open up word/pages documents, this is a really great app for you. I should also note that you can get files onto your iPad via iTunes and Dropbox, as well as the fact that you are able to export files in .doc, .pages, and .pdf format.

Gusto (£3.99)

This is a must for me personally, why? Because I often get emails from clients at 8PM asking me to "just move the footer down 10px" - and I need to be able to react to such things quickly. Gusto is an all-in-one FTP client and code editor, and allows you to easily make changes to a site at the drop of a hat. Setup is really easy - just enter a few bits of FTP info and you're off. Below is the projects view, similar to that of Coda - something I like, and obviously I've not had it for a great deal of time, and have only added Tom's Big Box.

After selecting a project you are taken to the editor, from that view you can easily access the FTP view of that project, and are then able to select files to upload or download. In this case I downloaded the header file for my current theme, as you can see below. The view is nice and simple, allowing you to select multiple files for downloads, as well as browse through the directories. From the view you are able to access the file's information (name, size, last modified date), as well as the ability to delete that file, and take a peek at the file's contents, which is nice and useful.

To edit a file you must first download it, this is a slight pain, but hardly the worst thing in the world. Once opened there are a number of options for you. First you are able to preview the file in a browser - both locally, and remotely, so if you've got server-side code such as PHP, it won't break. When you have a file open you can also hide the file browser to have a more immersive view. You can also publish the file with a tap of the finger. One thing that concerned me before buying was the iPad's keyboard, after all the greater/less than symbols aren't available without switching through views, and for me this was going to be an issue. However the clever fellows behind this great app added a bar just above the keyboard with all the commonly used symbol for web design, as you can see below. On a side note the developers have said that code highlighting is coming - so it's all good!

Sketchy (£2.99)

Next up is a tool for mocking-up websites and web applications. This is a really well put together app, and allows you to create comprehensive sketches. The app focuses around users being able to drag and drop common elements onto a canvas and then alter everything from position, size and colour. This app comes in handy when you need to quickly get an idea together for a website, and allows you to do so with speed and ease. Below is a sketch I made in about 10 minutes for an example website.

Other features include the ability to export the sketches as images and send them via email, as well as being able to duplicate sketches. However my favorite feature of this app is the way in which alignment is handled. As with may drawing apps, Sketchy shows guide lines for alignment whenever you reposition elements - a really useful feature which means you don't have to rely on your steady finger to do with work. Below is an example of the feature in action.

Ego (£2.99)

I've used Ego for some time on my iPod now, and I really like it - it's a simple way to track page views, subscriptions and other analytical information. So when I heard of the iPad version I downloaded straight away. The iPad version operates only in landscape mode and gives you access to widgets such as Feedburner, Mint, Google Analytics, Twitter, Vimeo, Squarespace, Tumblr, and Ember. The app has a really nice design and allows you to get an inline web view of the widget in question. So when using Mint, you will see your dashboard, and the same goes for Google Analytics. Overall this app is easy to use and gives you quick access to important information.

WordPress (Free)

WordPress for iPad is a really sleep and speedy app. The app gives you access to pages, posts and comments - a modest, but correct selection. While the app won't let you make changes to plugins and so fourth, it is great for publishing to your WordPress blog. The app speaks for itself in it's simplicity and for anyone with a WP blog, it's a must download. Below are some screen-shots from the app.

Above: post editing, nice and simple, with the ability to edit the title, tags, categories, status, content, and comments.

Above: comments, from here you can see the comment moderation queue as well as alter existing comments.

Above: the page editor - a simplified version of the post editor with many of the same features.

Overall the WordPress app is simple and well worth a download.

Weather HD (£0.59)

Now I know I've already touched on the weather apps, but I fell I should tell you about this one too. Weather HD is, as you may have guessed, a weather application, which tells you the forecast. But instead of a map and information, the app displays beautiful looping clips of similar weather to that which is currently forecast. Is this the best weather app for getting the forecast? No. But it seriously beautiful. Don't get me wrong, the app is functional, it does tell you the forecast plain and simple, but if you've got a spare bit of cash lying around, it's worth it just for the videos. Below is the video for "Chance of rain".

Dropbox (Free)

If you have a Dropbox account, you need this app. If you don't, go and sign up, and then download the app. The app is truely awesome, and although it may just be a fancy cloud-file browser, it's done incredibly well. The basic functionality i simple - you can browse and preview files - most common file formats are supported.

When you open a file you can browse through it, email a public URL to a friend, favorite the file, and best of all, open certain files with other apps; specifically word/pages documents can be opened with Pages (if installed), the same goes for presentations and spreadsheets (Keynote/Numbers). The ability to do so is really wonderful because it means you can easily find and edit files within powerful apps while on the go.

The is a solid app and a must download - one thing I did try was adding a video to my Dropbox to play on my iPad - and it worked! Dropbox allows you to stream videos with ease - only limited by the amount of space in your account - so this is a really easy way of getting videos across the air. It's also important to note that you can save photos, and upload photos/videos.

Okay so now I'm going to quickly go through a number of other great apps that I like, but which I feel have either been heavily publicized or are self explanatory, and so don't require accompanying screen-shots.

Angry Birds HD (£2.99)

If you've ever played Angry Birds you will know just how addictive it really is, I played through on my iPod, and towards the end I noticed a lack in performance in some of the more complex levels (yes it's a 1st gen iPod ). So when I got the iPad I downloaded the HD version straight away. All the graphics have been updated for the iPad, and all the performance issues have faded away as expected. Overall this is an excellent game which if you haven't tried, you should download.

Osmos HD (£2.99)

This is a relatively new addition to the app store (despite having desktop versions around for a while), and quickly rose to the number 1 spot. I downloaded it thinking "well it's number 1, it must be good", and I was right. The only thing I didn't know when downloading, was, what the hell it was! So let me tell you quickly tell you about the game-play. Basically you are a blob, and you have to absorb blogs smaller than you to become the biggest blob. Sound like the #1 app in the app-store? No. Basically it's pretty addictive and challenging, and I recommend it, you won't be disappointed; oh and it's beautiful!

Solitaire City (Deluxe) (£3.49)

Okay short and sweet. If you like solitaire, get this app. I spent a while trying to find an app with the version of the game I like the most - that is, the one featured on Windows under the name "Spider Solitaire" - and I can tell you now, it features in this app. The interface isn't dissimilar to that of the Windows version, and there a crazy amount of variations of the game - so again, if you like solitaire, get this app.

RealRacingHD (£5.99)

Now this is a game that loads of gamers talk about, and after playing it for a while I can tell you that it's truly excellent. I myself do game, but I'm hardly the world' best (far from it), but I found this game easy to use and fun. The experience is really well polished and the graphics, for a mobile device, are awesome. If you like racing games, you will love RealRacingHD, and so I recommend you get it.

TapTap Radiation (Free)

Tapulous have always produced high quality games, and Radiation is no exception. The game is really well suited to the iPad (possibly because it was designed for it?) and is really fun to play. The interface and general experience is fun and reflects the company's previous releases, and best of all, it's free!

Epicurious (Free)

Another app highly publicized, Epicurious is pretty cool. However it's not what I expected. The interface is really sleek and well designed, and the recipes are of good, not great, quality, with a number featuring an image. The ability to search by main ingredient is really nice too. One thing I will say is that this app is buggy as hell. It crashes all the time, and frequently won't respond to finger taps - I hope these are just teething problems, and I'm sure they will be eradicated with future updates.

IMDb (Free)

Yep, it's a nice app. If you want to quickly find a film or actor this is what you should use. The interface is really sleep, and it's a great reference tool. The ability to view relevant photos and videos including trailers is a nice addition, and overall I would say this is a really well build, cohesive experience.

And that's it! I hope you've enjoyed this list of apps, and I hope you have gained a better insight into what the above apps have to offer, I've noted things that I wanted to know before buying, as so I hope you are now better informed about at least one of the apps above. If you have any suggestions for great iPad apps, or if you agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment, and I'll see what I can do.

To begin select the brush tool, and open up the brush window as seen below.

Then select the width of the brish you would like to use, in this example I selected the 1px round brush. If you would like a dashed line this is the point at which to select a square brush, also if you are wanting a dashed line you will need to alter the "roundness" of the square - bare with me here. Simply reduce the roundness value until you have your desired width, as you can see below.

To reduce the size simply select the preset you require. Now make sure the spacing checkbox is check and use the slider to increase the spacing dramatically, like so.

Then head over to your canvas, select a colour and hold down shift while you click and drag to create your line. Holding down shift will ensure you create a straight line. Now if you want to create a dotted or dahsed line, but you don't want this line to be straight, you will need to follow a few extra steps. They are as follows. Firstly gray the pen tool and draw the shape which you want the line to follow, like so.

Then right click the path and select "Stroke Path...".

From the Tool menu in the dialog that presents itself, select "Brush".

And then you should have successfully managed to stroke your path and created a dotted line like so.

And that's it! This technique is really simple and creates really nice results, and best of all, only takes a few seconds to achieve. I hope that this method will save you a good amount of time in the future when trying to design a website in Photoshop to look exactly as it will in the browser. Now if only I could create stunning designs as easily...

Here is the link to the Nettuts article.

When you set an element's position property to "absolute" you are telling the browser that no matter what configuration (browser size/resolution), you want that element to be in the same place. You also take that element out of the flow so that it doesn't affect any other element on the page. So as an example if you set an element's position to absolute, you can then say how far from the top, bottom, left, or right you want to to be - relative to the browser window. So...

Would send your element to the top-right of the browser window.

Why would you want to do this? Well little example here - my canvas example from a few posts ago, positions the options panel in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Why? Because I want it out of the way, but always available. This style of positioning is interesting because it means you can ensure how an element will look. Maybe you want an ad in the bottom left. Perhaps you want a feedback link always on the left? Or maybe you just want better control of comment meta data. And that's a great example. Many sites use absolute positioning to position things such as meta data with other elements as to make sure they don't move a pixel out of line.

But how would one go about doing that, if absolute positing is relative only to the browser window? I hear you ask. Well, this is the part where I introduce you to our little friend, relative positioning.

Now in nearly every tutorial about positioning, when they get to the subject of relative positioning they usually say something along the lines of "it will make the element's position relative to itself" - but what on Earth does that mean?! Basically you are able to offset the element relative to where it would have been. So if one element was supposed to be at the coordinates (200,100) and you set it's position to relative and top:50px; right:20px, it will now lye at (250,120). All very well and good. But how does this relate to absolute positioning? Well here's where it gets interesting - if you have a container which is positioned relatively, and an element inside of that container positioned absolutely, then the element will be positioned relative to the size of the container. See below.

So that's about it. A combination of these two types of positioning can be really useful - I use it all the time for styling the sometimes tricky comments section of WordPress themes and there are a million other applications for the wonderful CSS property - and remember with great power, comes great cross-browser-compatibility

Why jellybeans? Because it would be a heck of a job positioning them (oh and they look nice ).

So what do we have to do first? Well we need to replicate the core features of the new post page in the admin panel of WordPress, this means replicating things such as the title and content fields, the category options, and the tags area. So set up all the required fields and also any custom fields you want to include. Once you've done this you will need to create a separate file to post the information to, let's call it new-post.php. Set your form to post to this file, and then paste in the following code.

Right, now that's quite a lot of code, allow me to explain. You can see all of those variables at the top - these are to be use further down and are given the values of what's posted to them. Title, body, category, and keywords are self-explanatory, however there are a number of other variables which appear to require some post variables - so what are they? $rpcurl is simply the ping-back URL of your blog - which is a URL that allows others to interact with your blog. The username and password variables must be valid credentials for the blog - this is because WordPress needs to verify that the person posting the post is allowed to do so. And finally the encoding variable is simple the way in which the content should be encoded - the default and most common is simple UTF-8 - and doesn't need to be changed.

So you know what the variables are, but how on earth do you get them to the file? Well personally I used AJAX to submit the form and so just sent the data in a data-string, but if that sounds too much like hard work, feel free to just use some hidden fields. To access the required data you can use the bloginfo() function for things like the "pingback_url". Now one thing that will require user input is the password variable, this is because it is impossible to obtain the user's password as it is stored as an encrypted hash, so I'd recommend that you add it as a security feature where you ask users to enter their password before posting - that way it'll be accessible to you.

The rest of the code simply posts all the info to the actual blog, and uses the ping-back URL to do so by inserting all of those lovely variables into place and then sending it over to WordPress to do all the hard work.

While this is a bit of an obscure function I think it's nice to know it can be done, and I hope this article can save some people the hassle that I had to go through to get the correct method and syntax.

Update

It has come to my attention that the method listed above might be a little hard to integrate into a WordPress theme, so below is the code for a form with which you could use the above method, to post to WordPress from outside the admin panel. Let's get started with the form.

So that's a pretty standard form to which you can do whatever you like, but not the names of the fields as they will be important when we come to using the data stored in them. Next I'm going to use AJAX to post the form to the code which will post the WordPress, for the sake of this tutorial I'll assume that the code at the beginning of this tutorial is in a file called post.php. So go ahead and stick this somewhere on your page (Note: You will need to include jQuery for the following Javascript to work.

Okay then what do we have here? Well first off all the code is wrapped in a submit() function, which waits for the form to be submitted, and then executes the code inside. Just below this we assign the values of the inputs from the form, to variables, and then check to see if some of the fields are empty, the ones that are important that is. If any of them are empty then we alert the user and stop the form from going submitting. However if it's all good we then use the jQuery AJAX function to post all the information we have to our post.php file to be processed. Notice that we ask the user to verify the information entered by asking them to enter their password - this is a sneaky way of grabbing their password, and allows us to proceed with processing the post.

And that's that! Hopefully the above code has helped you to understand better how to integrate the code into a WordPresss environment, and if you're a little confused by the AJAX or just don't want it in your code, feel free to just make the form post directly to post.php, and you should be good to go.

Facebook puts an awful lot of work into ensuring privacy, they make sure that you have "total" control over your account and it's up to you what you share. But all of this hard work to protect users is immediately invalidated when any user accepts a friend request from someone that they don't know and have never heard of. Anther example - another of my friends once confirmed a friend just because they had the same name of them, but upon inspecting their profile found absolutely no links - the guy lived half way around the world.

You could think that I'm over-reacting, but I can assure you, I' not. Although I, personally put very little content on Facebook, think about the millions of vulnerable users that do - a like of a certain band here and a joining of another group there can soon lead to a huge psychological profile of any user. I would go as far as to say that your activity on Facebook could be enough to kill you. Woah! You say, but allow me to elaborate. Imagine some serial killer on Facebook looking to harvest information. Many people make their contact numbers public, while the rest make their movements known to all of their friends. Addresses, dates of birth, and other valuable information is stored on Facebook. Many banking systems use your date of birth and address as security information - think on that. On a serious note anybody out to hurt you could easily collect the required information off of Facebook and easily use it against you.

So what can be done to stop this? Well it's incredibly simple - don't accept friend requests from people you don't know. And while I know I will be appealing to the wrong audience here, I believe it is important for us to educate those on the risks involved with accepting unknown people on Facebook as friends - because who knows, one day such information could save a persons life.

Okay so that last bit was a bit over the top - but I don't think this subject is to be taken lightly, so think about the points I've made and please don't go accepting friend requests from people you don't know!