We emailed each other pretty frequently too, but the letters I received from her were the real treats. She'd send me till slips, with the price of an item circled and a note in the margin stating, “It's amazing the things you can buy here! Bet you can't find one of these back home…”

The letters were always decorative, with stickers or hand-drawn pictures. We used colorful pens when we wrote to each other, and took care to fill the envelope to the maximum weight for its size.

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Tuesday was my favorite day of the week; because it was the day the postman would leave presents for me in the postbox. I looked forward to those letters from her, and still have every one that she sent me. The letters took five to seven days to travel from side of the globe to the other, and the postage was quite a drain on our piggy banks.

When I read her letters, I felt as though I was sitting right beside her, listening quietly as she told me about her experiences across the sea. When she was happy, her writing frolicked merrily across the page, and when sad, her words became small and compacted. There was a lot of love ingrained into the fibers of the paper, and no matter what mood I was in, I always felt better for having read her words.

One day I noticed that I hadn't received a letter from her in a month or so, and realized that I hadn't sent her one in a while either. Panicked that maybe I was losing my dear friend to the ether of failed long-distance friendships, I raced to my writing box.

I spent extra time decorating the pages, selected the color sequence of the pens and then settled down to write.

I found that I had little or no news to tell her. She knew about the recent events in my life, as we'd chatted online the night before. What to say? What to say?

Writing letters to her had never been a chore before, and I was disturbed to find myself doodling on the page out of frustration.

Eventually I wrote how dear she was to me and how valuable I found her friendship to be. I told her that this would probably be her last letter from me, as we'd found a new medium with which to communicate.

Online instant messaging and social networking was exciting because it was instant, modern and efficient, and would suit our needs far better than this silly, slow writing by hand business.

And so we quite literally signed off letter writing.

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I enjoy the ease of MSN, Skype, Gtalk, Facebook or Yahoo. We have endless sites to choose from that offer instant communicative services, yet even when I see her on the screen in front of me, smiling or shaking her head, and hear her voice with a minimum of delay, I feel like we really are an ocean apart…

Facebook, which was started by Harvard grad Mark Zuckerberg, has been up and running since its launch in February 4th 2004. Although until September of 2006 it wasn't made available to the everyday internet browser, but for people in collages with an email address proving they go there. Every profile has a few main components that make up the basic profile. These things include a wall, a picture, contact information you choose to tell them, and a few questions about yourself. The wall is an area for people you've added as a friend to write a message for all to see. If you don't want everybody to see it you can send them a message, similar to email, and they will read it privately. Many other things are available on the site.

You can add top friends, games, music, and thousands of other applications. There are numerous things that make it way more customizable than MySpace. Granted you cannot change the colors of your profile you can do just about anything else. Now to security, the major concern of many people. You can select exactly what groups of people can see what information about you. If you don't want people that aren't your friends looking at your profile you can disallow it. If you want them to see certain things, but not contact information and the wall it can be done. If you have certain friends on your friends list you don't want to allow seeing things on your profile, it can be done by changing what they can view.

MySpace, one of the most common websites you'll hear talked about on the news is the first real successful social networking site. With it being the starting point of a new thriving online activity for younger browsers comes a challenge. The safety of the MySpace users was something they needed, and failed. Currently one in three of my friends have had their profiles phished, although by using precaution this probably won't happen to you, it something to consider.

The pros of MySpace are the customizable layout. You can use html to create a layout truly your own, other than a few things that must remain on the page. You can move the boxes however you like with a recent update though. It has a private messaging system like Facebook, a commenting system like Facebook's wall, and lets you add friends. Other than the few things MySpace supplies you with you must Google the rest of the things you'd like to add, such as music, games, and quizzes. MySpace does have an extensive video area like Youtube that actually does get a decent amount of quality videos submitted weekly. Joining MySpace for the videos alone is worth it.

Facebook's recent lawsuit troubles are nothing to worry about. MySpace lacks the cleanliness of Facebook, and the purity of the site. It is both safer, and filled with more than enough applications to add and make you profile unique. MySpace has fallen behind and recently been forced to try to imitate Facebook's attributes.

By using proxy websites they can get passed the firewall and access the website they want. So people use Myspace , Facebook , Bebo , and other websites through a different website. You might wonder what the danger is? Well the danger is the actual proxy website. To understand the danger better we will have a look at how they work.

When you enter a URL on a proxy website, the proxy website requests the page for you and changes then all the links on a page so that when you click on a link you will not be send to the real website. When you click on a link you will be sent to the proxy website which will then request the new page for you. This is also the case if you use forms.

If you use Google through a proxy website for example. You enter a search phrase or word in the text box and the information will be sent to the proxy website first who will then sent it to Google. The result that Google returns will again be changed and then be sent to you. Whats the danger there you wonder? Well the danger is if you look at websites that require a login. Proxy scripts can be easily changed so that they will record all usernames and passwords. The owner can then easily log into your account and steal it from you. He can change password email address and anything he wants. If you use a proxy website to check your online bank account or Paypal balance, they proxy owner could log on later and transfer all your money to a different account.

We are not saying that this is actually happening but it is easy to do. So be safe and don't use a proxy website to log onto another one. If could be the last time you do that.