How to Make Smiley Faces for Facebook

I’m a smiley face junkie when it comes to writing letters, but especially emails. After writing a letter, I’ve realized it’s a smart idea for me to go through and edit out most of my “smiles” so that I don’t look like I have a permanent goofy grin on my face all the time… I don’t (as far as I know…) but as I write, I smile at different thoughts that flow through my mind to my fingers. Then on the other end as I read through my text, I see the faces much faster than the speed at which I wrote them. Looking at it from my hapless reader’s perspective, I can delete many and still convey the feeling I want.

‘Emoticons’ are very useful for getting certain emotions across through print. For example, if you want to tell someone sarcastically that you had a great time doing paperwork (hardly likely…), you can type that sentence, and throw in a face with its tongue sticking out to show you weren’t really serious.

Facebook has become so popular that it’s now considered part of the counter culture to NOT have an account. If however you are one of those who caved at some point, and became one of the masses who owns and uses an account (like myself… now chant after me, “From many we are one, from many we are one…”), you may want to know how to better express yourself through smiley faces. (Just kidding on the chant above…

Learning how to add smiley faces to Facebook is slightly different than through a !Yahoo email account in that the “emoticons” don’t show up in their fully formed state until after being published. So having some knowledge of the symbols that create different faces is very useful when trying to use them for the-website-who-shall-not-be-named applications. Some are intuitive for most of us who have been using computers since grade school (or some since birth for those who’s parents picked up plastic toy computers for them and added them to the crib decor as soon as they moved in…) The traditional smiley face for example is the same for Facebook as for most other email programs including !Yahoo, and consists of the colon followed by the right hand parentheses symbol. Put these symbols right next to each other like this, ” “.

If you want more complicated emotions, or even a picture of a man’s head (trying to think of when I would need this one…) to be inserted into a message or post, simply write ‘putnam’ in-between two colon symbols like this, “:putnam:”. Below you’ll find how to add variations on the smiley face theme through Facebook. Happy emoting, and maybe we’ll be virtual friends someday…

= Happy:D = Really happy;) = Wink^_^ = Happy eyes

>:o = Laughing eyes

:3 = Cat smile

>:-( = Grumpy

= Sad

:’( = Crying

= Shocked

8) = Glasses

8-| = Cool shades

:p = Tongue

O.o = Woot?!

-_- = Dork

:/ = Duhhh

3:) = Devil

O:) = Angel

:* = Kiss

:v = Pacman

] = Robot

:putnam: = Dude

<3 = Love

Tags: Facebook Emoticons, Facebook Smiley Faces, Facebook Smileys, Smiley Faces

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

RIM boss Thorsten Heins hits back at BlackBerry-bashing NY Times article

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has hit back at a recent NY Times article that interviewed a number of disgruntled BlackBerry owners. In a letter published by the newspaper on Wednesday, Heins accused the piece of lacking balance and said there were still "millions of BlackBerry fans out there."

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins must have had smoke coming out of his ears when he read a New York Times article on Monday entitled The BlackBerry as Black Sheep.

His company is struggling, for sure, but he’s hoping it can turn things around with the launch of its next-generation operating system, BlackBerry 10, early next year. Until then, he needs to hold on to his customers, and prevent the company’s image from being bashed about any more than it is right now. His heart will have sunk when he read the NY Times piece.

It pretty much ripped into the phone maker, interviewing users who had apparently become embarrassed about pulling their BlackBerry phone out of their bag. “I’m ashamed of it,” said one, who claimed to hide her device under her iPad for fear of being judged by clients.

Another said she wanted to “take a bat to it,” which, let’s be honest, seems like something of an overreaction when it comes to feelings about a mobile device. There were a few favorable words towards the end of the piece from a BlackBerry owner called Mr. Fenton who said he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about when it came to the iPhone, but in case the reader might start to think that perhaps RIM’s phones weren’t so bad after all, the article finished off with someone called Mr. Mindel laying the boot in, saying, “I’m considering removing my BlackBerry battery, pouring in cement, and using the BlackBerry as an actual paperweight.” You get the picture. 

So imagine Heins in his office earlier this week, NY Times in hand, reading this article. Of course he wasn’t going to let this go without saying something. He hammered out a response and on Wednesday the newspaper published it.

In his letter, Heins accused the publication of lacking “the balance your readers expect,” before going on to explain that carriers and partners around the world have recently told him “there are millions of BlackBerry fans out there who not only find great value in their device, but also pride in being a BlackBerry owner.”

He says that he takes reports of dissatisfaction among BlackBerry users very seriously, adding that he was encouraged by the supportive comments received in response to the NY Times article.

After trotting out a couple of stats, Heins ends his letter confirming that RIM is on track to deliver BlackBerry 10 in the first quarter of 2013, and offers thanks to “the customers who have remained loyal to the BlackBerry platform.” He also says RIM is looking forward to “winning back many who have left.”

Heins is all too aware that having nothing to show for at least another 10 weeks gives BlackBerry bashers ample time to keep on bashing, and that what RIM must do is keep current users on board while trying to put a positive spin on a very difficult situation. Of course, there will be those who say RIM has done a decent job of beating itself up in recent years with various PR blunders and missteps, but Heins is steering the ship now and is doing everything in his power to save the company from collapse.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Apple adds new section for alternative mapping software in the App Store

Yesterday, Tim Cook penned a letter to iOS 6 users, apologizing for the sorry state of their new Maps application and promised that they are working hard to make it better. While most would have stopped at that, Cook went on to suggest alternative mapping services that users can use till Apple Maps becomes usable.

Now, Apple has gone one step ahead and created a section in the App Store that can you can find on your iPhone, titled ‘Find Maps for your iPhone’. Clicking on it will show you a bunch of different mapping services, free and paid, that you can download and install on your iOS device.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

UKNova is the latest victim of FACT and the MPAA’s global BitTorrent crackdown

BitTorrent tracker UKNova has been forced to close down, following a cease and desist letter from the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

While sites such as The Pirate Bay and Demonoid may spring immediately to mind when discussing BitTorrent, there are plenty of other, smaller trackers out there too.

However, as of today, there’s one less, as threats from the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) have forced private torrent tracker UKNova to shutdown.

UKNova’s situation was a little different from those sites mentioned above, in that it never defiantly rallied against the authorities, or publicly flaunted any legally dubious activities.

It existed to provide those without access to UK television the chance to catchup with shows they would otherwise be unable to watch. It benefited expatriates and anglophiles alike, but crucially, it made a point not to host commercially available content.

These so-called “ethical” guidelines included an upload ban on anything available on CD, DVD/Blu-ray or content broadcast as pay-per-view.

Not that this saved them from the watchful eye of FACT, as it has issued a “cease and desist” letter to UKNova, telling them “all links or access to content provided by UKNova are infringing, unless it can be proven that explicit permission from the copyright holder for that content has been obtained.”

UKNova trackers scrapped

According to a UKNova site member, posting on Neowin’s forums, the site published a statement saying that while it believes “legally and morally” the site has done nothing wrong, it’s “not in a position to be able to risk lengthy and costly court battles to prove this.”

UKNova, which began operating in 2003, is in the process of closing down its trackers, and although the site’s forum will remain open, the pages related to torrents will be removed.

Site administrators told TorrentFreak.com that FACT mentioned a large UK satellite provider and a football production company as the big guns behind the cease and desist letter. Using the process of elimination based on FACT membership, TorrentFreak.com assumes this to be Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB and the Premier League.

Sharing content originally broadcast on television has long been considered, by the general public at least, something of a grey area; primarily due to the commercial availability of VHS and DVD recorders. Sites such as UKNova feel like a modern extension of this, particularly if no other way exists to view or purchase said content.

FACT and the MPAA obviously disagree, and UKNova’s closure proves that claims of “ethical” behavior don’t carry much weight, especially if you don’t have the resources to defend yourself in court.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com