How To Put Your Face in a Facebook Emoticon

Emoticons have being widely used to express emotions. '<3' ':D'(my favorite) ' ;) ....so many of them - all used to express ourselves.

What if you wanted more due to the limitations of emoticons ? Well, briefly I will show you how to achieve more.

You see, the good news is that Facebook Chat now lets you use the profile picture of any user, official Page, or event as an emoticon.This opens up a whole new way to express complex emotions. Here’s how to do it:

 Go to any profile, official Page, or event that you want to use as an emoticon.

1. Look at the URL from the adressbar. Find the profile ID at the end of the URL such as “iso.samuel” from http://www.facebook.com/iso.samuel, “222476645460", or "mashable"
2. Place that name or number in double brackets like [[iso.samuel]]
3. Enter that into a Facebook Chat or Message field. When you send it, the bracketed number or letters will appear as that person, Page, or event’s current profile picture.

However, on mobile site they appear as their bracketed string. Similarly, you can’t use them in status updates, wall posts, or comments yet. 

Its fun as you can put your friend's profile picture in the emoticon.

Good luck with it!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE

Hmmmmn its just a day to Xmas. Some are shopping, cooking, sleeping and other stuffs.
But on this day we have few people going through hell.

We are thankful that we are alive to this day.

Merry Christmas in advance :)

Christmas in NIgeria and Banger | KNOCK-OUTS (1)

It was a bright sunny day (December 2002) when I and some childhood friends where out to have some fun. Serious fun! Were we playing 'Catcher', 'Hide and ‘Seek', 'I-Call-On', 'Suwe', or 'Ten-Ten'? No! We were throwing knock-outs! Amongst us was this dude, Yemi, the eldest amongst us, whom just joined us to prove he is good at it. You know those awkward moments when the Big-Boyz makes you feel incompetent. Yeah, that was the feeling. I remember throwing a three-sound banger (a small fireworks that explodes three times), which blew only twice. Leaving one undone. Yemi, in a bid to impress us picked my failed three-sound banger and a charcoal (which my mum used in cooking jollof rice) so as to 'lit' the banger. He held the banger at his right hand and the charcoal at his left; then moved them up to his mouth to blow air. Bingo! The coal fire caught with the ‘gun-powder’ in the banger. It worked! but at the detriment of yemi’s finger. After the blast from the banger the next thing we saw was BLOOD! Yemi’s finger got hurt through the blast. He’s fine now. Last I checked he was abroad. I couldn’t stop laughing because to me it was just so funny, mostly the look on his face, which I will never forget. I had wished for such experience again to no avail, and that’s because the Christmas spirit in Nigeria is dying (for those who wants ‘my head’, at least from the Banger aspect of it) Back then we start hearing banger from September and everyone (mostly kids) gets all the sweat feeling of christmas. But why is it dead today? Is it because of the police? Or all kids are now grown-ups? Or lack of interest? I believe it has to do with the economic situation and money-pursuing mindset we have being facing in the country. The question is: How can we get the Christmas spirit from September(s)?

How Do the Search Engines Perform Their Rankings?

By David L Greene

Most companies are fairly open about a lot of the ways in which they conduct their business. However at a certain point you run into their "secret sauce" and that is not disclosed. This is what happened with the search engines and how they conduct a lot of their ranking. Google, Yahoo, and they are the top three search engines in the world and they keep a tight lid on the mechanisms in which they rank websites.

There appear to be some commonality and how each of the search engines rank websites, but it may be that the website rank very highly in one search engine and not in the other. It also may be that some rank highly for certain keywords in Google but not in Yahoo. They definitely have different algorithms and how they rank websites overall. Here are a few common threads for rankings that we know. We know that if a website is older and not brand-new that gets credibility in the eyes of the search engines. Kind of like an older wine, that "aging" is preferential as it means the domain is not a "fly by night" phenomenon. However, if the site is simply a domain name and that domain name is over five years old but there's really no website it does not get nearly as much credibility as it would have if there's been content and traffic over those five years. Google updates their algorithm over 300 times annually. Some of these updates are large while others are either minimal such as a foreign language issue in one of the foreign Google search engines in other countries and are not relevant to US business. This year Google came out with a major algorithm change called the "panda update". This update changed significantly a few things such as now Google really wants content to be flowing through websites that it ranks highly. It also ranks video much higher than it ever did before. Google bought YouTube years ago and now is pushing it more and more for site rankings. In addition, it is still important that websites have targeted keyword back linking to get credibility with search engines and that can lead to a high Page Rank on Google. There are certain components that we know help a website rank higher for targeted keywords such as the domain name itself. If the company is trying to rank highly for search terms such as Sacramento Plastic Surgery, and the name of the website that happen to be "Sacramentoplasticsurgery.com" that it can be really really helpful for search engine rankings. In order to rank highly in search engines for competitive keywords it takes a lot of time and effort and it would be best to hire a search engine marketing firm. That way, you can do what you do that and leave the Internet marketing up to the professionals. Before you know it, you will be benefiting from Internet with an excellent return on investment. David Greene, MD, is President of Go Crazy SEO. The Arizona SEO company specializes in Website Design, e-commerce sites, reputation mgmt, Social Media, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and SEO consulting. Go Crazy SEO works tirelessly to get you First Page Google Rankings. Our Arizona SEO firm focuses on Medical and Dental Internet Marketing Law Firms, Retail, Investing, and much more. Call today to speak with David directly at (602) 677-8981 or email him at davidg@gocrazyseo.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_L_Greene

How to Use Eye Tracking Software to Test Your Website's Usability

Using eye tracking to understand the usability of user interfaces is something that's been around for a few years now, but it is still being understood by researchers. Through specialized eye tracking software, you can better see how users visually "enter" a website (or any graphical user interface), navigate the page, and where they focus. First I want to discuss the research and significance for eye-tracking software, then I want to discuss each of these elements in turn.

Research on eye tracking dates back to research on how people read pages in general. Early researchers found that--as common sense would imply--readers are attracted to certain visual stimuli, like bright colors or certain shapes and orientations. This isn't too hard to imagine, as we all know our eyes tend to naturally float towards highlighted areas on a page. However, these researchers also found that readers both see an entire page without really looking at it, and they also enter and visually navigate a page according to how they think the page should be laid out.

Seeing the entire page without really looking at it is important. It means that readers will get meta-information first and then begin to narrow down their visual selections according to that meta-information. Meta-information simply means that when users open a web page, without really even reading it, they will know where advertisements are located, where images and visuals are located, and where information and items relating to each other can be found.

As for the second part, users already have some idea of what a page should look like as soon as they open it. They've been trained on certain things. For example, they usually know to find menus on the left or the top. They usually know that there will be an advertisement located along one or both of the sides of the page (as on this one).

The combination of these two things means that you should design a page so that it meets the user's expectations, and so that they quickly see what you want them to see. Now how do you find out what they're seeing?

Eye tracking applications, such as GazeTracker in association with ERICA (Eye-Gaze Response Computer Aid), EyeLink 2000, or faceLab produce a log of where a user's gaze either moves or is sustained on a page. To understand what a user is fixating on, you need to understand where the user's gaze is sustained for a brief period of time. Those locations display what user's are paying attention to--reading or spending a moment to understand--on the page. Further, understanding the path of their gaze will help you understand how they are visually traveling on a page.

Once you've conducted these tests (using task-based testing) you can use the results to orient information you want your user's to see. All in all, eye-tracking studies are one of the best measurements used for determining the usability of a website.

Clinton R. Lanier is a professor of Web Design and Technical Communication in Las Cruces, NM. An expert in web design, usability, interface design and technical communication, he regularly consults as a web designer and communication consultant.


By Clinton Lanier
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clinton_Lanier