Internet "newbie" Primer or
"things I wish someone had told ME!"

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Newbies Page Index
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Ok, welcome to cyberspace. As I learn new "stuff" I’ll try to post it here so no one will have to feel "stupid" for asking a question. You can just come here and learn it and then go back out and look "smart" <laughing>. First, a disclaimer, the word "newbie" is NOT meant as a put down. Hey, ignorance is relative. It just means maybe you're a "rookie" (aren't we ALL rookies at SOMETHING?). It actually is like a "Get out of Jail Free" card. If you do something that accidently makes someone mad online, just say "I'm so sorry, I'm a newbie." and unless they know better, you MAY be off the hook <laughing>. AHA, you just learned your first lesson, it is VERY important to include descriptive words (like the <laughing>) or what are called "emoticons" from "emotion" "icons". An icon is a symbol for something (ok, you already knew that!) and an emoticon is a symbol for an emotion. You typically use punctuation marks and any other letters to create them. They look like little sideways faces. Watch at the difference in meaning, using the same words, but with different emoticons.

First,  "I hate you!" >:-<
and now this one    "I hate you!" :-D

Which one would make you mad? Probably neither but the second one is much more likely to be taken as a joke. Since we can’t hear tone of voice or see the actual facial expressions, it is very easy to misunderstand how someone meant something.

There are several "smiley" and "unsmiley" faces and I’m sure I’ll leave out even some of those I know BUT here are the ones I can think of right now:

Note: on any of these you can leave out the nose "-" if you want to, I have a rather long one so I tend to put it in. Also you can use "8" instead of ":" if you want to show that you wear glasses. 8-) If you have a thin mustache you can put in a "{" under the nose! :-{)
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Have fun creating your own and finding out some more, let me know of ones you find and I'll add them here and give you credit!

You can also enclose "actions" between either < and > or some people use asterisks * * to differentiate these words from the rest of the sentence. For example, "I'm REALLY disappointed that I can't go on the trip to San Diego *pout*". See how I used the capitals and the "pout" to let you know I was serious. The same sentence done differently could be "I'm really DISAPPOINTED that I can't go on the trip to San Diego *wink, laughing*". Means something COMPLETELY different now.

Also, there are abbreviations for actions and commonly used phrases and I’m quite sure I don’t know them all or even most of them but here are a few, let me know of ones you find and I'll add them here and give you credit!

NOTE: upper or lower case is fine, I used mostly upper to separate the symbol from it's meaning.
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There are several special characters, some from mathematics and engineering and some from other languages besides English that can be a lot of fun to use in your online communications. Here are are few of the ones I use on occasion. These are formed by pressing and holding down the 'Alt' key while pressing the numbers in sequence on the NUMERIC keypad.
NOTE: NumLock must be ON and you must use the numeric keypad on the right side of the keyboard. The numbers across the top over the letters usually won't work.

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There are MANY more. I got these from this page http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/reference/special_characters. You can use the lowercase 'thorn' in the smiley faces instead of a lower case 'p' to simulate sticking your tongue out ( :Þ ). My good friend Daniel from Brazil uses some of these characters to make his online name more interesting. Instead of Psycho-Mig, he uses P§ycho-Mïg. Have fun creating your own.

First off, this is by no means all-inclusive, just somethings I found out after I came online in the spring of 1999. If you have a mouse with the little "wheel" in the middle it is a very useful little tool. You can scroll up and down a page by using your index finger (or whichever you prefer) to turn the little wheel. ALSO, and I love this, you can press down on the wheel and get a "crosshairs" symbol which then lets you move all over the page in a free-form fashion (up, down, left, right). One thing to remember, if you are in "free form" mode, you MUST press either the wheel again OR one of the mouse buttons BEFORE you can select (click) on anything else. This is a very handy navigation tool.

Now, for some etiquette. CAPITALS ARE CONSIDERED SHOUTING!!! They are also hard on the eyes. Use them for emphasis only. In fact, in a chat room, to save time, many folks don’t capitalize anything, including "I". Also many people use "u" for "you" and "r" for "are". This is allright I guess although sometimes it gets kinda hard on the eyes. ALWAYS in an e-mail or something like that type it up like you would a formal letter with punctuation and capitalize properly. And, people get annoyed when you get too "cute" with too many abbreviations, misspellings, and acronyms. It’s like you’re "showing off". Use them for convenience, sure, but don’t overdo it.

In a chat room
Here is a lesson I had to learn the HARD way. When you enter a chat room, be cordial, then SHUT UP. What I mean is, don’t come into a chat room and just "take over" and try to talk to everyone about everything. The group already there may have been talking about something very interesting and may be right in the middle of it and you come in and just ruin it. Usually they will stop and say "Hi" and you can say "Hi" back and of course answer any questions someone asks you but if there are several people talking just kinda "listen" and get the feel for what they are talking about before you jump in just like you would if you walked up to some people on the street that were in a circle talking you wouldn’t just step in the middle and start blabbering, you would walk up, nod, and listen to what they were saying. Then, if you have something meaningful to add nobody minds you joining in. This is called "lurking" but is not "evil" or "bad" it is just courteous. Obviously, if you come in and everyone is just sitting there and it is real quiet then by all means go ahead and say something like "hey, did anybody else see that game last night, wasn’t that something?" and break the ice.

Well, as you can see, I still have MUCH more to learn. I need a teacher <laughing> but this should be enough to keep you out of trouble and help you enjoy your cyber-visits. And check back from time to time because believe me, I still have MUCH to learn and as I learn it, I will post it here! Cya! (oh yeah, the means "see you" <grin>)