Some examples, and meanings of popular smileys:

The meaning of the emoticon :>) is a “Big nose smiling”

The definition of the smiley <3 is… a heart (you romantic folks, don’t forget to use it with your sweethearts!)

The definition for ((())) is… (That’s a tricky one… haha) Hugs!

And if you want kisses, forget about your plain old XOXO, and go for :-X for a big wet kiss or :-{} to blow a big kiss!

Check out the rest of the list today for hundreds of more definitions!

And the news? 2 Recently updated smileys for Facebook for you to enjoy. Check them out:

• The shark emoticon -  - Use (^^^) to embed
• The Penguin emoticon – - Use <(”) to embed (Isn’t that a cool text emoticon by itself???)

And, btw, thanks to Peter Nichol for the tip!

There are two main types of emoticons you can currently use in skype: Regular emotion smileys and flag smileys. Use this nifty skype emoticons guide for your reference.

1. Copy this symbol into your MSN username or to your PM:        ⃡ ͋
2. Put an emoticon or smiley (use your favorite, like ) in the middle of the symbol that you have just copied. It should look like this:        ⃡:) ͋

If you are still having trouble, check out this cool YouTube movie with all the explanation:

First, What’s up with this grey smiley anyway?

OK, if you got to this page, you are probably familiar with the grey monstrosity. The default representation of a character or any user in the service is this grey smiley. Apparently, not a lot of user like their smiley. Quite a lot of them even despise it! Although we at cool-smileys.com quite like the image, we though it would be a good service for the community to tell you how eliminate this image, and replace it with a photo or anything else for that matter.

So, how do I replace the Yahoo Answers smiley face with a cool avatar?

Elementary, my friend, elementary. Here is the fool-proof system:

1. Create your Yahoo Avatar

OK. Time to create your avatar or what we like to call ‘your face online’. Go to Yahoo’s excellent service Yahoo Avatars, and just begin the process. We are quite sure you will manage to create a wonderful image for yourself.

2. Edit your Yahoo Answers profile

In the service, go to your profile page, and edit it. The link will be on the upper right side of your screen. If you can’t find it, check the image below:

my profile (upper right side of the screen)

click on “use my yahoo avatar”, scroll down and click “preview”. If you are happy with the result, click “ok”.

3. Using your own photo in Yahoo Answers

Easy as lemon pie. If you don’t already have one, go to Yahoo Profiles and create a profile for yourself. Click on “change photo“, and then on “add photo”. Now, please select the image you want to use from your computer. Save and select the option to use selected photo. Congrats, you are done.

You are the proud non-owner of a new Gray Yahoo Answers smiley

Like smileys anyway? Check out the Cool Smileys in our website. You will find some of them are much cooler than the ones you are familiar with!

Although you can not use graphic smileys and emoticons in Twitter (at least for now – wait for updates in this space), there is a way to game the system and use cool emoticons in Twitter. Here is a quick example:

So, how to insert emoticons to twitter messages?

Easy! Use the following chart, choose the text symbol you like (especially useful are the  ☹ and ☺, but thee are tons of other cool symbols you can use), copy the symbol and paste it in your message. It works!

If you are a heavy twitter user don’t forget to bookmark this page!

You are not alone. A lot of people have asked me in the past – what does the letter J mean in emails? Why it is there? Is there a logical explanation that can make sense in this madness.

Here is my answer: The letter J is just how people that don’t use Microsoft Outlook view the smiley generated by Microsoft’s email client. Apparently when you insert a smiley in an outlook message, the actual smiley isn’t graphically embedded in the mail, but a single letter is put there instead. When non-outlook clients or webmail services try to read the message what they see there is the letter ‘J’ and not the actual smiley that was there in the first place.

What do you think? who is the fool here? Should Microsoft stop with the Microsoft-ish behavior and use regular graphic smileys like everybody else? Should other Email services rise to the occasion and make the necessary adjustments so they know how to read this letter and transform the J to a smiley? I am not sure – would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.