Smiley's

To send this	Type one of the following
	(Y)  or  (y)
	(N)  or  (n)
	(B)  or  (b)
	(D)  or  (d)
	(X)  or  (x)
	(Z)  or  (z)
	:-[  or  :[
	(})
	({)
	:-)  or  :)
	:-D  or  :d
	:-O  or  :o
	:-P  or  :p
	;-)  or  ;)
	:-(  or  :(
	:-S  or  :s
	:-|  or  :|
	:'(
	:$  or  :-$
	(H)  or  (h)
	:-@  or  :@
	(A)  or  (a)
	(6)
	(L)  or  (l)
	(U)  or  (u)
	(K)  or  (k)
	(G)  or  (g)
	(F)  or  (f)
	(W)  or  (w)
	(P)  or  (p)
	(~)
	(T)  or  (t)
	(@)
	(&)
	(C)  or  (c)
	(I)  or  (i)
	(S)
	(*)
	(8)
	(E)  or  (e)
	(^)
	(O)  or  (o)
	(M)  or  (m)

Since the early days of the internet, symbols such as :-) and :-P have had special significance. These have come to mean "I'm happy" or "sticking my tongue out" or any of hundreds of other things. These are called emoticons ("emotional icons") or smileys.

Short sequences of characters were fine in the good old days of character based chat rooms and email messages, but in modern times high speed connections and graphically oriented users demand a little more. Thus, many communications programs are supporting graphics versions of Emoticons.

MSN Messenger is no exception to this trend. In fact, this instant messaging program has a simple-to-understand and use method of inserting emoticons in messages.

To be able to use emoticons, you must first set your preferences up accordingly. I noticed that when I installed MSN Messenger emoticons were enabled by default. However, if you cannot access them, then simply enter the "Tools" menu and select "options", click the "personal" tab and click the "show graphics (emoticons)" option. This will enable the showing of emoticons in MSN Messenger (see the example screen below).

From this point forward, emoticons will be shown in their graphic equivalents in messages.

Using emoticons is equally simple. Simply type normally. when you want to insert an emoticons, click on the "Emoticons" button to get a list of the valid graphics symbols. Move the cursor over the desired image and click. The emoticon will be inserted at that point.

Note that more emoticons are available than are shown on the menu. Check out the table to the right for a complete list. 

Also understand that you can insert an emoticon at any point by simply including the emoticon text shown in the right column of the table.