Chris….  I ran across a bunch of free smileys….  i downloaded them expecting them to be somehow all set up to use or to come with directions, but of course they were just the pictures. They also had speech bubbles which i thought was a cute idea. The little bubbles, i suppose one would make appear when someone typed in, for example, (awww) but how in the world do you tell the program to do that?????
I should search for the answer. I haven’t done that. I will.
Chris……  I am so fortunate to have you for my tech…  I talked to Nathan tonight and told him to get online and i would talk him thru getting on the message board. I pointed out that if we were all using the message board, he could keep us posted there instead of having to make calls and have us call him. He said that he could, but he would have to go get his laptop out of the truck and hook it up, and went on to tell me the troubles he is having with his desktop computer. He said that when he gets online everything is fine. He hooks up to his current internet provider. He opens yahoo.. but when he tries to download anything or to send a message, the computer wants him to privide a password for his (something starting with V) connection. Apparently they use V— at work and for some reason he hooked his home computer up to V— once, and apparently it reset something. He does not use V—. So he will type in his password and it will just pop the password window up again because, of course, it was unable to connect.
He says he has disabled everything he can think of, but the problem persists so they only go online with is work computer, which is hard because sometimes he works late and the kids need it for school. :) When he comes hom, his computer is sometimes more eagerly awaited than he is.
And all the time, i was thinking, that is just a setting… Chris could find that in a moment because he would know where to look and what the setting should be. But there is Nathan fumbling around in the dark, disabling things that probably should not be disabled and making changes that could be messing him up, and not able to find the offending setting…
Sigh……. i did not volunteer you. 🙂   I fight that urge….    but every family needs their own techie!!!!! How do people get along without one????
Bubbles: probably intended for you to edit them in photoshop to create the words you want.
To use them you would upload them somewhere and then link to the file in a post/comment to use them.
Computer issue: In geek circles, the first rule of knowing computers is to not be the famliy tech support. You’ll never have free time and you’ll be held accountable for messing up their machines if you ever touch them. Or that’s what happens all too often. Ya’ll haven’t been that way, so I don’t mind helping out. Plus I get much help on car repair, so it’s like a barter thing. (and you can tell dad that I know I owe him for parts from last time; I’m not forgetting)
Well I like to think that you offer us tech support because you love us. 🙂 and, we are, after all, your parents. 🙂 And i do try very hard to not demand too much…. or promise you.
You are not mine to promise. Years ago, when i was all impressed with your technical expertese, (and when, I think, you were new enough to the wonderful things you can do that you were happy to help) I arranged for you to help Carrie. I know better now. I would love to be able to fix Nathan’s computer myself. I would if i could. I would love to help him (and show off my wonderful son) by arranging for you to help him. But the problem is that next time Nathan has a problem he might call you, and he might refer Bradley and Riley to you, and there is really no telling where the chain would end… and, like you say, when you cannot fix it, you get the blame, even though you were only doing someone a favor…. and another think is that once you do a favor once, people can get pretty mad if you do not do it for them the next time and the next time.
Now why do I mention Nathan and his troubles….. thinking…. Maybe because i cannot offer you but i can sort-of slip it in and see if you offer…. Maybe i am making a point of telling you that i am being good and not offer you even when i want to so you will know that i am restraining myself and be pleased with me… Maybe i am hoping that you will say, oh, no biggie, tell him to go to control, stp panel, boomba, and reset the wooper to 42. 🙂 and then i could tell him. what to do and it might even work and i could feel smart and computer savy (by proxy). 🙂 Probably it is a mix of those three reasons.
And i am not wanting to create the picture… I want to know how you can type one thing and have another thing appear…. like i type : and ) and i get 🙂
In wordpress, goto the ‘options’ section. Then the ‘writing’ subsection. You’ll see this option:
“Convert emoticons like : – ) and : – P to graphics on display”
and that’s what controls if they show up as images or not.
I’m not sure where new ones could be added. It would have to be done in the underlying code somewhere.
that is what i was afraid of…. I like the balloons. I am not that crazy about the little round yellow smiley faces, though i have gotten used to them now so they don’t annoy me any more. But the balloons that would say wow or awww or bingo! or nanana – i think i would like those right off.