I was an editor at Dmoz (The Open Directory Project) for 10 years. I worked my way up to the title of 'editall' which meant I had the run of the directory. I would review and add new sites submitted. I could edit current listings or delete those which were no longer functioning or had become spam like splogs and link farms. I enjoyed the work. I still like finding great links from all the content online. I like adding links to any post I write here on HubPages and part of the enjoyment is just tracking down the links themselves.

From what I have seen The Open Directory Project is not being updated very reliably now. It looks like very few people are still maintaining the directory and the listings. When I look at categories I used to maintain myself I find link rot and listings which need to be fixed for spelling, punctuation, grammar. There are even links which lead to parked domains, and other useless sites.

The Open Directory Project (ODP) may be unpredictable and a little neglected, but it's still a free to be listed there and the directory database is still picked up by many other sites.

If you want to submit a link to Dmoz

Find the best fitting Dmoz category for one of your posts which represents your niche at HubPages. If you look at what you've been writing you will see you do have a niche/ theme of some kind. Your personality will show through the range of your topics, go with that. Narrow it down to one post and then find the corresponding category in the Dmoz directory.

Don't submit more than one post anywhere else in the directory. Wait, even as long as a month, before you try another submission. Try a different category, something even more specific to your content/ topic. Never submit to a top level category. Those kind of sloppy submissions are almost 100% sure to be deleted without even being looked at by any editor.

Do not get yourself (or HubPages) labelled with a bad reputation for too many submissions or submissions to the wrong categories. Dmoz will block networks/ domains like HubPages from any submissions if the editors begin leaving negative comments on the submissions from that domain.

When I was part of the workings of Dmoz editors could be very diligent, keeping categories clean, tidy and updated. Even then some categories had no editor and no one checked them regularly for submissions or bad links. I think there are less editors working there now so it is even more important to have patience with any links you submit there. Sending a second submission too soon just makes you look like a mass submitter. Also, extra submissions will just be deleted while the original sits in the category until an editor takes time to look at them all individually. Editors are more likely to work on a category that does not have a lot of submissions they have to mass delete. It's just common sense when you remember the editors at Dmoz are volunteers, not paid for their time.

Check your submission to the Dmoz directory

• Proofread your submission. Spelling, grammar and punctuation do count.
• Double check the link (the http:// link, not the title) of your post.
• Don't use excessive keywords.

An emoticon is a terrible thing to waste.

Emoticons (aka smileys) are fun, easy and add a lightness to any email or forum posts. When you want to add emotion, feelings or mood to your typed words you can just slip in an emoticon. :) They’re so simple to make, to remember and no-fuss.

Of course, some times we use a few too many. Sometimes we forget we aren’t typing a personal email and send an emoticon to the wrong person. Sometimes we send emoticons to people who just don’t like cute little text smileys. Then, there are the times we look back at the email we just sent and notice how many of those smileys are in there.

Too much of a good thing is still too much of a good thing. If you find yourself overindulging in emoticons – start cutting back.

Are you an Emoticon Use Abuser?

Not sure how many emoticons are too many? Ask the people you send your email to. Ask the people who read your posts on forums. (If you use an emoticon with every sentence you type – that’s really too much).

You find you also type a lot of other Internet shorthand, like LOL and ROFL.

Consider why you use so many smileys. Do you really need to explain or emphasize everything you write? Chances are the smileys have become a habit and you’ve forgotten how much simpler and uncluttered your text could be without them.

How to Control your Emoticon/ Smiley Addiction

Stop using smileys in emails or forums where you don’t know everyone well. Friends are more likely to enjoy the more personal styled communication.

Skip the smiley and actually write about your feelings and thoughts. Don’t leave people guessing or making assumptions. You may even find yourself connecting much better with people once you stop relying on smiley faces to tell them how you feel.

Instead of finding new and creative smileys to use, stick with just a few and use them sparingly. Standard emoticons like :) :D and :P should be plenty. Plus, these are standard enough for the average person to know rather than needing a special education on emoticons.

Replace the emoticons with something else. Go back to punctuation like exclamations points, question marks and dashes. But, don’t over use these either. One per sentence is enough.

Avoid emoticons and smileys when you have to write (or reply to) an email with any kind of bad news or a review of a person, product or service. You need to be professional at times like this and emoticons will not give that professional, competent impression of you.

One way to really stop yourself from over using emoticons is to remove them as a type of Internet shorthand. When you type a smiley follow it with a description in brackets. For instance :) (smile face). This will slow you down and help you see just how often you really are using emoticons.

• Five Reasons You Need to Break Your Emoticon Addiction
• Confessions of an Emoticon Addict
• Emoticonics Anonymous: A Five-and-a-Quarter Step Program

The Big Difference the Average Internet User Will Notice with Ubuntu... You will find your screen layout is a bit different on the desktop - when you are closing programs and opening or closing the computer. Ubuntu has some options on the other side of the screen. Nothing drastic. Some things are just over there -> instead of over there <-

When you install and run Ubuntu Linux you will see no big difference in your online user experience. I run Ubuntu and continue to use social media sites, publish my blogs, chat online, post to forums, play games, etc.

When you change your computer to Ubuntu you can still use:

Facebook Twitter Blogger/ Blogspot WordPress Movable Type StumbleUpon Flickr and any other site you have ever been on or will be on in the future. As a general Internet user you will see almost no difference. You can run Firefox the same as any other day on Windows.

However, you can laugh when you see ads promoting software to prevent virus attacks because Linux is all but immune to such things. Those are created for Windows and computers running Windows.

An older computer will run faster and smoother than it can with new Windows. Ubuntu Linux is a bigger load than other versions of Linux but it is still smaller and lighter than Windows.

Don't Be Afraid or Intimidated by Ubuntu Linux Some people think you have to know a lot of technical stuff to run any Linux type of operating system.

You don't!

I ran Ubuntu Linux for a year without even once dipping my toes into the code or anything more technical than choosing what software I wanted to download next.

This year I am feeling bolder. I'm feeling more interested and curious and confident. I've begun looking at what I can do from the terminal.

But, Ubuntu is user friendly and (in my experience as a non-technical wizard) you can use Ubuntu for everything you need and avoid ever messing around with the technical guts of it.

Windows/ Ubuntu Boot Installer WUBI - Windows/ Ubuntu Boot Installer

You can install Ubuntu on your Windows hard drive and run it from Windows. It is not a standalone OS in this case but more like you are running it like any other Windows program. If you want to try Ubuntu but can\t overcome the fear of being without Windows WUBI gives you another safe option. WUBI is also free.

Ubuntu Women

• LinuxChix

• Debian Women

• Ubuntu Women Project

Go Local - Find Linux User Groups Near You

• BUG - Barrie Technology Users Group

• Barrie LUG - Barrie Linux Users Group

• WestTLUG : West of Toronto Linux User Group

• mumu-ca : Mississauga Ubuntu MeetUp

• Greater Toronto Area Linux User Group

Ubuntu Links

• How to Switch from Windows to Ubuntu
  I'm very happy with Ubuntu. If you want to save yourself from buying Windows, trying to avoid catching viruses online and find yourself able to work faster (well, your computer will be faster) switch to Ubuntu Linux.

• Ubuntu

• Applications - Community Ubuntu Documentation

• Ask Ubuntu

• Ubuntu Guide

• Installing Ubuntu

• Ubuntu Linux Essentials - Techotopia

• Iloveubuntu

• OMG! Ubuntu!

• Flickr: Ubuntu Artwork

• Flickr: Ubuntu

• Ubuntu | Facebook

• Linux.org

Ubuntu Uses Different Software

If you download software you will find Ubuntu a little different.

Instead of going to download sites which focus on Windows you will start looking for the software you want on your own computer. In the Ubuntu sidebar is the link to software available for Ubuntu. You get each one listed with a review and instructions about using and running it.

Free Software for Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Linux is Safe for Windows Users - My Ubuntu Experience

I started using Ubuntu Linux in 2011. My Windows computer was in trouble, Acer tech support refused to help me (my Acer computer was more than 2 years old) and I knew something was going to fail me soon. With a little research, some luck and intuition, I can often fix or figure out most problems with my hardware and software.

I decided to give up on Windows. It kept telling me it was having problems so I let it retire.

I had tried Ubuntu once, a live installation, for a few days, but I didn't stick with it at that time. So I had the CD to install an older version (Ubuntu gets an update twice a year, on schedule).

Ubuntu was easy to install. VERY easy. If you can burn the software to a DVD you can handle the whole installation. I installed Ubuntu on my Mother's computer too. It was a slow PC and did get a perk running Ubuntu rather than Windows.

Based on my experience, I suggest going cold turkey and eliminating Windows rather than giving yourself the fall back of a dual boot with Windows and Linux.Take away the temptation to go back to Windows and not really get started with Ubuntu. Give yourself the time to get to know Ubuntu. Also, you won't be asked to sign in to one OS or the other each time. A small thing, but sometimes those little nitpicky things get under your skin.

Running Ubuntu I find there are options for everything I wanted to use once I changed over. I didn't have to miss a thing. From my image software to the games I wanted to play, it was all there to find a new option or rework a bit and continue using my same old software on the new OS (OS is operating system, in case you don't know).

Wine - Wine Is Not an Emulator

Wine is a program you can get which will let you run your Windows games and a lot of the software you've become used to having at your fingertips. Read the Wine FAQ for more information.

"Wine lets you run Windows software on other operating systems. With Wine, you can install and run these applications just like you would in Windows.

Wine is still under active development. Not every program works yet, however there are already several million people using Wine to run their software."

How to Make Ubuntu Pretty

• 60 Beautiful Ubuntu Desktop Wallpapers

• Techware Labs - Getting the Ugly out of Ubuntu

• Making Ubuntu Linux pretty - Super User

• digitalraven | Making Ubuntu Pretty

Linux Mint - Seems to be the upcoming Linux distribution

• Main Page - Linux Mint

• The Linux Mint User Guide - Linux Mint Community

Pinterest is popular as a social media site. It's also one of he well known content curation sites. Content curation is about keeping content you find online (including content which you create yourself) and using a service, like Pinterest, to manage and display the content for a specific topic or theme. A long explanation for something which is pretty simple really.

If you take a look at Pinterest you will notice people have several topics in their account. These are the topics which they curate. Think of curation like a museum curator. It's basically the same idea. The curator searches for content and then displays it for other people to see, learn and understand.

Pinterest is mostly women. Ironic considering it's men who claim to be more visual than women.

Pinterest is Visual

One big thing to keep in mind about using Pinterest, as a content curator, is how visual Pinterest is. Nothing on Pinterest can be displayed without an image, graphic or illustration of some kind. It just doesn't work that way. This visual plan doesn't always work for everything you find online. You may be interested in topics which don't work well visually. (There may not be a lot to choose from). Some of the best visual topics on Pinterest are arts and crafts. One topic which does not succeed well on Pinterest is writing. Writing is about text, not so much images.

If you want to start out on Pinterest know the importance of being visual.

Like Facebook, Pinterest claims all rights to use (including sell) any content you add to Pinterest. You can find this in the fine print of the TOS (terms of service) which almost no one actually reads. There are people who won't use Pinterest because of the theft of images and artist copyrights.

Don't let this scare you off. If you are pinning one image along with a link back to the original site your use of that image falls under fair use when it comes to copyright law. If Pinterest sells that image, their use will not fall under fair use. Fair use is about using a few lines of text or an image in order to illustrate a point and/ or lead readers to the original source for more information.

However, you should be aware that your images are not really your own online. Any image can be used by hundreds of other people. If you really want to keep your copyrights to your work, don't post it online.

If you read more about the Pinterest fine print you will see Pinterest claims they will pass any legal fees they incur on to you for any image you pin to their site (if the image owner makes a claim against Pinterest for selling the image to a second party).

I am not a legal expert. If you need more information or advice see what you can find online or ask someone who will know a lot more than I do about the twists and turns of the legalities of copyright, fair use and etc.

Do you remember the day you first saw someone type :) or 😀 ?

I do. It wasn't 30 years ago, more like 16 years and a couple of months ago. I started online in the summer of 1996. I was an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) diva. Talking online, using a sort of bulletin board which was live over the Internet. Not a lot of people still use the IRC these days. It was lots of fun at the time.

I really began seeing emoticons when I became an active member of the ASCII art newsgroups. We didn't stop at simple smileys and emoticons though.

ASCII art are pictures created with standard keyboard characters. I've been making ASCII art since 1998. See my ASCII art gallery, ldb ASCII Art.

September 19th 2012 is 30 Years of Smileys!

If you have never created an emoticon - do it!

Some people think emoticons are dorky, too retro, too silly. No doubt there are lists of reasons you can find (or create) for not using an emoticon in your email or online comments, etc. But, emoticons are still the best way we have to include emotional direction into our typed out text.

Online, no one can see you smile

Someone reading your email can't really tell if you are cracking a joke, being serious, being sarcastic or just being a jerk. Emoticons give the essential information as to the tone and meaning behind your commentary. Emoticons are important tools for people who like to be snarky but don't really want to offend or upset others. Emoticons are great for the other side too - when you want someone to know you're serious and feeling pretty ticked off too. Your words and language may be polite but one angry emoticon can let them know you're just being polite.

Smiley Lore 😀 Scott E. Fahlman