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One of the most commonly utilised tools many of us use on a day to day basis is good old Skype. Though many have tried to conquer this VOIP, few have even come close to succeeding. Of course, it’s always nice to mix things up and that’s why DailyUpdatesForYou have put together some great Skype tips for you to have a look at.

What is skype?

Skype is a Voice-Over IP (VOIP) program from the company Skype Global which allow users to contact each other through messages and phone calls.Skype is a free program and it looks alot like other chat programs out there. Skype has a so called 'buddy list' which allow users to see the status from their buddys (for example: you get a notification when someone logs in). Skype claims to be spyware (see previous post to get a little explenation about spyware) free and has been code by Kazaa: Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis.

Hidden emoticons

Most of the users only know the emoticons that will show up when you press the smiley button above your textbox but that are not all of the emoticons that skype uses. Below is a list of skype icons which are hidden in the smiley interface but when you type the right words they will pop up.

Icon	Name	What To Type
	Facepalm	(facepalm)
	Fingers crossed	(fingerscrossed)
	Tumbleweed	(tumbleweed)
	Working from home	(wfh)
	Waiting	(waiting)
	Lalala!	(lalala)
	High five!	(highfive)
	WTF?!	(wtf)
	Mooning	(mooning)
	The finger	(finger)
	F.U.B.A.R.	(fubar)
	Pool party	(poolparty)
	Talking	(talk)
	Sexy legs	(hollest)
	Headbang	(headbang) (banghead)
	Soccer	(soccer)
	Drunk	(drunk)
	Toivo	(toivo)
	Rock	(rock)
	Zilmer	(zilmer)
	Punch	(punch)
	Call	(call)
	Oliver	(oliver)
	Bug	(bug)
	Phone	(ph) (mp)
	Broken heart	(u) (U)
	Film	(film) (movie) (~)
	Email / Mail	(e) (m)
	Skype	(skype) (ss)
	Clock	(clock) (time) (o)
	Smoke	(smoke) (smoking)
	Swear	(swear)
	TMI	(tmi)

  
Turn off the emoticons

If you don't like seeing the animated emoticons you could turn them off. When you turn them off you will see the text that is supposed to call the emoticon (for example: (tmi) instead of the (tmi) smiley). To turn off the emoticons in Skype and live in a world closer to the telegraph head to :

1. Go to tools (in the menubar in the top right corner of the skype menu).
2. Click on options. 
3. Click on the IM & SMS header.
4. Click on IM Appearance.
5. And here you can check/uncheck the option to show emoticons. 

 Hide the type icon

If you don't like to let other people know that you are typing something this will help you, it will allow you to remove the pencil that the other users see when you are writing / erasing something. To do this simply follow these steps:

1. Go to tools (in the menubar in the top right corner of the skype menu).
2. Click on options. 
3. Click on the IM & SMS header.
4. Make sure that you are on the tab IM settings and click on show advanced options.
5. There is a option which contains the text Show when im typing and uncheck the textbox
6. Voila your done now nobody knows when you are typing something! 

Skype Tips for Edits

If you’ve written a message and there is a typo all you have to do is click on the up cursor and the message will appear back in the edit box. You can then just make the changes required and then resend it. This eliminates the embarrassment of misspelled words.

But when you are in a group chat you could also edit the messages from other people in the group (only when you are a higher rank. The rankins in a group chat are : Creator - Master - Helper - User - Listener). To do this you have to right click on the text message you would like to edit and click on edit message. Now you can type whatever you wanted that person to type, however the edited notifcation still appears on the right side next to the time.


Accept calls without a click of the mouse

If you cant find your mouse and someone is calling you you can press ALT + PageUp to accept the phonecall and if you wanna use your webcam to when someone is calling you only have to press one extra key, the CTRL key. So the combination to answer with your video will be CTRL + ALT + PageDown.


Add a new text line to type

When you are in need of an extra line to type and you don't want to post the message already you could press the key combination CTRL + ENTER or the key combination SHIFT + ENTER both give the same result.



Send contacts to other persons

To share a contact with a friend you simply drag the contact into the chatfram or you use the button with the '+' text. When you press the '+' button you will see a popup where you could choose to add the contacts that you want and start a group chat.


I hope that this will help you to use Skype more efficiently and that it will save you some time. I would like to hear / read any feedback or other tips that you got for me. Have fun applying your just learned tips and please stay tuned for the next post!

Credits:
   - Skype icon list
   - Additional information about Skype
   - Picture from different text lines in Skype