If you're signed into your Google Account when you visit the Ads Preferences Manager, you can bock an advertiser. The Ads Preferences Manager is a Google site where you can manage settings associated with the ads you see. By visiting this page, you'll see an explanation on why you see specific ads and a list of interests that Google associates with you that can affect the ads you see on websites that have partnered with AdWords.

If you choose to block an advertiser while you're signed in to your Google Account, you'll no longer see ads that link to that advertiser's website, whether you're on Google search or Gmail. You can unblock the advertiser at any time, and are allowed to block up to 500 advertisers.

If, however, you're not signed into your Google Account, you'll still see some information associated with the computer's Web browser, Google says. In this case, though, the ads will be customized to a particular computer rather than to a personal account.

How to Opt Out of Google's Personalized Ads

If you don't want to see personalized ads from Google, you can opt out at any time. After opting out, you'll still see relevant ads, but Google won't use additional information to personalize those ads on Google search and Gmail.

Also, by opting out via the Ads Preferences page, you'll no longer be able to block specific advertisers, and your block list will be deleted.

Note, however, that by staying opted-in to the personalized Google ads, Google says that it will show you fewer, but more relevant ads. "On the Ads Preferences Manager, you can see that on average, people who choose to get personalized ads click more ads but see less overall," Google says. "We calculate the statistics every month, using aggregate data from the prior three months in your location."

Fortunately, Google is well known for promoting user rights and privacy, and the company makes it easy to remove data from individual products or even to delete your account entirely. Here's how it works.

Delete a Google Product or Service

1. Access the Google Login page in your Web browser.

Sign in to your account from the Google Login page.

2. Fill in the appropriate email address and password for the account with the Google product or service you wish to delete, and click Sign In.

3. Once the sign-in process is complete, click the Edit link next to the 'My products' section. Google is constantly updating, so depending on the version of Google you're accessing, you may first need to select Visit the previous version of the Google accounts screen to access the 'My products' menu.

Select the Edit link next to the 'My products' heading to start removing Google services.

4. Find the service or product you want to eliminate under the Delete a Product section, and clickRemove permanently.

Delete Your Google Account

1. Access the Google Login page in your Web browser.

2. Enter the appropriate email address and password for the account you wish to delete, and clickSign In.

3. Click the Edit link next to the 'My products' section. Once again, you may first need to select Visit the previous version of the Google accounts screen to access the 'My products' menu.

4. Under the Delete Account section, select Close account and delete all services and info associated with it.

Select 'Close account...' to shut down your Google account.

5. Confirm your choice by typing in your password at the prompt on the next page, and then check both boxes acknowledging your choice and the repercussions.

6. Click Delete Google Account to permanently delete the account and its associated data.

Looking to spice up your conversations? Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail all support UTF-8 Unicode special characters. These UTF-8 special characters are symbols that don’t appear on a standard keyboard but are recognized by most devices, websites, and applications. They're useful for adding a little extra character to your text, and a few social networking websites and tools like Facebook and Gmail allow you to add even more colorful emoticons to your messages. With this guide I’ll show you how to quickly find and add special characters and emoticons to make your Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail messages more lively and personal. WARNING: This page is jam-packed with examples of emoticons and special characters that may look odd in your Web browser.

Use Twitter Special Characters via Bookmarklets

1. Visit TwitterKeys or Twitter Symbols.

2. Drag the links you’ll find on these Web pages onto your Bookmarks bar (Firefox or Chrome) or Favorites bar (Internet Explorer). Note: The links may not work with all versions of these browsers.

Use the TwitterKeys applet to spice up your Twitter posts with special characters and symbols.

3. Click the newly created bookmark. If nothing happens, make sure a pop-up isn’t being blocked.

4. Double-click to highlight any symbol in the pop-up window, then copy (-C) and paste (-V) the symbol from the window into a Twitter message.

Twitter Symbols

Use Special Characters on Twitter by Pasting From the Web

You can find plenty of free character maps online where you can copy and paste a special character from a Web page into a Twitter message. Here are some to get you started:

♈ ♉ ♊ ♋ ♌ ♍ ♎ ♏ ♐ ♑ ♒ ✐ ❂ ♓ ☨ ☧ ☦ ✁ ✃ ✄ ✎ ☬ ☫ ❉ ❆ ♅ ♇ ♆ ♙ ♟ ♔ ♕ ♖ ♗ ♘ © ® ™ … ∞ ≤ ≥ « » ç ∫ µ ◊ ı ¥ € £ ƒ $ º ª ‽ ♤ ✈ ♪ ☤ ♀ ☾ ☝ ♖ ✽ ☯ ♥ ☺ ♬ ☹ ☑ ✩ ☠ ✔ ✉ ♂ ✖ ✏ ♝ ❀ ♨ ❦ ☁ ✌ ♛ ❁ ☪ ☂ ★ ✇ ♺ ☭ ☃ ☛ ♞ ✿ ☮ ♘ ✾ ☄ ☟ ✝ ☼ ☚ ♟ ✺ ☥ ✂ ✍ ♕ ✵ ☉ ☇ ☈ ☡ ✠ ☊ ☋ ☌ ☍ ♁ ✇ ☢ ☣ ✣ ✡ ☞ ☜ ✜ ✛ ❥ ♗ ♚ ♛ ♜ ♝ ♞ Ω ≈ * § ∆ ¬ † & æ π ¡ ¿ ø å ∂ • ¶ œ Æ ß ÷ ‰ √ ª % ♠ ☎ ☻ ♫ ☒ ˚ ¯ º ‽ ≠ ˆ ˜ ˘ ∑ ƒ

 

Put Special Characters in Twitter With the Windows Character Map

1. Click Start, open your list of All Programs, and open the Accessories folder. Navigate to System Tools and open the Character Map program.

2. Select a font from the list.

3. Check the Advanced view box.

4. In the Character set list, select Unicode.

5. In the Group by list, select All to browse all available characters by font, or select Unicode Subrange to browse characters by category.

6. Collect characters by highlighting them and clicking Select. When you are finished collecting, clickCopy to copy the characters to the clipboard. You can now paste them into your message.

Use Facebook Emoticons

Here is the complete list of Facebook Chat emoticons and what character combinations create them. Note that these currently only work in Facebook Chat and will not display correctly in Facebook status updates or comments.

Smile :-) :) :] =)

Frown :-( :( :[ =(

Tongue :-P :P :-p :p =P

Grin :-D :D =D

Gasp :-O :O :-o :o

Wink ;-) ;)

Glasses 8-) 8) B-) B)

Sunglasses 8-| 8| B-| B|

Grumpy >:( >:-(

Unsure :/ :-/ :\ :-\

Cry :'(

Devil 3:) 3:-)

Angel O:) O:-)

Kiss :-* :*

Heart <3

Kiki ^_^

Squint -_-

Confused o.O O.o

Upset >:O >:-O >:o >:-o

Pacman :v

Curly Lips :3

Robot :|]

Chris Putnam :putnam:

Shark (^^^)

Penguin <(")

42 :42:

 

Using Emoticons in Gmail, Gchat, and Other Google Services

To unlock all available emoticons in Gmail:

1. Click the Gear icon in the top right corner, then click Labs.

2. Type emoji in the Search for labs box.

3. Enable Extra Emoji and click Save Changes.

Enable the Extra Emoji option in Google Labs.

4. When composing a message, click the Insert Emoticon symbol to browse. Click any symbol to insert it into your message. You must be in rich formatting mode to insert emoticons.

In GChat, some emoticons are easy to select, but others are hidden:

1. Click the Gear icon in the top right corner, then click Mail Settings.

2. In the Chat tab, select Emoticons on at the bottom. Click Save Changes.

Switch on emoticons in the Chat tab.

3. Open a new chat window and click the emoticon in the corner to browse GChat emoticons.

Nice job! One final tidbit: The emoticons listed in the GChat window aren’t all that are available. Here is a top-secret list of hidden GChat emoticons:

Devil }:-)

Moustache :{

Robot [:|]

Poo ~@~

Rock Out \m/

Monkey :(|)

Bell +/’\

Crab V.v.V

Wince >.<

Broken heart </3

Pig :(:)

Kiss :-x