A flush Facebook nudged Rackable Systems’ revenue higher during the fourth quarter.

Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.com accounted for at least 10 per cent each of Rackable’s $117.m fourth quarter haul. That revenue total marked a five per cent year-over-year rise for Rackable, which sells servers and storage boxes. But while the web-happy clientèle keep Rackable going, the company has decided to talk less about its prized possessions.

Come on, Mark. Have some fun.

In the good old days, Rackable, under the leadership of former CEO Tom Barton, would spill all kinds of beans about its largest customers. In particular, Barton loved to talk about how much gear Rackable moved to Microsoft, Amazon.com and Yahoo!. In the past, Rackable had specified, for example, that a single customer accounted for as much as 42 per cent of revenue in a given period.

Barrenechea wants to keep people guessing and would only say that Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook each accounted for at least 10 per cent of revenues in the fourth quarter.

(Incidentally, Facebook is about to dish out close to $200m in data center spending.)

The new CEO also issued a hard-line stance against doing business with customers that want to play margin games. In recent quarters, Rackable’s margins had dipped into the negative as it battled with Dell and others on price. Moving forward, Barrenechea wants no part of what he termed “unfavorable business”.

Unboxing the data center

Like Sun, Rackable sells a full data center in a container – it calls the product the Ice Cube to reflect its power efficiencies.

“It is tough to give a range of the amount or quantity of containers,” he said. “It could be somewhere in the range of 20 to 50 (in 2008).”

Looking back at the fourth quarter specifics, we find Rackable posting a $19m loss, which compares to a $600,000 profit in the same period last year.

For the full year, Rackable reported revenue of $353m – a slight dip from $360m in 2006. Rackable also handed in a $70m loss for the year instead of an $11m profit as in 2006.

For 2008, Rackable expects to see revenue that’s flat to up 10 per cent.

Barrenechea bragged that the company has just the right business for a struggling economy, since it’s all about power savings, efficiency and saving space

When you need to make symbols and letters that aren’t on your computer keyboard – such as © for Copyright or the Trademark, cents, Euro, or one-half symbols – or a real bullet instead of an asterisk – here’s a handy tutorial to bookmark.

You’ll find French, German and Spanish accents, including à, é, ü and ñ.

If you’re a writer, you can make real “en” and “em” dashes instead of — a double hyphen.

For really cool symbols (stars, fancy bullets, astrological glyphs, etc.), you’ll want to check out the Alt Key shortcuts for Wingdings and Dingbats (below).

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to make symbols and non-English letters using: (1) the Insert function in Microsoft Word and Publisher, (2) The Character Map for copying and pasting symbols into your document, and (3) the Alt Key shortcuts for the same symbols.

You’ll also find free lists below with dozens of alt key symbols, including copyright, trademark, registered, French, German and Spanish accents, bullets and more - plus shortcuts for common Wingdings and Dingbats.

(1) How to Use the “Insert” Function:

In Microsoft Word (and Publisher/FrontPage), there’s an easy way to insert symbols for copyright, trademark, cents and French, German and Spanish accents. You never again have to use e’, when what you really want is é.

On the top of the screen of your open Word 2003 document, you’ll see the headings: File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, etc. Click on “Insert” and on the drop-down list, click on “Symbol.” A symbol box will pop up. Click on the symbol you want to insert into your text, then click on the insert button and close the box.

In Word 2007, click on the Insert tab, then click on the symbol icon (at the far right). A little box pops up which shows a few symbols and the words “More Symbols.” If you click on “more symbols,” a bigger box pops up with all kinds of symbols, depending on what font you’re working in.

(2) How to Use the “Character Map” in Windows:

Another method is to use the “Character Map” to copy and paste the required symbols. In Windows (XP), you’ll find the Character Map by clicking on the Windows Start Menu, then All Programs, then Accessories, System Tools and Character Map. The Character Map box pops up.

Choose the font you wish to use from the drop-down menu at the top. Place your curser where you’d like to insert the symbol, click on the symbol you wish to insert, click on the Select Button, then the Copy Button and then paste the symbol onto your page (using Edit, Paste or the “Control v” shortcut). You’ll also see the Alt Key shortcut at the bottom of the Character Map, for future reference.

(3) How to Make Keyboard Symbols with the “Alt” Key and Numeric Keypad:

Another way is to use the “Alt” key and numbers – making sure to use your numeric keypad, not the numbers on the top of the keyboard. NumLock needs to be ON.

Using the numeric keypad, hold down the Alt key, and hit the numbers (in succession) shown below for the symbol you want to use. For example for © Copyright, hold down Alt, press the number 0, then press the numbers 1, 6, 9. Then you can let up the Alt key.

***LAPTOP USERS: If you don’t have a numeric keypad, you’ll need to use either the insert function or Character Map method.