Pinyin vs Zhuyin, Traditional vs Simplified Chinese.

Usually, people who learn Chinese type in pinyin, often times without the tone (numbers). It's okay to use pinyin as long as you'd be typing the Chinese character as well.

So like, instead of saying "ni hao", using a Chinese Keyboard, you can make it look like this: 你好。

Although, with the tone is better. Ni3 hao3.

Typing in pinyin while communicating with a Chinese (either from mainland or Taiwan) is very difficult--for the other party. Chinese aren't very familiar with pinyin (拼音), they will most likely tell you that they didn't understand what you just said or typed.

水餃(ㄕㄨㄟˇ ㄐㄧㄠˇ)

Shuǐjiǎo (shi1 wu1 ei1 j yao1)

I have a Taiwanese friend and he "spells" everything in Zhuyin (注音), so I can read his messages which are in Traditional Chinese. Traditional Chinese looks more complicated compared to Simplified. Simplified Chinese is used in Mainland China. Since the Chinese that I've learned are in simplified Chinese, I sometimes have to ask him how each character is read. But since pinyin confuses him, he never understands whatever I say when I type it in pinyin or sometimes, when I type in simplified Chinese, which is what I always do.

to read more about zhuyin, check this wiki article