LynnS
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Posting, Control Panel Setup How-To's, Avatars, Siggys etc.
SAFETY MEASURES
I'll be putting together a tutorial for the site this weekend and adding it to this thread, but in the meantime there are a couple of things to be aware of that you may want to do immediately.
You can set the preferences for your account in your own personal Control Panel. The Control Panel is listed near the top of the board.
The board has an option to accept emails and private messages from other members. Using this option is your own decision. As you all know, we have always recommended that the safest thing is to use discretion and be as secure and cautious as you can online.
Therefore, if you want to turn these options off, this is how you do it.
In order to elect not to receive emails and PM's, click on the link for your control panel. On the left hand side you will see a listing for Change Miscellaneous Settings. Click on that and you will be able to customize your personal settings. This includes unchecking Receiving PM's in Inbox and Receiving PM's in email.
Also, as Mems mentioned in a thread, you have to manually log out of this board. If you don't log out when you leave, you will stay signed in. This is fine and sometimes convenient, but if security is a concern, then you should either go to the very bottom of the main board screen and click on "log out" or you can also click on "log out" at the top of your control panel page.
Be safe everyone.
Lynn
Last edited by femfree, Dec/21/2008, 6:06 pm
--- "The best way out is always through."--Robert Frost
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Nov/7/2008, 4:56 pm
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LynnS
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Re: Posting and Setup How-To's
Adding an Avatar to your posts
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Avatars are the pictures that appear below your user name when you post.
Runboard does not allow what is called 'hotlinking' to sites. This means that you cannot just copy and paste a picture you find online or copy a url from a picture somewhere and insert it here unless the site allows direct linking. If they do not, that's considered bandwidth theft on most sites.
Instead, to post an image here, and that includes avatars, you need to find an image hosting site that DOES allow direct links and upload pictures to that site from your own Picture file in your Documents on your computer or wherever you do store pictures on your computer
So, the steps are these.
1. Find a direct linking site that will host your photos and sign up for a free account. Two of the most popular are:
Photobucket
http://photobucket.com/
Image Shack
http://imageshack.us/
Then you need to find an image to use for an avatar. You may already have one in your Picture file in your computer or you can find avatars online for free. Two sites are here:
http://www.free-avatars.com
http://www.1avatars.com/
Find the avatar you like and download it to your computer. The suggested size for avatars is somewhere between 60x60 pixels and 100x100. Bigger is ok, and odd sizes are too. Try not to find one that is too big. It will be automatically resized to fit the forum if it is way too large, but it's easier if you select one that is a more standard size.
Now once you've found the image you want to use, download it to your computer. You then go to your hosting site (Photobucket, Image Shack, etc.) and upload it to your account.
Once it's uploaded to the site, you can find the URL (location) of that picture as provided by that service you've used for posting purposes. It will generally say 'direct link' and show a URL. That's the address of the picture. Alternatively, you can right click on the picture itself as it appears on your host, click properties, and the URL (web address) will be listed.
Copy it by scrolling over the URL and press "Control" (hold it down) and then press "C" on your keyboard.
You then come back to the forum and go to your Control Panel. Link is at the top. Then go to Change Miscellaneous Settings on the left. The first box at the top is for the address of your avatar. It says: "Personal icon URL". Click on the box next to it Press "Control" and "V" together and it will paste the address of the picture in.
At the bottom of the settings screen hit 'Save Settings'.
Your avatar should now appear on your profile.
I know it's a lot of steps, but once you do it, it's pretty easy.
If any of this isn't clear, just post back.
Lynn
Last edited by LynnS, Nov/8/2008, 10:11 am
--- "The best way out is always through."--Robert Frost
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Nov/7/2008, 4:57 pm
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LynnS
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Posts: 2215
Karma: 173 (+173/-0)
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Re: Posting and Setup How-To's
Customize Your User Settings
You can customize your user settings for the board. To do this, go to your Control Panel, (link at the top of the board) and then go to Change Miscellaneous Settings.
You will see the following list. I've included suggetions for how to customize it behind each entry on the list in italics. Please feel free to copy and print it out to refer to in changing your settings if you wish.
Lynn
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Avatar 60x60 pixels image URL(optional): This is where you insert the URL for your avatar image. Instructions are in the Add An Avatar post.
Signature (optional): This is what will appear on the bottom of all your posts. Use a quote or personalize it in a way that reflects what you want it to reflect
Publicly displayed location (optional): Obviously, we suggest you be discrete in terms of divulging your location
Accept email Private Messages: Check if you want to accept them, uncheck if you don't.
Accept Inbox Private Messages: Same as above. The inbox link is at the top of the board.
Warn me by email when an Inbox Private Message is received: Check if you want an email notification of PM's received.
Pre-check the Notification box: You can get notifications of new posts in your email. Check if you want this option. With the activity on the board, this will no doubt result in a lot of emails.
Redirect to topic after posting: Checking this automatically takes you back to the thread you just posted on.
Make your few last post titles visible in your user info center to everyone?: People can see your last few posts on your profile if you check this. If you want them to show, or if you want to track your last few posts, check this option.
Do not show your few last public post titles in MessageFlow?: MessageFlow is a feature on the board that I am still looking into. More to follow.
Activate your Blog?: Checking into this feature as well.
Your ICQ identity (UIN) (optional): This provides for a public listing of your ICQ identity. Used for instant messages. We suggest discretion about divulging ways for people to contact you personally.
Your AIM identity (optional): Same as above, but for AIM users.
Your MSN identity (optional): Ditto for MSN users.
Your Yahoo identity (optional): Same but for yahoo.
Sticky signature
(changing your signature will change it on all your posts
made with a sticky signature): Checking this makes your signature apply to all your posts
Really sticky signature
(even posts made with a non-sticky sig will be updated): Checking this makes your signature appear in all your previous posts.
The next section doesn't need to be filled in for regular users. It's for premium, paid users.
(Premium users only) Make me invisible in the Who is online list.
If you are not a Premium user, this setting will have no effect for you.:
(Premium users only) Not appear in the public board member list:
PM answering machine (optional):
PM ignore user list
(user names, one per line): You can list certain users here if you want to ignore their PM's
PM allow user list
(if PMs are not accepted, those are): If you want to restrict the people who can PM you, put the names of people you want to accept PM's from here.
Override board profanity filter: Follow board settings: , Always on: , Always off: There is an automatic profanity filter on the board. If you want to override this so that you can view it unfiltered, check Always OFF, the last circle.
Blog entries per page display (0 = default): Applies to the blog feature
Display your favorites in public profile: You can add your favorite runboards to favorites and they will appear in your control panel
Hide your premium status (if any): Applies to premium members.
Subscribe to User newletter: Check or uncheck
Subscribe to Supporter newletter
(can contain third party ads): Check or uncheck
MASTER "NOMAIL" SWITCH
(disables ALL email sending from Runboard to your user account, including non-newsletter
material such as password recovery and PM notifications): Turning all mail off might inhibit you receiving info you want.
Any other options which might be listed on your panel are not critical for users to be concerned with.
Hit Save Settings at the end.
Last edited by LynnS, Nov/9/2008, 3:39 pm
--- "The best way out is always through."--Robert Frost
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Nov/9/2008, 11:18 am
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LynnS
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Registered: 10-2008
Posts: 2215
Karma: 173 (+173/-0)
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Re: Posting and Setup How-To's
Board Time and Date
Runboard Time and Date cannot be adjusted for the individual user, at least at this point. Having that feature would cause a strain on the servers, so at this point the board time chosen is what everyone will see. We realize that this may be confusing, but a time had to be selected for the board.
The time set for the board is Central Standard Time in North America.
Posts marked as "Today" have been posted in the previous 24 Central Standard Time hours.
Threads with new posts or posts you haven't read yet will be marked as "New".
To find a standard way of determing the conversion for what the board time says vs. your own time, you can use the Time Zone Converter on the site linked below. Find your time zone in the first box and then find Central Time, U.S. in the second box. It will give you the differential so you can calculate the time difference on an ongoing basis. Not an ideal fix, but hopefully it will help.
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc/
Lynn
Last edited by LynnS, Nov/9/2008, 12:12 pm
--- "The best way out is always through."--Robert Frost
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Nov/9/2008, 12:11 pm
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