Features of this Board & Some Posting Tips

[Cynthia Daniel]

1. You can add you own personal photo; size should be 60 x 60 pixels. For professional artists who teach workshops and might want to be easily recognized, this could be quite helpful. This is done through Your Controls & Options | Edit Options. Click the browse button to locate the image on your computer.

2. If you have a web site, I suggest including your web address in your profile. There are two places it can be entered. One is obvious, the other, not so obvious. This is the "signature" field. Whatever you put there will be appended to each post you make. So, it's an ideal place to put this. To make it linkable, enter is like this example: www.yourwebsite.com.

3. Try to keep as many discussions as possible on the Forum as opposed to thru email. This way everyone will have the advantage of the information. To be advised when a new response is added to your post, select the option "email me notification of all replies to this topic" at the end of your own post.

4. HTML code is not allowed but if you check the button options on a post page, you can achieve the same effect. Examples of the buttons are "b" for bold, "i" for italic, etc. You can also create text or an image as linkable using these buttons. If you enter a web address in the text of your post with an http:// in front, it will automatically be made linkable.

5. If you enter your AOL IM handle, Yahoo Messenger or ICQ identification, an icon will appear at the end of all your posts and visitors can send you messages via these services.

7. Some of the wonderful features of this new board is you can send private messages (PM), create buddy lists, be notified by email when a new post is added to a particular thread.

You can even tell when someone is online. Look either at one of their posts, or click on their name or check your buddy list if you've previously added them. There will be a green light next to their user name. If they are offline, the light will be grayed.

8. Last, but not least, you can use the "search messages" feature at the top of the page to look through all messages for a discussion on a particular topic.

This is helpful in a couple of ways. One, it keeps the same question from being asked multiple times. Two, you can post in an existing thread rather than needlessly creating a new one. Three, you might get answers to your questions faster.