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Getting to know you... Getting to know all about the new boards...
by Dream-eHQNhost on January 10th, 2008, 12:21am
Don't mind me, just having a lovely Sound of Music Moment.
It occurred to me, the great wise one who's had all of a month to learn more about the new platform, that we could have a little fun discovering all the new toys we've been given. There are a lot of great features, and new ways of interacting with folks that I think can be interesting and a lot of fun. I know, I keep saying, "fun," and all some of you are thinking is, "ACK, more things to learn!" It's okay. I understand. Believe it or not, that's how I felt a month ago.
So... now that you're here... I think it means you're ready to at least explore a little more. Here's what we're going to do. When you discover something neat and fun you think others might enjoy, post it here. Tell us your great find. I certainly don't know everything we've got, but I'm really looking forward to hearing about your discoveries. And I'll share some of my favorites.
Let's go play!!
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance
To start off with...
I'm going to tell you my very favorite feature. Well, no. I'm going to have to do two favorites, because I can't decide.
1. Recent Posts: On the sidebar, there's a link that'll show you all the most recent posts. I LOVE this. It's so fun to be able to see what everyone's talking about RIGHT now. Plus, as a host, I've always kept so busy with my own areas that I've missed out on some great conversations. I tended to do that when I was a member too. Now, though, I can skim through the recent posts and "discover" some new treasures, or be reminded of folks I used to really enjoy chatting with and I can stalk, er, I mean hunt them down, er, no, reconnect, there! with them.
2. Friends! Okay, so let's be honest here. The reason I'm a host (other than the fact that I LOVE these books) is that I have met so many great people here. Some of my best friends have come from these boards. However, as I've gotten moved around, host duties switched around, I haven't been able to join in with my friends elsewhere on the boards as much as I'd like. Now, I can click on a little button by a person's name, add them as a friend, and then (once they accept my invite), I can get updates from them on my profile. That, to me, is so cool! Now, I can see that one of my friends has posted a blog and I can go check it out. Or maybe someone I don't know comes and visits a place I've been. Maybe I find that person interesting. Now I can go read his or her other posts, and volia! I've got a new a friend.
So there you go. My top two so far. Any other takers?
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance
Everything In One Place
I like having it all together. I kind of forget about the other boards because I'm on the Steeple Hill boards so much. But it so easy to keep up on the other boards now by adding them to the favorites, or adding the people who are on those boards to your friends. And that link for "Book Review" reminds me to tell everybody about the books I've read!! (because I sometimes forget to do things like that
)
Michelle
My Blog: www.michelleswritingspace.blogspot.com
I'm liking it now that I'm
I'm liking it now that I'm getting used to it. I like the new way the new posts things work, but it is kind of scary to me that it tells you the exact times of the last postings. I have discoverred the book review thing and enjoyed putting two of the last few books I read up there!
It's nice to have my "favourite" threads in one place where I can check on them or whatever from right there without having to go through other stuff to get there.
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretzky
books
Dream, I just saw your profile and noticed you said you'd run out of things to read for your age---I had the same problem. I think I've been reading since I was born and hated library talks at school because my sister had taken me there BEFORE I ever went to school and started showing me stuff--and not just the kid stuff. I read through all the books in the elementary school library and my teachers had the librarian take me over to the high school library during library time so I could pick something new to read---I pretty much went through their books before I got to high school.
I absolutely love books and have four (very big) overflowing bookcases of them! When I moved into this new duplex one of the guys helping commented that I had more boxes of books than I had anything else. He is right.
by the way, where did the change the font colour disappear to? I don't see it anymore.
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretzky
Ah, the book dilemma!
I can totally relate to the book dilemma. That was our issue when we moved this summer. Most of my books are still in boxes. I stopped counting at 40 boxes.
The frustrating thing for me when I was a kid was that the librarian would only let you take out so many books at a time. Or, this one I had, she wouldn't let me take things that were at my reading level, it had to be my grade level. UGH.
Anyway, the font color thing has been disabled for now, as it was tied to a bug they're working on.
Oh and yes! Isn't My Favorites great?! I love it. I can't tell you how much easier it makes everything for me.
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance
I would have to say my
I would have to say my favorite thing is the My favourites and the my friends part. I like how you are able to save blogs or forums to your favourite list so you don't have go searching around for it. I am slowly getting the hang of the new boards.
Tiffany
BJBC
My Shelfari Page
library
Ohh that sounds sooo frustrating. I'm glad I had marvelous English teachers in primary school, I remember Mrs. Sands talking to the librarian and telling her that I'd already read everything in the library and to let me go over to the high school library to check out their books (which I got to keep longer because they were high school books, hehehe
)
One thing I LOVE about grad school is anything I check out from the University library is I can keep it for a whole semester, not just a month!!
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretzky
Adjusting
I am still adjusting to the new boards and can not figure out how to make them easy for myself. Before I used to be able to come to the site and see in a glance what areas had new messages. Now, the process takes me several clicks and long scrolls. Am I missing something? When I get to the place, I can see which areas have new messages, but even if I click on the 'New', half the time I still have to scroll a long ways. and, in posting -- is the only way to post to reply to a message?
Janet
Janet Tronstad
www.JanetTronstad.com
Dry Creek Sweethearts now on shelves
A Heart for the Dropped Stitches coming in July 2008
Two more contemporary Dry Creek and a historical Dry Creek coming in 2008
new message
I've found that it goes right to the newest when you click on 'new' sometimes----and sometimes it doesn't. Maybe there's a kink in the system at the moment....
It should say "Add new comment" up at the top of the posts---
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretzky
Favorites are your friend
Janet, the easiest way (and one of the features I love) is to set up your favorites. Go to the discussions you like to read, and click on the button that says Add to Favorites. Once you have favorites, on the sidebar is a button that says My Favorites. When you click on that, it lists all your favorite discussions and whether or not they have new posts. So it's a one-stop discussion portal.
Yes, the new message scrolling issue is a bug they're still working on.
They are also working on getting an add comment button on the bottom as well as on the top.
So see, we'll get there!
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance
Font size
Dream -- Am I imagining it or were our old posts easier to read? I'm wondering if black could be a choice for the text? Or maybe a larger font size? I notice people's names are particularly small and hard to read -- the name up by the date posted. I like to know who the post is from before I read it so I don't like to have to go to the bottom to see who it's from (it's particuilarly hard to read initials, short names,etc.) --
Janet
Janet Tronstad
www.JanetTronstad.com
Dry Creek Sweethearts now on shelves
A Heart for the Dropped Stitches coming in July 2008
Two more contemporary Dry Creek and a historical Dry Creek coming in 2008
We're also working on font
We've had a number of folks with the same request and I know they are working on getting that changed as well.
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance
Good
Dream -- It sounds like you and your team are working hard to make it better than ever. thanks.
Janet
Janet Tronstad
www.JanetTronstad.com
Dry Creek Sweethearts now on shelves
A Heart for the Dropped Stitches coming in July 2008
Two more contemporary Dry Creek and a historical Dry Creek coming in 2008
Font
A different one would be nice---for whatever reason this font makes my 'name' look like lla when it's actually ila---but the uppercase i looks like the lowercase l----don't they mark children down for that??
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretzky
LOL!
But LLA is so hard to say!
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance
Names
Just think Battlestar Galactica----
And LLA is so much more difficult to say than ila---which might make it more fun..... but I just changed in the profile so it's all lower case---which is kind of icky looking to me, but at least it's easier on the eyes.
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretzky
A little bit welsh?
LLA, I like it! Maybe it's just the Welsh pronounciation?
Jayne
Community Manager
"We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh"—Agnes Repplier
Welsh
I hadn't thought of that, but LLA would kind of be Welsh---at least the start of something Welsh anyway. Hmmm...
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretzky
technical issues
Say Dream, I have some tech issues and since I don't see a general "tech forum" I'll ask here.
First, the pages take *forever* to load on my computer. OK, I timed it and it's about 30 seconds, it just feels like forever, plus the fact that it freezes the whole computer while loading. (ps--this doesn't happen to any other site I visit, that I can think of) I'm using cable, so it should not be so long. Of course, after I open a topic and wait 30 seconds, then I have to wait again after I click on "last page" to read the current posts. And since I don't see others frustrated about this, it must be something here. Honestly, I thought about visiting the site last night and decided not to, simply because it was too much frustration to read the posts.
Another oddity here is that Aurelene's posts (only her posts) do not word wrap. Until today, they scrolled over and I could still read them, but today's simply truncated. They also have dashes between each word, which may explain the word wrap thing.
I'm using the latest version of firefox and have cable internet and have deleted cookies, caches, etc to no avail.
Any suggestions?
--Barbara
Currently reading LEGACY OF SECRETS by Sara Mitchell
Thanks Barbara!
I'll pass on the loading comments.
As for Aurelene's posts, that's a quirk of her computer system that she's had forever. If I remember correctly, her spacebar doesn't work. Anyway, in the past, I'd go in and fix some of her posts because they messed up the boards, so you probably didn't notice. Since it hasn't affected the boards, I haven't done that since we've moved. But I can probably go in and do it again.
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance
I know that on the Corral
what we're (trying to do) doing is after we type our post, we make it all BOLD so that it's easier for others to see. Don't know if that'll help any of you others or not.
Hi Dream!
Hugs,
April
You can do anything if you put your mind to it.... but it won't go far without the rest of your body.
Chiming In
Hi Dream --
Thought I'd chime in here and ask if the techies are making any progress in making things easier for us. I'm thinking particularly of needing to do all the scrolling. If memory serves me right, we are supposed to be able to click on the 'new' line from our favorites list and get to the new message instead of needing to go to the thread and scroll to whereever the message is.
Janet
Janet Tronstad
www.JanetTronstad.com
Dry Creek Sweethearts now on shelves
A Heart for the Dropped Stitches coming in July 2008
Two more contemporary Dry Creek and a historical Dry Creek coming in 2008
Still working on it
At least as far as I know... occasionally we'll get updates on other things being fixed, so hopefully soon!
Have you entered the Dropped Stitches Heart Sweepstakes?
Check out the Steeple Hill online read Small-Town Romance