OCC Forum November 7, 2008 F:\$POOL\$UP-OCC\occforum.rtf

The blog I tried earlier for members to leave messages for other members was a dud it seems -- members had difficulty understanding and using it so it has pretty much died on the vine.

Bharat and I are trying a FORUM this time. We hope you’ll find it easier to use than the blog but only you can tell us if that’s true or not.

Bharat has done all the work really—I just found the web site and set up these instructions. I expect most of us will just use the text messages but if you want to post images or use some of the other features of the forum, have a look at the “FAQ” Board (Frequently Asked Questions) that Bharat set up or speak to Bharat personally or email him on the forum. Bharat is definitely the expert on this forum – he is also the Administrator of it.

You’ll also notice (on the forum) references to “PMs” – Personal Messages – that you can send to any user that has registered on the forum. Whenever you see the option “Send a PM” that is what is being referred to.

It takes about 30 seconds to sign up for the forum. We hope that this will be of use to some of you—it is of particular value when you’d like to let everyone else in the club know about something without going through Monica or myself.

So please at least have a look at it and see what Bharat has already set up.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Go to the site http://occcanada.hyperboards.com/

You will see the following in the top-left corner of the screen:

Click on the link “Register”.

2. You’ll then see the following screen:

Choose a user name – I suggest your first and last name (or enough of it to make it obvious who you are) – NO SPACES or special characters are allowed. It is also case-sensitive so I suggest all lower-case to make logging in simpler. eg I used bobbell

Enter a password, your email address, the Security Code you are presented with and check the 3 Disclaimer Boxes. Then click the “Create Account” button.

3. You should then see the following screen (with the ‘Good news:’)

Key in your user name and password, change the “Auto logout after” time if you want to or just leave it at 30 minutes and click the “Login” button.

4. You’ll then get the following screen:

Click the “No” button.

5. You will then get the following screen (only partial screen is shown):

Your user name will show in place of mine.

If you scroll down the opening page, you’ll see the following:

Bharat has set up these 7 Boards/categories. You can think of them as “folders” on the forum. Each of these boards may or may not have messages within them depending on user activity – or lack thereof.

Click on one of the seven blue links to go to that Board. The following shows what you’ll see for the “OCC Club Outings” board (more accurately this is what I saw at the moment I checked it):

Now click on one of the blue links to see the corresponding message. I clicked on the link “OCC Ghost Town Outing” and found this message (The screenshot only shows the left-hand side of screen):

On the right-hand side of the screen you’ll see these buttons:

The quickest and simplest way to respond is to click the “Quick Reply” button.

The screen will then look like this:

PLEASE NOTE: The Quick Reply “box” will be at the bottom of all the messages

– there is only one message shown below.

Type your message in the box under “Quick Reply” and click the “Post Reply” button.

That’s it!

PLEASE NOTE:

You’ll find that you cannot reply to some messages—they are for information only. Bharat has indicated which ones these are with an appropriate note. In the case of these messages there will not be any Reply or Quick Reply buttons.

When you’re finished with the forum, click the “Logout” button near the top-right corner of the screen.

Please let me know if these instructions can be improved.

Good luck with it,

Bob

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