Your Help Needed - Evalutating NEW Forum Software

[Ridgerunner]

Mary, I can certainly rival you on being computer illiterate. I was doing OK when it was DOS based, but when the industry switched to Windows black box technology I quit keeping up with it. Besides the company had an IT department that discouraged you from tinkering with the company computer and my wife was helping take care of the computers in an elementary school. She certainly did not want me messing up the home computer. I remember when we got a hard drive that would hold 40m meg. That was huge! How are we ever going to fill up 40 meg?

Im truly a computer dinosaur but I do understand the need for change and upgrading. Im going to be gone the next two weeks, granddaughters birthday and then a wedding. I probably would not be doing any testing over there any way. I really do not enjoy doing that stuff.

Ive got two concerns Ill mention. First, not everyone has the latest hardware and software or the technical ability to play with browsers and all that. My computer turns three years old next week and I recently lost my ability to post photos over on BYC. I know it is because my software is out of date. Its just not worth the frustration to me of trying to figure out how to change browsers or whatever it takes, if my computer hardware can support the new stuff, plus I dont know how that might affect something else on my computer.

Nifty, I dont see a way out of this, other than me learning how to upgrade the software and dealing with whatever other effects that has. I understand you need to upgrade and keep up with technology. Ill deal with whatever the fallout is and be grateful I still dont have a landline. I hate to think how those people deal with modern technology.

The other thing is that I was able to turn off the ads on BYC. That made a world of difference in being able to maneuver through BYC. The back button actually works now. I dont have to leave BYC and type a response up on Word, then copy and paste it back in. I can actually insert Smilies now and italicize something without the text getting all jumbled. I appreciate that some people love playing with all the bells and whistles, but I personally generally use very few of them. Can you look at not having a lot of things not running in the background that can bog some of us down a bunch? My comment is not against the bells and whistles; its against things running in the background that gets so frustrating by bogging things down on my ancient three year old computer and software.

 

[canesisters]

Ill deal with whatever the fallout is and be grateful I still dont have a landline. I hate to think how those people deal with modern technology.

We sneak access on our work computers, at the library, at church... and only use the home landline (dial-up) for checking email.. not opening email - but checking to see if there is anything that might require a call or a trip to the library.

 

[Nifty]

MontyJ, I've had experience with Joomla, it's a very popular CMS. I'm personally a huge fan of Wordpress as a CMS. Either way, it's definitely a lot of work creating and maintaining these things!

canesisters, most browsers have a spell check built into them, but if there is a lot of interest we can look into adding one.

ninnymary, we're working very hard to make it easy to use. There's always some learning curve, but for the most part the process of doing basic stuff (reading posts and replying) will be the same... just much easier.

Ridgerunner, thanks for all that! My computer is actually 7 years old, running XP, etc. The most important thing is to use an updated browser (Firefox or Chrome). That usually resolves 90% of problems. The BYC platform is a bit less forgiving when it comes to a lot of things. It's great for a SUPER huge site, but not a great fit here, which is why we're going a different direction. Please test out the image uploads over at the test site and let me know if it works for you! Definitely give the software a try and let us know how it works. That's the big reason we're doing this testing. Also, I'd definitely encourage you to try out the newest version of Firefox or Chrome (stay away from IE). Both are free and neither should cause problems on your PC, but if they do, they usually uninstall very cleanly.

Yup, I definitely want to make sure the new system remains fast and responsive. We're not sure how we'll have ads setup there, but it will be more similar to here than anything close to BYC. Either way, definitely play around over there and report back!!

 

[897tgigvib]

Yep, google chrome is good and easy NinnyMary. Besides, it is in the same "ecosystem" as about half the cell phones out there, samsung g's s's and such. (I may actually be getting one if they have a volume button good for hard of hearing tinnitus folks).

What you do is find a 5 year old to 10 year old kid and ask him or her to change yer browser to google chrome. Might be good to bribe the kid with a collection of recent Disney rap tunes on dvd er sump'n like that. Just make sure the kid does not add End of the world armageddon V gaming programs to your computer! Course, if it's a 5 year old girl she might stick in care bears meet the koalas iii without you knowing it...

srsly, google chrome has easypeasy tabs at the top that took me 4 minutes to figure out. "Ohhhhhhhhh! Wayyy cool!" I liked it so much that when i needed the new computer early this year, ('member?), I bought the cheapest laptop, and it happened to be a chromebook, all googled up. Plug it in, turn it on, ready to go. Kinda limited with the bells and whistles...i'd love to see a laptop come with an actual bell one day...tabs, so here upload page is one tab, typing the message is in another tab. Usually have 3 tabs going, right now 2, but when the coffee's kicked in I might have 10 going, editing a wikipedia page, typing a message here, email, looking up some species of berry on another. Even an ole neanderthal gets to multitask. Takes good coffee though NinnyMary.

Gonna go check nifty's new forum thing in a few minutes...treps into uncharted territory!

 

[897tgigvib]

Mmmm k, I did it! So far no missiles have been launched or anything...

I posted a couple things...

what do i do when an alert thing pops up and disappears? :rainbow-sun

That brings up basic navigating around there questions...

 

[Nifty]

You don't have to do anything, but if you want you can see the alerts (new replies to your posts, etc.) at the top right of the page.

 

[897tgigvib]

I really like the little blurb that says online now, 3 guests, 3 members, 0 ROBOTS!

Nifty, you can put the word Robots at that place in big huge metal flake glossy flashing colors! Well, maybe not flashing...

 

[ninnymary]

Marshall, you crack me up! I can barely pronounce google chrome! Hearing you guys talk computer talk is sooooo over my head. I think this little pea brain is getting a headacne!

I barely know how to post pictures and that is looking at my notes a thousand times. Notice I don't have an avatar? Yep, too hard.

Mary

 

[897tgigvib]

Mary, go ahead and go to Nifty's link in post #1

Then go ahead and sign up.

Don't worry, you won't accidentally hit the code that fires missiles and starts WWIII, well, unless you're really good at hitting the wrong buttons!

Looking out my window double checking...yep, no mushroom clouds forming...

yet

and then go ahead and look around the page. if you zoomed in like me you may have to scroll bottom left and right to see everything.

after ya sign up, you get a doohicky in your email. Go ahead and go to your email, open it, then use that page if you don't yet use tabs for several pages.

I'll getcha goin on tabs later! Even the ole half blind neanderthal can do tabs!

Next: World domination! I'm wanting to have my own forum now!

 

[Nifty]

Honestly, I'm amazed that people have been able to figure out image uploading here. The system is old and hard to use. The new system should be MUCH easier for loading pics into posts!!