Help File for Dune-Buggy.com
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If you have any questions or concerns regarding this page
or the "Terms of Use" page please email
me directly at tkirkwood@dune-buggy.com
or go to the public forum that is setup to openly discuss Dune-Buggy.com's
policies: The Clubhouse
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Before Posting
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Make sure you have read the Terms
of Use document. Also if you are posting a message in BuggyTalk, review the Dune-Buggy.com
FAQ first and search the existing messages in BuggyTalk. It's quite
possible that the question has already been asked and answered.
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User Profiles in General
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Before posting a message you must create a user profile. Only
a name. email, and password are necessary. The profile is intended to
allow users to say a little about themselves and show a picture of their
vehicle. You can see a person's profile by clicking on his name in a message.
The Profile you create is useable across all Forums and BuggyTrader on
this site. Remember your password because you're going to need it the first time
you post to a particular Forum.
If you are under the age of 18, do not put
your age in the Profile.
The profile is not intended for commercial advertising purposes. So
please don't use it as such.
While the information in the profile is completely voluntary, please
use a valid email address.
Dune-Buggy.com will not sell or distribute the information
in the profile and it is a copyright violation to use such information for
anything but your own personal use.
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Passwords / Profiles / And Cookies Problems
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Here's how it works, the first time you post a message you
create a profile. You can put as much or as little information as you want in
the profile, but use a real email address.
If you don't want to give out your personal or business email, you can get a
free email address (and voice mail) at www.excite.com
or www.hotmail.com. After you create
a profile, your browser saves a cookie on your computer that remembers some
information for your next visit. (That's how you see the "NEW" flags
next to the new messages.) Now if you go to another Forum on this site and post
a message, you will need to type in the Name, email address, and password that
you used when you created the profile. At that point the Forum will remember you
and the next time you post there it will "seed" the posting form with
your information. If you use another computer to access this site, then
just follow the same procedure that you would follow if you were accessing a new
board for the first time (name, email, password). Sounds simple enough in
theory.
Cookie problems: In reality, cookies sometimes don't work. Different
web browsers save cookies in different ways and sometimes the browser just
doesn't do it right. If you are having problems saving your user preferences or
the boards are not recognizing you after you have posted a message, the first
thing you need to do is close all browser windows and wait. You can reopen your
browser, but it takes about 30 minutes for the particular board to
recognize a new visit so be patient - or read another forum.
If you think that your cookies are not being saved properly, then you can
click on the links below to remove the appropriate cookie.
| TIP: In Internet
explorer, the cookies that you have accumulated from various web sites are
stored in the c:\windows\cookies\ directory. The new boards name the
cookie something like this: username@dune-buggy[1].txt. The old boards used
username@forsale[1].txt and username@buggytalk[1].txt. You can delete
these cookies manually to fix any problems or delete them if you want the site
to forget you. You will need to restart your browser for the changes to take
affect. |
Clicking on this in Windows should open a file explorer window of your
cookie directory
c:\windows\cookies\ |
Password Problems: Make sure you remember your password. If you
forgot it, I can't help you. You will have to create a new profile. Let
me know what your user name is and and I will delete it. The password
is CASE sensitive so make sure you are typing it properly. The cookie that is on
your computer stores the last password that you used for a particular forum. It
uses that to "seed" the form so you don't have to type the password.
If you think the password isn't working, try manually typing the password into
the password box.
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User Preferences
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You have the capability to change the way the
messages are viewed as well as the time period to view messages. (Just click on
"Set Preferences" on the main index page. If you visit the boards
regularly you may want to set the time period to only view new messages since
the last visit or the last few days. If this is your first time here then get
a cup of coffee ready and set your preferences to the max.
The listing style defaults to a "mixed threaded" display
which is different from the old style. I chose this one as the default because
the newest responses in the thread are at the bottom which is more intuitive. ie.
You read the newest threads first but in each thread you read from oldest to
newest. Make sense? If you don't like it just switch back to
"Reversed Threaded" in the preferences.
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Uploading Images and Images in General
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Pictures: The Image URL is designed to allow you to place
a picture with your message. For that reason URLs to a web page will not
work if placed in the Image URL box. In other words, the image URL is for a
picture not a web page.
Profiles: Feel free to upload your images to your
profile but please make sure they are under 40K in size. JPG compression is the
web standard for photographs and your scanner software should be able to save
images in that format. If not, there are plenty of graphics programs available
on the internet for free or cheap that can make JPG files.
External Sites: If you have an existing web page, or web
space, you can use that space to store images and include the link to the image
on the posting form. You may have one problem though: Some web sites
block web pages on other sites from being able to directly view or link
to images. This means you will not be able to link to the image if the
image is on such a web site. The main reason web sites do this is to conserve
the bandwidth for their own site. If you preview the post, you will usually
be able to see if this is the case. I say "usually"
because it is possible that you could have the image stored in your browser's
cache and thus when you preview the page, the image will come from the cache and
not the website. Therefore you will see the image but nobody else will. If
you refresh the page, you may be able to see the problem yourself because a
refresh causes the picture to be loaded from the web site and thus is is
blocked.
The best solution is to upload the picture here.
No Commercial Ads, No Banner Ads. Nuff said?. Please Read
the Terms of Use.
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Headlines
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When Posting a message, use a specific headline so the
readers know what is in the message. A question that asks "How do I convert
to an IRS suspension" will get a better response than saying "I need
help". If you are posting a classified ad, put your location on
the subject line.
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Replying to Messages
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Please try to avoid replying to ads in the BuggyTrader
classified section. Use personal email whenever possible unless it's
something that you think the whole community will need to read (or want to
read.)
In BuggyTalk, you're welcome to post replies as long as they comply with the Term
of Use. Please only post a reply if it ads value to the Forum. ie. NO
Personal attacks, No Flames, No Spam, etc...
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Formatting Codes
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The following codes are available to you if you want or need to
specially format your messages. Simply put the appropriate formatting codes
before and after the text you want formatted, and voila, you've moved out
of the world of plain text! (A legend is provided on the posting form.)
| [b]Bold Text[/b] = |
Bold Text |
| [i]Italic Text[/i] = |
Italic Text |
| [list][*]Item 1[*]Item 2[/list] = |
 | Item 1
| Item 2 |
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| [quote]Quoted Text[/quote] = |
Quoted (block-indented) Text |
| [code]Fixed-Width Text[/code] = |
Fixed-Width Text
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| [center]Centered Text[/center] = |
Centered Text |
| [big]Big Text[/big] = |
Big Text |
| [small]Small Text[/small] = |
Small Text |
| [red]Red Text[/red] = |
Red Text |
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Archives
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Older messages are automatically moved to the archives after 120
days in BuggyTrader or 365 days in BuggyTalk.
I've intentionally left the BuggyTalk Forum long (365 days) so that the
information is more easily accessible. BuggyTrader is now archived after 4
months. Please note: Unless you change your preferences. you will only see
the first few weeks of messages. So before looking in the archives,
set your preferences to an appropriate time frame to see all the messages.
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WebTV Users
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If you are a WebTV user, you will automatically be directed to
the "noframes" version of the indexes. This is due to the limitations
of the WebTV box. Also, the available memory in the WebTV box is limited so it
is quite possible that you cannot see the entire message index. If that is the
case, just change the time period in the preferences to limit the number of
messages displayed.
Uploading Pictures To Profile: My understanding is that WebTV does not
have any memory to store pictures internally and so you cannot upload pictures
directly from the WebTV box. The only alternative is to use a friends computer
to upload the picture. When you do this your going to have to tell the site who
you are. You do this by clicking on the Post Message link then enter the name
you used to create the profile, your email address and your password and a
subject line. Then click PREVIEW. Let me say that again CLICK PREVIEW.
NOT POST, you don't want to post an empty message do you? 'Course not. When you
hit the PREVIEW button, the cookie is set in the computer and the next time you
reload the index it will recognize you. Then just go to the "Edit
Profile" page and use the browse button to find the picture on your friends
computer. When you click "SAVE" the picture will be uploaded.
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SOLD ADS
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If you bought or sold the car/part in the ad, post a reply
to your original ad and state in the subject line that the car or part
has been sold. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it does provide the other
readers with information relating to the value of whatever you sold. (And the
value of BuggyTrader in helping you sell it.)
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Important General Tip - PREVIEW THE POST
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Never assume that your message will look the way you expect it
to look especially if you include an image! Previewing your message before you
post it is always a good idea and is even more important if you are using the
above formatting codes.
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That's all for now. This page will be changed and
updated as the situation dictates.
Have fun on the site and please be courteous to the
other users.
Todd Kirkwood |
