h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm delighted I made you laugh but gulliable? Why? It can't be anything I've said, because I have no way of talking on this computor....

It's something called the Viewer tag, so that everyone who comes to this Personal Space sees their own name there.
Oberon2001

Yessssssss!

Another victim! Thanks for coming here, thanks for reading, thanks for falling for it and thanks for leaving a message! Much appreciated!

H.

That's mean...
Hey, your name is spelt right (if you're going by DNA anyway). Should be Hooloovoo
Oberon2001

I see you're new here, so let me take this opportunity to welcome you to h2g2 - I hope you enjoy using it as much as I have over the last couple of years.

Personal spaces *can* be written in plain text, but the majority of people who use the site regularly take a little time to learn GuideML - it's pretty painless, and it lets you do stuff like use headings, bold and italic text, links and other stuff on your page. It really is very simple - just start your space with and end it with , and in between surround everything with the right "tag". For instance, paragraphs get surrounded by a and a . Tags usually come in pairs like that.

Anything you want in bold type, such as the word "this", you'd mark up like this.

I expect you can guess how you'd mark up italics. If you guessed like this, you guessed correctly.

For bold italics, you'd "nest" the tags, like this, or possibly like this, but NOT like that. See the difference? In the first, the italic tags are "nested" inside the bold. In the second, the bold tags are "nested" inside the italic ones. In the third, they kind of overlap. That'll give you an error.

Note that this only works on your personal space, not in postings such as this one, and it only works if you click the "Change Style" button when editing your space.

Now... if you just put in a tag that looks like this: (on its own, not in a pair), anyone looking at the space sees their own name, like you did on my space. See what mischievous use you can make of THAT

If you go to someone's userspace and see some particularly cool effect and want to know how they do it, look in your address bar. It will end with something like "dna/h2g2/brunel/U114627". Now, replace the "U" with "testuserpage", and you'll see the GuideML code for the page.

If you like it - steal it! That's how most people learn.

Anyway, thanks again for popping in (what were you doing on my space, if you don't mind me asking?) and do have fun!

H.

Thank you for the explanations (didn't understand a WORD of it, but what the hey, the thought was there) I've managed to avoid technology for most of my life, but took up computoring last week - haven't got the hang of ANY of the jargon and still refer to my PC - much to Kevin 2's annoyance - as "My Machine". I will get the lads to translate what you were talking about after school today - Kevein 1 DID read it and say "Yeah" but this was very early and the chances of getting much sense out of a 16 yr old is sparce - he doesn't DO mornings... neither do I as a rule, but I've work today, thank God.
How did I get on "Your Space?" Well, I clicked a picture that said "Who's on Line" and beetled down the list of names who were and clicked on to any that appealed to my sense of humour. Hoovooloo was from Hitchikers, wasn't it? One of Adams' throwaway lines; or was it Pratchett? Can't remember, but I remembered the name and remembered it tickled my humour so I visited your page. Basically, just being nosy, I guess.

Anyway, thank you for your belated welcome. I must admit, I did take the dig about being gulliable rather to heart - as long as its because I'm simply a duffer at computor whizzy stuff |I can quite happilly put my hand up and say "Yep, thats me" and not mind a bit.
But just wait till I get a visit from one of these Ace -y bods and I understand how to do icons and I get the kids translations - I'm a quick study even if I am daft as a brush!!!!

Many thanks for rapping Mr Hoovooloos knuckles for me - I've only just started computing (began last week infact after avoiding technology for most of my 45 years. I still think LIGHTBULBS are pretty high tech!) However, one has to keep up I guess, being dragged kicking and screaming into the century of the fruitbat or whatever this particular millenia is (I Like Mr Adams, godresthim but I cannot help but prefer Terry Pratchet's work) so could you find time to explain how I get smileys and icons and moving waggly bits for my personal space, and also (and as privately as you can achieve this please, I DO NOT want to look too stupid in public) explain just what on earth I fell for - I know you mentioned viewers tag and my eldest son said he'd explain later (like when he'd woken up, which could take all day) I have no problem with causing harmless amusement but I'd like to be in on the joke so I can expand it - if you see what I mean. I think, once I've got the hang o the technology I could have a great deal of fun and learn an awful lot of stuff - it beats the hell out of retail therapy

I'm glad you took it to heart - it made you stop and leave a message!

Tell you what - when I get home this evening I'm going to reinstate my old userspace, and it's got some wacky bits on it you can steal. It's also got some links that I guarantee will make you laugh.

As for making smiley faces, try type this without any spaces in it:

< c h e e r s >

That'll give you this:



Click on that (go on, do it now) and it'll take you to a page showing you how to do loads more.

H.

like this?

Oh Wow, this is really clever!!! this is much better than showing off to the lads about C and G certs - this is something they'll relate and be impressed by!!!

I think what I ought to say is this and

I don't care HOW "gulliable" I appear, I still think is is

Somewhere on someone's site I was left an email address but I never thought to save it and got sidetracked and the screensaver thingy came up and I lost the site - was it you or some other poor misguided soul?

Anyway have to I too actually have work to do today

OK, Witchone... click my name. Go ahead.

Why are you still here? Oh... dial up connection eh? Yeah, mine's slow too...




You're not STILL here are you? Click my name. See my space. Steal some GuideML.

Laugh at the amusing links. Or not. Please yourself.

H.

Many thanks indeed! !!! I ached with belly muscles I didn't know I had when I saw The Little Boy who was scared, which probably proves that a sick sense of humour is alive and kicking all over the UK. I am going to have to do some serious studying re internet jargon and HMTL language - the lads seem to understand wat you're doing, and after a lot of effort, I think I've managed to paste your "How its done" stuff into a file on my word processor, so I can refer to it a bit later on when I've got my head round all the ideas. Bear with me, |I'm not willfully ignorant - nor proud of it - but I can see I've got ons to learn - and I reckon it'll become quite addictive once I lose the initial "Oh Christ what am I doing?" feeling I get; I am creative - I cannot be expected to be technical too goddammit!Now I actually understand how you did the gulliable thing, I can see - and appreciate the joke - cruel, nasty, typical engineers humour and as long as I don't get caught again, very very funny!!! Have to go now - got an emotional crisis with my 16yr Kevin and need to do a bit of research on how to kick the bugger into reality without making him feel too or. Honestly! I can't think of a worse time than adolescence..... C U one

Oh... I tried for italics and Bold as you suggested further back in the conversation, but it didn't.... hang on, italics and bold only come out on personal space, right? Its OK, I'll get the hang of this new way of writing. Now I can figure and accept why the little s and faces sometimes need to be an integral part of Posting. Thanks for your help and advise - may I put you on my friends list in case I want to ask other damn fool questions? Let me know

"italics and bold only come out on personal space, right?"

Correct - you're a quick learner alright. If I want to emphasise something in a conversation posting, I either SHOUT or surround the word I want to emphasise with *really* emphatic asterisks. Other people like to imply italics with /slashes/, and imply underlining like _this_, but I don't like that, personally. Choose what you like, people will usually understand. Indeed, I understood perfectly what you were about with the tags you put in, it's just that they're less convenient to type than *asterisks*, is all.

"the little s and faces sometimes need to be an integral part of Posting."

Generally I don't use them, unless I feel I'm talking to someone who may be either too emotionally charged or too thick to understand when I'm joking or being ironic - irony is easy to miss in a plain text message, so a on the end is usually understood to mean "this is a gag". I also occasionally use them to wind people up - after saying something contentious can be an effective way to induce apoplexy in someone in whom you've carefully nurtured a feeling of righteous indignation...

"Thanks for your help and advise - may I put you on my friends list in case I want to ask other damn fool questions?"

Feel free, as long as you don't mind the distinct possibility of damn fool answers

H.

This I can cope with - TA!

PS I will have to look up the word contentious in my Dictionary of Difficult Words (there really is such a book, honest), but I have a darn good idea of what you mean. As for Irony, I run on the stuff. I often come out with jokes very straight faced and the hard of thinking get all.. erm... miffy and outraged. A distinct handicap in my line of work, where technically, it should be all beans and lentils and dreamy weamy stuff ho hum, back to the drawing board.....