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

Hi jane, I was just wandering if you could pass on a few tips. I am also new here and I think I'm totally lost!!!! Also, what do you think now that you have signed up?
Thanks, Samssassy

hello there . it is nice to see i am not alone in being lost. i really don't have any tips that i can pass on just yet. mostly i am just peeking into all the conversations and, when tempted, leaving comments.
what brought you to h2g2? i just ran across it while doing searches on the web. i spent a little bit of time just wandering around without signing up then decided i'd give it a whirl .
one thing i do like are the smileys. they have all kinds of them. i found that if you click on the ones you see around it will take you to a page full of them
jd

Hello, Jane, and Sassy.

Technicly' since I'm an ace, I can answer your questions, and all that. So if you have any, go ahead. I was lost and clueless once, too, you know. Just stopped about three hours ago.

*Looks rather proud*

the way my life normally works i could be here for years and still be quite lost
help, ok...you could give some pointers and dipping our feet into the water and actually having a conversation in one of these forums that lasts longer than one or two posts. this would be helpful.
also, making pages look spiffy. how do you do this?
jd

If you want to joint in a conversation about absolutely nothing and everything, then have a look here <./>F19585?thread=217597</.>

We are all complete nutters!! Everyone is welcome, but you might want to have a before entering. you might get confused!!

By the way, I've been here since September and still haven't found my way out.

As for spiffy pages, you'll need to use GuideML. You can find that info under the Don't panic area, and under FAQ. If you need any help, just ask!

If you want to check out how people get their pages spiffy, a useful trick is to replace the letter 'U' in somebody's address with the word 'testuserpage' and you can see the code used to make it. So, my address is http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U155846 - put http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/testuserpage155846 in the address bar of your browser and you can see how I did it - and nick any bits you particularly like. Really - nick them! Actually you'd do better to find a spiffier page than mine and nick that!

Before you can use GuideML in your page, though, you need to change the style from plain text to GuideML. To do this, click on 'edit page'. At the bottom, beneath the window where you write your text you will see 2 buttons marked 'plain text' and 'GuideML', and a button marked 'change style' - click on GuideML and change style and you are on your way!

Don't worry if it looks a bit complex at first - it's really quite easy once you get into it - you don't have to be a web wizard.

and they don't mind if you 'nick' stuff from their pages? that is really good. i will have to check out how yours and others are done then
thanks
jd

ooooh. Technical stuff.

yes, kind of interesting...if only i understood technical
i seem to have the smileys down really good though
jd

I gave up after about 10 attempts to change my user space!!

i ran across a researcher page that was just amazing. so many things on it, i don't think you could get bored even if this was the only page you dealt with for a week. i think the name was Greebo.
jd

Perhaps I'd better start getting used to guideML!!

i'm willing to give it a go if you are
of course this means that when you come to my page and see a complete garbled mess you can't laugh because i am warning you ahead of time that i will probably be like a cat with a ball of yarn
jd

Aha - it won't let you turn your page into a garbled mess if you use preview. When you press the 'preview' button you'll either get you spiffy new page, in which case you can click 'update' and stand back and admire your work, or you'll get the afore-mentioned garbled mess with a helpful (actually, not very helpful) message at the bottom telling you what you've done wrong. Well, it's more of a hint to be honest - but at least you know where to start looking.

I had one of them too!!!!

Sorry for the late reply! With Christmas and everything I have been very busy. At the moment I'm in the middle of exam period so still don't have much time with doing lots of revision and stuff. really nice to hear from you.
I got on to h2g2 by joining in conversatins on the messageboards, which i fine a valuable reasource with some college work, and I hoped this site would help also. Haven't quite figured out the smileys yet!
Anyway, thanks for your reply again.
Have fun
Sam
I've just sorted it out now!