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

Welcome to h2g2...

I'm Stealth.
I'm your Assistant Community Editor, an <./>ACE</.> All this means is I'm here get you jump-started into the community.

To start a new conversation you use the 'Discuss this Entry' button.

One of the many great things about h2g2 is the Smileys... to see a full list of them and the commands simply click on any smiley in any conversation and you'll be taken to the smiley homepage... <./>Smileys</.>

Don't be intimidated by the size and scope of h2g2, it's one the friendliest places off of you could hope to be a part of. If some of the hootoo lingo leaves you a little confused, there is a handy page all about it @ A632431

If you want to GuideML your personal space, you can pick up some great tips @ A690518
Rocket Man's useful links and info page can be found @ A725500
Also Feisor's page @ A719840 gives you resource of tips and links that could be useful.


You may like to take the <./>DontPanic-Tour</.> for a more comprehensive description of how h2g2 works... You might find <./>DontPanic</.> very handy.

A great way of getting involved in the comunity here is by checking out <./>Askh2g2</.>
Both <./>ThePost</.> [our weekly 'newspaper'] and the <./>frontpage</.> are ways of keeping tabs on what is going on in the community h2g2 in general.

The 'Search h2g2' button is there so you can find guide entries by other Reseachers on a myriad of things. If there isn't one on something you know about or are interested in researching you may like to check out the Writing-Guidelines and set about creating one of your own

Any trouble or questions just ask...

Hi Stealth,

Thanks for the welcome and the offer of assistance!

I started replying to this about an hour ago, then managed to lose it at the slip of a mouse button. It's vanished off the face of the, well, my computer. I've just started using the Opera browser and I'm not quite used to it yet. That'll be it

Hey look! The smiley works!

No doubt I'll be taking you up on your kind offer at some stage but, for now, I'll keep it simple until I've found my way around a bit more. I had a brief attempt at converting my user space to html (I mean GuideML) but ran out of time before I could get it right. So much for keeping it simple. I'll come back to it another day.

It may not seem obvious from my efforts so far, but I do actually work with computers. I started out on mainframes many moons ago, programming in IBM assembler amongst other things, but somehow wound up as a UNIX technician, much to my surprise.

I could waffle on, but I see you're online now, so I'll post this right away. That'll give me time to do a bit more lurking before bed time.

As I said in my intro, I don't get much time on the computer so there may be long gaps between postings, but don't worry I'll be back - no doubt with a bucket load of questions.

Thanks again,
Kemlo

Ah lurking, yes
There's upto a 15 minute delay between someone logging off and their name disappering from the who's online list...
So I wasn't ignoring you...

Good to see you've master the <./>Smileys</.>

If you have techie question the Gurus may be able to help better than I. But I tend to think if you know your way around html then GuideML should come pretty quick as you hinted.

Hello again. I have a question!

I've been trying to update my User page this morning - making sure I kept a copy offline in case I lost it again. I've changed it to GuideML and added a few links. The preview looks OK as far as I can tell, so I selected Update Introduction, then wandered off to look at other bits of the guide (in a new browser page) while it did it's stuff.

Coming back to my update page about ten minutes later, I went from there to My Space, but it hadn't been updated. Clicking Update resulted in a message asking me to be patient. Okay, there's lots to see and I have the morning free. I went off and looked at the ACEs home page amongst other things (didn't realise you were so busy).

Half an hour later, I went to view my User page again and it still hadn't been updated so I clicked the Update button again. This time I got the message 'Please don't press this button again'. This made me Laugh Out Loud (yes I've read the books!) but didn't actually help much.

Oh yes, the question: am I doing something wrong? Hang on, I'll just check to see if anything's happened yet.



Now I feel really silly. This time I remembered to relaod the page and, and there it is! I won't make that mistake again!

I just clicked Post instead of Preview. I meant to add, please could you take a look at my first attempt, particularly the links. The link to the SF forum was meant to go to a particular entry at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F46918?thread=66858&post=494631 but it seems to go to the header page for that forum. And I'm not sure why the 'A' appears after the user names. Any ideas?

Hi there
Soz about the late reply, I've enjoying myself in Bristol away from the computer

Your page looks OK though in the link to Kandyman has an unneeded '>' in it. I see you discovered GuideML doesn't work in posts...
You may be able to find other fans of Kemlo by starting a conversation on <./>Askh2g2</.>

I'm not sure why it goes to the entry you may want to ask a Guru about that one...
Not sure what you mean about A's after user names...
Sorry.

Hi Stealth

I fixed the 'A's before you saw the errors I think. It was something to do with my omitting a description after the LINK tag.

Don't worry about late replies - I'm pretty good at those myself. After a brief flurry of activity I'm back to a once-a-week update, which is a shame really as I've hardly begun to explore h2g2. I like what I've seen so far. It does make it difficult for me to complain at my son spending all his time on MSN when he's supposed to be doing his homework.

Which reminds me, I'm supposed to be working myself at the moment, so I'd better go Where's that tongue-in-cheek emoticon when you need one?

Glad you like it here Kemlo There's alot to of hootoo to explore...
As for tonguein-cheek smileys the best I can offer is a One for the suggestions list

I hope you can find some time to enjoy h2g2, tis a friendly place...