Welcome to the Freddy and Eddy boards! This guide is mostly for newbies, although perhaps even the long timers will find something useful in my rambling. I don't mean to step on any toes, so if something like this already exists, I apologize! Just trying to make myself useful

Warning: These instructions are very wordy and detailed, hopefully I've been able to "oops-proof" them!


Lesson one: Registering your Account!

The first step after deciding that you would like to be able to post messages and get in on the discussions here, is to register. Click on "login/join" at the top of the boards, in the orange strip. We'll assume you do not yet have a groupee account, so go ahead and select that option. Enter your email address in the first two boxes, and make up a password and enter it in the next two boxes. Repeating makes sure you don't accidentally typo something important! Decide if you want the boards to "remember you" ie, keep you logged in all the time. If so, check both boxes. If not, only click "I agree" and then the join button. The system will send you an email with your account name and password in case you lose it. Select "continue" and "no, I have not previously registered" then enter your birthday and click continue.

Now you'll need to decide on a display name for yourself. For example, mine is bluesedai. Yours can be anything you like, as long as it's not already someone elses name (darn, I know you all really wanted to be Freddy, right? )

If you want to have one of those little pictures under your name (it's called an avatar) click on the edit button. A few pictures will come up that you can choose from, or you can use your own! To choose an avatar that's already there, click on it and then choose "select this one" and you're all set! If you would rather have one of your own, choose "custom avatar" If you know where your avatar is hosted (like www.picture.com/picture.jpg) put that address into the URL box. It will automatically be shrunk down. If you would rather use your own picture, click "upload custom avatar" then browse. Find the picture you want to use and click open, then update. Voila!

The next box is for your signature. You can out an amusing quote, just your name (like mine) or nothing at all! Anything goes. It will automatically be attached to the end of your posts, unless you decide to turn it off.

Location: You can put where you live, just the country, or something completely random like "in the ufo of the aliens who abducted me" It's not a mandatory field, so feel free to leave it blank.

You can also decide here to allow emails from the admins. Personally, I've never recieved anything, and I'm sure they wouldn't abuse the privilege, but it's your decision

Once you're done, click submit. You can get back to this page anytime by clicking on go -> my space -> profile and then clicking on the "edit profile" link

Thus concludes the first installment. I'll be back with more a bit later!