Joel - thanks for the info. We know you're doing your best. Perhaps it's time to tell the manufacturer of the software that you're posting their name and web address so we can all let them know what we think of their software and service.
jekbear

This is to let you all know that the bulletin board amnesia now seems to have been cured.
I now have my name back after much wrangling by Joel.

Well done Joel. Toot !

Ken Hume

I hope that no one has mis-understood my comments in past posts.
I'm by no means 'bashing' anyone. I like the new forum.
I just need to understand how to use it properly so that we all can use it to it's fullest potential.
As with all new software there is a learning curve and with some of us the curve is a big one.
Hopefully the answers will solve some of my understanding problems.
Thanks again and I know you 'at the home office' are all busy with many things.
Jim

Jim,

No need to be apologetic.

The recent loss of our bulletin board has highlighted the real importance of this facility.

Since many of us do not possess the literary genius required to grace the pages of Timber Framing we desparately need this forum to be able to share our more ordinary and mundane experiences with other members and visitors.

I don't believe that any of us are any less valuable or cannot contribute in some way to the strength and resource provided by the TFG body provided we have an effective and efficient 2 way means of communication.

Our "old fashined", paper based, 1 way methods of communication are subject to editing, suffers from a tremedous time lag before publication and costs a lot of money to implement and operate and is not user friendly.

I recently lost my TF no 56 and in desparation turned to the Guild to buy a replacement but with no positive outcome. I was however able to download Jack Sobon's article from this issue direct from the Guild web site. This may seem trivial but it is really important to be able to quickly tap into our data base of established knowledge.

I greatly value having been able to seek answers through this board to the real problems that I face in my career as a timber frame designer and engineer and I am very grateful that the membership, including Jim, has responded and helped me resolve or at least develop a better understanding on a particular issue.

The data bank of learning that had become established on "Ask The Experts" was getting to the point where using an advance search facility would probably have yielded a result on almost any topic.

This demonstrates that even though none of us knows all the answers, collectively we seem to manage to get there.

It would be quite correct to assume that I was "mad as hell" to discover the loss of 2 years worth of entries to the board and yes I was frustrated in not knowing where I should turn to to get my password problem solved but then maybe this is in part because I know that the Guild is no longer a poor organisation and has money in the bank to help solve problems such as these.

I agree it is wrong for us to put Joel in the firing line and extend my apologies to him for being the butt of our frustrations but right now he is our first point of contact when in fact he should be the last. This needs to change.

Any big company or organisation knows and understands the necessity and importance of backing up computer information. The TFG should be no different in this respect.

As an organisation the membership is thinly spread over an extremley wide area spanning many continents. I doubt if the purchase of a new permanent home for the Guild matters more than sorting out our long range communication skills and capability.

Jim's questions on how to post a picture, simple though it is, needs to be answered. If I knew the answer I would tell Jim and I would probably post pictures myself.

In my opinion our first priority should be to maintain, improve and service internet based comunications methods since this will most equitably benefit all of the membership.

Can we please have a "toot" graemlin. I am now finished sounding off.

Regards

Ken Hume

To all:
I had a discussion the other day with my brother, as he works for a computer software company, and he said from what I described to him that if you use the (img)http/whatever/whatever(/img) as described in the instruction page of how to post images, that the post containing that Instant UBB code will go to the site where that image is parked and get it and then post it to the message where the image command is placed.
So I guess I've answered my own question and that you can't upload an image to this board's computer. You have to have a web page of your own, where you have your own pictures or images stored and then you can post them into your posts.
Does that explanation sound correct? to any of you out there?
So Ken if you've got a good shot of something at your web page, try it and see if it works.
Good luck, Jim

Makes perfect sense to me.

We probably don't want folks filling up our web storage with images, but we certainly don't want to prevent participants from pointing to images on other servers to illustrate a point.

Let's try it out!

Jim,

Here is my attempt to show the picture of the Karsamaaki Hewer on my web site. I pressed the image button on the bulletin board new message menu and added the URL reference to the photo found by right clicking on the website photo and then selecting and copying the "properties" of the photo. I copied this URL reference to clipboard and then entered it into the message.


Regards

Ken Hume

Ken:
Thanks for the shot. It looks like it will work great!
And Joel, I agree that sending in pictures could cause a problem with limited storage.
Well now that, that problem has been solved, what about finding out why all the last two years of posts can't be seen, or how we can again access them?
Can you ask the software provider for some help on that?
Thanks Jim

We are in fact working on recovering thos historic posts, which I completely agree form a valuable resource.

Two things are happening - we are pressuring the software provider, and we are hiring a new web team, who will start on April 1.

I remain confident that they will eventually be made available to you - but I am reluctant to provide a date-certain.

Thanks for that update.