This is your starting point for taking part in the Hometime Users Forum, where you can Register Now or Log In Now and enter the Forum immediately. You can also scroll down to read through the Users Forum FAQ, which'll give you some idea of what the Forum's about, how it's organized and how it's navigated.
NOTE: We've streamlined Forum Registration so new users can choose their own Login Names and Passwords and enter the Forum immediately, since we no longer issue randomly generated passwords by e-mail. So anyone who had trouble registering before is encouraged to please Try Again!
NAVIGATIONAL NOTE: The Forum's dynamic programming provides user-specific pages for frequent visitors, and the software is triggered by linking to the Log In page from this Gateway. So it's better to bookmark THIS page and Log In above, rather than bookmark the Log In page itself. Starting from there without linking from this page often leads to error messages.
Click on any question for the answer, or scroll down to read them all.
- What Is the Users Forum?
- What Is the Users Forum NOT?
- How Do I Take Part?
- How Do I Log In?
- Why Do I Have to Register and Log In?
- Why Do I Get Database Error Messages?
- How is the Forum Organized?
- Is There a Forum Search Mechanism?
- Why Are So Many Messages Dated February 29?
- Why Can't I Find the Forum Preview Message I Submitted?
- How Do I Read a Message?
- Why Are There Mail-To Links on Some Messages But Not All?
- How Do I Reply to a Message?
- How Do I Post a Message?
- Why Do the Forum Links Sometimes Seem Slow?
- Will Hometime Answer Questions in the Forum?
- Can I Leave the Forum and Browse Other Hometime Areas?
The Forum is a place for Hometime fans to share questions, answers and information with each other on home improvement, remodeling, how-to and do-it-yourself issues and techniques.
The Forum is NOT a place for advertising products or services.
It is NOT a place for embarrassing, criticizing or harassing other users.
And it is NOT a place for defamation, libel or obscenity.
We first direct new users to our Registration page, where we ask that they choose a login name and a password (letters or numbers are fine, but no spaces, please) and provide us their full name and their e-mail address. Then when they click on the Register Now button, they are registered in the Forum, logged in and linked directly to a page listing all the Forum Topics.
You'll find Log In links at the top of this page (Users Forum Gateway), and you can link to this page from any of our other pages by clicking on the Forum icon in the navigational bar at the bottom of the page. Once you link to the Log In page, you simply fill in your login name and password and click the Log In Now button.
We feel that if people provide their e-mail addresses in the registration process, they'll use the forum most responsibly which benefits everyone. In addition, the forum is truly dynamic and interactive, based on the login process. The forum software will know the date of your last visit and give you the option of viewing only the messages posted since that last visit, and with your login name and e-mail address on file, it shortens the posting and replying process.
It appears that if you get Database Error Messages when you're trying to log into the forum, it's usually because the forum software hasn't been triggered and you should try linking to the Login Page from the Home Page or at the top of this Gateway Page.And it appears that if you get Database Error Messages after successfully logging in, it's usually because your Login Name has spaces in it (example: John Smith) and you should probably re-register under a login name with no spaces in it (example: JohnSmith). Our apologies for not having that on the registration page before now.
We've established the following Topics, which pop up in a list after you log into the Forum.After they log in, new users will be presented a hyperlinked list of the above topics. And they can click on any of them to view a list of messages filed under that topic.
- Building and Remodeling (Techniques, tips and tools)
- Kitchens (Products, techniques, plumbing, repairs)
- Bathrooms (Products, techniques, plumbing, repairs)
- Interiors (Ceilings, walls, trim, decorating)
- Flooring (Vinyl, wood, tile, linoleum)
- Exteriors (Roofing, siding, windows, doors, trim)
- Mechanical Systems (Heating, cooling, insulation, plumbing, electrical)
- Basements and Foundations (Problems, repair, maintenance)
- Landscaping (Lawn, garden, deck, patio, fences)
- Home Technology (New products, uses, retrofitting)
- Hiring Professionals (Criteria, safeguards, recourses)
- Miscellaneous (What doesn't fit in any other topic)
On subsequent visits, users will have a choice of viewing a list of ALL the messages under a specific topic or just the NEW messages filed since their last visits. That should prove helpful since the volume of messages will probably grow rather quickly.
At this point, there is NO search mechanism like the ones we've placed on the main pages in our other areas. A searching function will require an exponential increase in the amount of programming needed, well above and beyond what's required to operate the forum as it's now constituted. But as the forum grows, a search mechanism may well become an attractive upgrade to a system that is now fairly simple but still extremely useful.
Those are the 400 or so messages we received during the month-long Forum Preview. We gave site visitors a chance to e-mail us home improvement questions and ideas while we polished the Forum presentation. We filed those in the topics described above and loaded them into the forum all at once on (you guessed it!) February 29.
We regret that while we appreciated the time and effort people spent crafting and e-mailing us their thoughts, ideas and questions when we were previewing the Forum, we had to winnow out those that did not really fit anywhere in the Forum once we established the structure, topics and guidelines. But we thank everyone for their submissions since we studied all the messages to come up with the specifics for this Users Forum.
You must first select one of our Topics, but once you enter any of those topics you'll see a link at the top of the page to Post a Message and a button at the bottom of the topic's list of messages. Click on either of those and you'll be presented with a form consisting of 2 boxes. Fill in the Subject box with a concise summary of your message, fill in the Message box and click on the Post Message button.TIP: When you're typing in the reply-to or post message windows, your copy will wrap when you reach the right edge so there's no need to hit return to keep your text in the window.
After you log in, choose a topic and view the list of messages filed there, you simply click on any one of them and you'll be presented with the full text of that message along with the options to Go Back to the Topic (view the list of messages again) or to the Topics List (to choose a new topic), Reply to the Message or Read the Next Message.
Mail-To Links are included on all messages and replies posted since the forum came on line, as they are on most Forums like this. It means that if you post a message or a reply, other users can respond to in the forum (for all to see) or they can e-mail you directly with specific information not applicable to the forum as a whole.NOTE: None of the messages received during the Forum Preview (and dated February 29) have these Mail-To links since they pre-dated the registration process. In fact, you may notice error messages where the forum software looks for an e-mail address that isn't there.
Two ways:1. There is a Reply to Message option whenever you select a message to read. Click on the Reply link, and you'll be presented a form with 2 boxes. The Subject box will have the title of the message you're reading, but you can change that if you like to reflect your reply. And you write your reply in the Reply box. Click on the Reply to Message button to post your reply and you'll be linked back to the list of messages almost immediately (allow some time for processing) where your reply will then appear for all to share.2. After reading the message, you'll see the link to E-Mail the person who wrote the message as described above. Click on that and your browser's automatic mailer will present you with an e-mail form addressed to the writer, and you can respond to that person alone--not the forum.
The links between forum pages might seem slow compared to regular hypertext links between static pages outside the forum. But remember that forum links are processed individually in order to produceon the fly pages tailored to your requests and your previous visits. So if there's a lot of traffic and response seems slow, please be patient because that's what it takes to give you a measure of true interactivity in the forum.
We regret that Hometime can take no responsibility for providing answers to any of the questions posted in the Forum.
Once you're in the Forum, you can leave it at any point from any page and go to any other Hometime page using the navigational tools at the bottom of all the forum pages.
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