The VOX Showroom - The VOXbbc Membership README

The VOX Showroom!

The VOXbbc Membership README

The VOXbbc is a threaded message board which allows for viewing and the posting of visitor created messages. The intent of this board is to allow for the free distribution of VOX and VOX related information.
Please take a few minutes to read this page. It will help you naviagte the posting area, explain our system requirements and provide you with our "Terms Of Membership" (TOM) which you must agree to follow in order to be approved for membership.

General
Requirements
Membership Proceedures
Reading Subjects
Posting New Subjects
Posting Follow Ups To Subjects
Archived Threads
Posting Problems

GENERAL:
Upon entering the VOXbbc, you will see a list of the current subjects. These subjects are visitor created and you are encouraged to participate. Each subject includes the subject of the thread and directly below it information about who posted it, their name, the posting date, the posters email address and their Uid. (Uid = User Identification.)
If visitors have previously posted follow up messages to the original message, these will be listed just below the original subject post proceeded by a bullet. Again, the followup message includes the followup posters posting date and name and Uid.

If no follow up has yet been posted, the subject and corresponding posting information will be all that is displayed.

Personal information you provide to us during the membership application process is used for administration purposes only. Unless specified, The VOX Shoroom does not share, sell or otherwise lend any of our users personal information to any third parties.

REQUIREMENTS:

It is recommended that you use a modern browser such as Netscape Navigator 4.x or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 SP2 or greater. These browsers can be obtained for free from Netscape or Microsoft's web sites.
You should increase your browsers RAM allocation to 15Mb or better. Consult your application's user documentation for instructions on how to increase your application's RAM allocation. Addtionally, you should increase your browsers "Cache" to 15 Mb or better. The correct setting of these items should greatly improve your visit to The VOXbbc.

Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) users running on WinTel platforms should be aware that MSIE browsers less than 4.01 Service Pack 2 have known authentication bug(s). The bug(s) may effect your ability to login or cause problems when attempting to login to The VOXbbc. These bugs will also manifest themselves at any Internet site requiring uid/password authentications - not just at The VOXbbc. It is recommended that VOXbbc users upgrade their MSIE for Windows browsers to 4.01 SP2 or greater.

MSIE users should not select "Save My Password" when logging into authenticated sites such as The VOXbbc or any other authentication required web sites. Doing so may cause your browser to become confused and prevent authentication when you attempt to go to another site which requires authentication.

It is always a good idea to quit and re-launch your broswer after visiting password protected web sites and/or making online purchases via credit card in a secured web area such as at North Coast Music's Online Shopping area. (A secured web site is indicated by the "https" in the URL or the browser lock indicating a "locked" lock.)

Passwords and other user information including possibly your credit card information (in the case of an online purchase) can be passed to a subsequent web sites' server logs. Once again, this issue is not specific to The VSR. It is true for ALL secured and password protected web sites.

MEMBERSHIP PROCEDURES:

Membership is required to post new and followup messages on the VOXbbc board. Read only access is allowed to everyone with out registration.
Registration is easy and safe. Simply follow the link at the bootom this page or click here to start your registration.

There are three (3) steps required for a successful registration. Step one (1) is to read our Terms Of Membership (TOM). This TOM lays out our policies for posting, your rights and The VOX Showroom's rights. Truth is, our TOM is provided for your protection as well as ours. While our TOM may be a little intimidating at first, 99.9% of our visitors never have to concern themselves with these policies. If your intention is to participate in clean, friendly discussion of VOX products, our TOM will be easy reading. Chances are you will never be bothered with them again!

After reading our TOM and if you are in agreement with our TOM, simply select the "Continue" link to access the registration form (Step 2). Fill out the registration form and select your login and passwords. Be sure that you provide a VALID email address in your submission. We verify that you are the owner of the email address you submit. Submitting false email addresses will result in your registration to fail. Subimt your registration when all fields are complete.

After a successful registration, our server will send you an email using the email address you submitted. This email will include a URL and a unique password to access our verification form. Simply click or paste this URL into your browser. Your verification will be processed by the script. (Step 3)

Upon your verification approval, you will be prompted with a new page that will indicate your approval and will contain a link back to The VOXbbc message board. You now have posting privileges. Each time you visit The VOXbbc and attempt to post a new or followup message you will be asked for your login and password. You need only to register for membership ONCE. Your login and password are required each time you visit but are only required the first time you attemp to post messages on each visit. Enter your login data to continue to make your posts.

You have the option of posting or not posting your real name and email address for the world to see, but your login (Uid) will be posted as part of all posts that you initiate.

READING SUBJECTS:

Subjects are visitor created and are listed in chronological order, the newest being on top. To read a subject, simply click on the subject text. This will hyperlink you to a new page which will display the subject again, the complete original message and responses to the original message if any. The responses are listed in chronological order, the newest being at the bottom of the response list.

POSTING NEW SUBJECTS:

To start a new thread, select "Post A New Subject." This link is provided at the top of the subjects and at the bottom of the subject's area. After selecting "Post A New Subject," a new page will be displayed with a "Post A New Message" form. Fill out the form with your subject title, your name , your email address and the body of your subject. Click "Post Message" when all the text fields are complete. You will automatically be returned to the main subjects and response's page. Your new subject should be listed at the top of the subject list.

POSTING FOLLOW UPS TO SUBJECTS:

A follow up is the visitor responses to the original subject posting. Towards the bottom of the same page that displays the complete original message and its current responses you will find a hyperlink that says "Post A Follow Up Message." Upon clicking here, a new page will be displayed with a follow up form on it. Simply fill out the form with your name, email address and follow up response and click "Post A Follow Up Message." After the script is done processing your message you will be returned to the full subject and response's page. Your follow up message should be now listed at the bottom of the "Responses" list.

ARCHIVED THREADS:

The scripts running The VOXbbc periodically and automatically archive outdated and dead threads. Links are provided on the VOXbbc main page to access archived messages. Follow ups to archived messages cannot be performed. If you want to further comment on archived messages you will have to go back to the main posting area and post a new subject to re-start the thread.

POSTING PROBLEMS:

There are a number of things that can go wrong while posting on The VOXbbc and for that matter any form based web page on the Internet.
In general, the information you submit on our forms is sent to a script that runs a number of routines, opens files, writes to files, sends out email and so on. The speed of this process is generally very fast, but due to bogged down servers, heavy Internet traffic and a variety of other hardware and software problems, it sometimes can take up to a minute or more. Please be patient when posting. Don't keep clicking "Submit" if you don't get an immediate response. This will just post multiple messages. Sometimes the post is made, but the script will time out and not return you to the proper page. The best action to take if your message doesn't appear to be posting is to go back to the main page and see if the message is there. You may have to reload the main page if your message is not displayed. If you do not get any particular error message the chances are that your post has been posted even if the proper response page is not returned.

There are specific things you can do to your browser that will decrease the chance of non-posts and double posting. The following items are suggested:

Clear your browsers cache before logging on The VOX Showroom. All browsers cache the web pages that you visit in a temporary directory on your hard drive. This cache is used to decrease your download time and increase the Internets bandwidth. If you have visited us recently, chances are that your last visit has been cached on your hard drive and you are actually viewing the pages from your last visit. These files being pulled from the files stored on your hard drive. There are options in most major browsers under preferences to dump the browsers cache which will force your browser to re-access the pages when you visit again.
While in your preferences, you may also set your browser to "Check files every time." This selection is on the same page as the "Dump Cache" option in Netscape.
Allocate more RAM to your browser.
Visit our site at off-peak hours. We are located on the west coast of the United States and our peak hours are 4pm to 8 pm.