• More than anything else, please be respectful to other people in the community. This is a friendly forum.
• While the forum does not ban swearing, please be mindful that some people may take offense.
• No "nudity-type" photos please. Not even the just-joking type.
• America-bashing or Australia-bashing posts will not be tolerated. MUO promotes friendship, support, and aid with acclimatization. Country-bashing is counter-productive to those objectives.
• Otherwise, post whatever subjects or issues you like - you have a right to voice your opinion and others have a right to disagree with it. Friendly debate is a lot of fun.
• Personal attacks on the forums will not be tolerated. This type of message WILL be deleted and if the attacker continues, they will be banned.
• Harassment of anyone on the forums via email or Private Message is not cool and will result in banning.
• It is sometimes necessary for moderators/administrators to contact people about some minor infractions which are causing unrest in the community. These are merely requests to modify some posting behavior, and should not be taken personally.
• It is customary practice of any forum administrators to keep a log file of poster's IP addresses. Your IP is not viewable by anyone except yourself and the administrators. This log file is never accessed unless there are postings of a vicious and malignant nature. The IP number will then be used to ban that person.
• The use of Anonymizer IPs for posting purposes is banned on this forum. If anyone is using an Anonymizer for legitimate purposes, please contact us.
• Trolling, Flaming, and Baiting is not tolerated on this forum and will result in post deletions and/or banning from the board. The board administrators CAN recognize these troublesome forum personalities and will take appropriate action.
• The administrators of the forum reserve the right to delete posts and/or ban malicious persons, as they see fit.
• The administrators of Mates Up-Over respects the rights of other similar themed websites, and will do everything to maintain professional courtesy. Therefore, any slanderous posts naming any of these websites, or the administrators, will be immediately deleted.

• The use of a valid email address is necessary to register and post on the forums. However, it will not be viewable to anyone else, unless you allow it in your profile. It is recommended that if you want an email address to be viewable to other community members, to use a "throw-away" type email, such as Hotmail or Yahoo.
• Please take care when posting personal details about yourself. While every effort is taken to provide some measure of privacy on Mates Up-Over, the website is still accessible to the WWW. As an added precaution however, the individual messages on these forums have been made inaccessible to search engines.
• If you'd like to email someone from the forum community and they don't have an email address visible in their profile, send them a Private Message to ask their email address.
• Internet privacy is taken very seriously on this website. Any posts attempting to expose personal details of another person for slanderous or vengeful purposes will be immediately deleted. Exposing personal details of any other person without their permission will result in the editing or deleting of posts, and possible banning if the behaviour does not stop.

• When posting a new topic, try to make the subject title fairly descriptive. Also try to keep it relatively short. If there are a lot of replies to your message with a long Subject line, it will wrap-around and be difficult to display.
• Try not to post "Email/IM-type" messages. This would have to be the "most complained-of" type messages. If you have a message for one or two people on the board, email them, or send a Private Message.
• When seeing a new person in the community forums, please make an effort to welcome them. Remember that many people are very nervous of posting for the first time.When seeing a message from a new expat, with immigration or assimilation type questions, please make every effort to help them out, even if you've answered the same type of questions before. Remember, that's what this website is all about - supporting Aussie Expats.

Before you can post messages to The Pub, you must be registered. By registering, you will also have access to many other community forum privileges. Registering is completely safe - your details are inaccessible to anyone except the administrators of the board.

1. To register, simply click on the Register link.
2. If you agree to the Board Rules, select the I Agree checkbox.
3. In the Login Name field, type in a name you will remember. This does not have to be the same name you post with on the forums. This is a registration and login name only, known only to you and the forum administrators.
4. Enter a password in the Password field, and again in the Verify Password field.
5. In the Email Address field, type a valid email address. This MUST be a valid email address, as your registration details will be emailed to that address.
6. In the Re-type Email Address field, enter the same email address as in the previous step.
7. In the Display Name field, type in the name you would like to post messages with. This will be the name other users will see you as. This may be the same as your Login Name if you wish.
8. In the Image Verification field, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image to the right.
9. Click on the Submit button.
10. You will be forwarded to the User Has Been Registered page. Read the information on this page carefully. You will be auto-forwarded to the Login page.
11. Access your email account. The registration email should have already arrived. If not, check in your Junk Email (or equivalent) folder, as your system may have identified it as spam.
12. The email will contain the Username and Password you specified. It is advisable to keep this email.
13. The email will also contain a verification link. It is important that you click on this link!
14. After clicking on the verification link, you will be taken to the Email Verified page, which will auto-forward you to the Login page.
15. In the Username field, type the Username specified in your registration email.
16. In the Password field, type in the password specified in your registration email.
17. Select the Remember Me checkbox if you do not want to have to login every time you access the forum.
18. Click the Login button.
19. You will immediately be taken to your main forums page.
20. It is advisable at this time to click on the My Stuff link to set your personal Profile and Preferences.
21. You are now ready to post messages. Have fun!!

If you are having problems logging in to the forums, one or more of the following tips may help.

• Firstly, have you registered? If you have registered, you will have received an email with your Username and Password. Also included in the email is a verification link to use to log in for the first time. If you did not go through this process, then you will need to register first.
• If you have registered and previously logged in, and you can't log in now, then there may be a problem with the way you are typing in your Username and Password. Remember they are both case-sensitive. You should keep your original registration email so that you can check the details if having trouble logging in.
• If you have forgotten your password, please see the next topic, "I forgot my password".
• It has been reported that some firewalls are causing log-in problems, among other things. The most common culprits are Norton and Zone Alarm.
  • Try turning off your firewall and then trying to log-in. Obviously, if you can log-in, then your firewall is the problem.
  • Because of the numerous versions of these products, it is not possible to give you a settings procedure, but once you have identified that the firewall is the problem, you can then change your settings until you can log-in AND have your firewall enabled.
• If none of the above suggestions have helped, please Contact Us for assistance.

If you have forgotten your password, dont worry! You can very easily have a temporary password emailed to you. All you need to do is:

• Go to the login page of the forums and click the "Have you forgotten your login information?" link.
• Enter either the Login Name or the email address you registered with, and click the I forgot my password button.
• You will shortly receive an email with a temporary password. Use the temporary password to login, and change your password as soon as possible on your My Profile page.

There are two ways of posting messages - posting a new topic, and replying to someone within a current topic.

Posting a New Topic:

1. From within a forum, click on the New Topic button.
2. Type in a Subject and your message, then click the Submit button.
3. If you'd like to preview your message before you post it, click the "Preview Post" button before clicking Submit. Your preview will appear below the posting form.

Replying to a Current Topic:

1. From within a topic, you can reply using the Quick Reply or Reply buttons. Reply opens a form with all the available posting options, and Quick Reply takes you to the form at the bottom of the page, with no posting options.
2. Then follow the same procedure as for "Posting a New Topic"

Tips

• When replying to a particular person, the name of the person you reply to will appear in the header of your message.
• If you are particularly replying to one person in a topic, try to always quote at least a section of the message you are replying to. This leaves no doubt as to who you are replying to.

Posting Options:

The following list describes some of the options available to you when posting or replying.

• Allows you to insert a link to a web page
• Allows you to insert a linked email address
• Allows you to insert the location (URL) of an image on the internet
• Allows you to create a list of items
• Allows you to bold some text
• Allows you to italicize some text
• Allows you to underline some text
• Allows you to strike-through some text
• Enters quote tags so that you can copy and paste a quote from another post
• Allows you to enter HTML code so that it appears as code in the message
• Allows you to enter PHP code so that it appears as code in the message
• Allows you to insert a graemlin in your message
• Allows you to choose a font-colour for selected text
• Allows you to choose a font-type for selected text
• Allows you to choose a font-size for selected text
• Allows you to select UBBCode, HTML, or both for you message. If posting HTML you must select either Using HTML or Using HTML and UBBCode. For regular posts, leave this selection on Using UBBCode.

Message Options:

When viewing messages, you will see several buttons below each one. The following list describes the purpose of each button.

• Allows you to edit or delete your own post up to 2 hours later
• Allows you to reply to an individual message
• Allows you to reply to an individual message with the message already quoted
• Takes you to the Quick Reply form
• Takes you to the Quick Reply form with the message already quoted
• Allows you to report a message to the moderator/admin
• Allows you to send an email, including the details of the message

If you have a picture you would like to include in your new topic or reply, the following procedure will help.

1. On the posting form, click on the File Manager link. A File Manager window will open.
2. Click on the Browse button and locate the picture.
3. Click on the Add File button to add the picture to the File Manager.
4. If you would like to add another picture, repeat steps 2 & 3.
5. When you are ready, click the Done Adding Files button to close the File Manager.
6. You will not see the picture in your message until you submit it, but your File Manager link will show "Total files".
7. Click the Submit button to submit your message and picture(s).

Note: No one picture can be over 100 kbs. Please be judicious when posting multiple pictures as it greatly adds to bandwidth, and creates very long posts.

If you would like to create a poll to include in your new topic or reply, the following procedure will help.

1. On the posting form, click on the Poll Manager link. A Poll Manager window will open.
2. Click on the Add a Poll button to add a new poll.
3. In the Poll Name field, enter your poll question.
4. In the Number of Choices field, enter the number of answer choices to be included.
5. In the Choice Select Type section, select your preference.
6. Click the Next Step button.
7. In each Option field, enter one of the answer choices to be included.
8. Click the Next Step button.
9. If you would like to enable a Start and Stop time for your poll, select the required choices. If you would like to make the poll available immediately, ignore these sections.
10. Select one or both of the following checkboxes, as you prefer. You may select none if preferred.
11. Click the Submit button.
12. If you would like to add another poll, repeat steps 2 - 11.
13. When you are ready, click the Done Adding Polls button to close the Poll Manager.
14. You will not see the poll in your message until you submit it, but your Poll Manager link will show "Total polls".
15. Click the Submit button to submit your message and poll(s).

When you try to post a new topic, or make a reply, you get the following message or similar:

"The host you are trying to send the input from is not a valid host."

This means you have changed something on your local PC that effects security settings. Most commonly this means that you have installed or modified settings in either the Norton or Zone Alarm firewalls, although it may also mean that your browser security settings are too aggressive.

To test, turn off any firewalls you may have running, and try posting again. If you can post successfully, then you will need to change the security settings of your firewall.

The Back Alley is a forum for debate and controversial topics. This forum is availabe for reading and posting by request to the administrators, Rose & Steve. It is a good idea to get to know the community culture and people in it before taking on the Back Alley, so the following will be required before your request will be granted.

• You have been a registered member for at least 3 months
• You have made a minimum of 200 posts

If you meet the above requirements and would like to request entry into the Back Alley, please send a private message to either Rose or Steve J.

Your "My Stuff" is your very own space in The Pub. Everything you do and change are totally up to you and your individual preferences. You can access your "My Stuff" at any time from the top navigation bar.

• My Private Messages - Send, receive, and store your personal messages and threads. Many of the same posting options as listed in the "How do I post messages?" topic are available for private messages too.
• My Profile - Change things like Display Name, email address, password, details that can be available in your public profile, your display signature, and your avatar.
• My Preferences - Change the way The Pub displays and works for you, by selecting your own personal preferences. Any display changes you make will only apply to your login.
• My Watch Lists - If you are watching any forums, users, or topics (see the "How do I use my Watch List?" topic below), this is where you can view new activity since your last visit.
• My Posts - Displays a listing of all your posts.

Watch lists are a great way of keeping an eye on those topics you are interested in. Any topic can be added to your watch list. The following procedure will explain how to assign a topic to your watch list, and how to maintain your watch list.

1. When you are viewing a topic you'd like to watch, click on the Topic Options button, and select "Add Topic to your Watched Topics".
2. To view your Watched Topics, click on My Stuff, and select "My Watched Lists". Click on the Watched Topics tab.
3. To go to any of the topics in your Watched Topics list, click on the Subject link.
4. Click on the "Edit Watched Topics" link to remove topics from your Watched Topics list, and to elect to have email notifications sent to you when new replies have been made to the topics.

Note: The above procedure can also apply to forums and users.

You can create a My Mates list to be used for sending private messages - similar to an email address book. Follow the procedure below to begin a My Mates list.

1. On the top navigation bar, click on Mates List.
2. Find the person you are looking for, and click on her/his name.
3. Click on Add to My Mates.
4. Repeat Steps 1 - 3 to add more people to your My Mates list.

Private Messages are an integral part of the MUO community forums, enabling you to privately contact any other MUO users. Private messages can be sent to single or multiple users, and appear in the same format as forum messages. See the following procedures for using private messages.

1. To access your Private Messages, click on My Stuff > My Private Messages.
2. From here you can view a list of Sent and Received private messages.
3. Click on any message Subject to view the contents.
4. At this point, you can add a reply to the message, view a list of the message participants, or remove yourself from the message.

To send a new private message:

1. Click on My Stuff > My Private Messages.
2. Click on the Options button, and select "Send a New Private Message".
3. Add a recipient by entering his/her name in the Recipient field, and clicking Add, or by clicking on "Open My Mates List" and clicking on the recipient name.
4. If you would like to send the message to more than one person (five is the limit), repeat Step 3 as required.
5. Enter a subject and message, and click Submit.

Receiving private messages:

1. When somebody sends you a private message, you will see on the top navigation bar.
2. Click on to open the new private message, and reply to it if you wish.

The Pub forums provide you with several inicators which let you know when there have been new messages posted. Please see the following:

• When in the Forums list, you will see this icon when there have been new posts in a forum. If there are no new posts, the icon will appear white.

• When in the Topics list, you will see this icon when there have been new posts in a topic, or when there are new topics. If there are no new posts, the icon will appear white.

• When in the Messages list, you will see this icon wherever there is a new message. Messages that you have seen before will display no icon.

When you are viewing a list of messages within a topic, you can click on the Topic Options button, and select "Switch to Threaded Mode".

This displays just the first topic message, with following messages appearing below in threaded mode. Clicking on any message in the thread will open it above.

If you prefer to always view messages in Threaded Mode, you can select this option in My Stuff > My Preferences > Topic Display Mode.

User Profiles are a fun way of allowing others to find out more about you, and you about them. The amount of detail in each of the User Profiles is completely up to each user, but there is nothing more boring than a blank profile, so do consider sharing.

What you can do with YOUR User Profile:

• In your My Stuff, click on My Profile.
• You can choose whether to add your birthday to the calendar, display a public email address, and details such as occupation, location, and interests.
• If you have a website you can enter the URL, and add other contact details such as Instant Messenger accounts.
• Add a signature which will appear below each of your posted messages, and post a favourite avatar.

What you can do with OTHER User Profiles:

• Clicking on any member name at any time will take you to that member's profile. You can also view member profiles by clicking on Mates List on the top navigation bar.
• You will see all the details that the member has provided to be made public.
• You can:
  • Send the member a private message
  • Add the member to your My Mates list
  • Ignore the member (you will not see the content of the member's posted messages)
  • Add the member to your Watched Users list
  • Show a list of all the member's posted messages

You will find that it is often necessary to search the message board for information. This is a great feature and may save you a lot of time when looking for information or a certain topic. Here's how to use the Search feature:

1. Click on Search link on the top navigation bar.
2. In the Forums to Search section, click on the forum you wish to search in. You may multi-select forums by holding down the Control key while selecting.
3. In the Keyword Search Terms section, type in the keywords you want to search for. (Click on the Advanced Search Tips link for more precise keyword usage.)
4. Select the in subject radio button if you want to limit the search to message subjects.
5. Select the in subject and body radio button if you want to extend the search to message subjects and message bodies.
6. In the Disply Name Search section, type in the username of the person who posted the message you are looking for. Leave this blank if you don't know.
7. In the Date Range section, use the fields and dropdown menus to select the time period you wish to search within.
8. In the Result Format section, type in how many messages you wish to see per page.
9. Check the Show a Preview checkbox if you'd like to see a small preview of each message in the message list.
10. Click on the Submit button.
11. Your Search Results page will appear with all messages that meet the choices you made.
12. You can click the Subject of each message in the list to see the whole message.

Titles are a "Just for Fun" system-generated member Title, based on the number of times you have posted messages. Everyone has a title within the forum. You will notice them below the Username in each post. These are automatically assigned based on the number of posts a user has made.

An Avatar is a little picture that you can choose to appear by your name in your messages. Whether it's a picture of yourself, or something you found on the internet, or even if you choose one from the few we have made available to you, they add a touch of personality to your messages. Here is a procedure to help you add an avatar for your posts.

1. Click on My Stuff on the top navigation bar, and select My Profile.
2. Scroll down until you get to the section about Avatars.
3. If you have a picture of your own you want to use:
   1. Select the Upload your Avatar radio button. The picture must be equal to or less than 100 x 100 pixels.
   2. Click the Browse button to locate your picture on your PC.
   3. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.
4. If the Avatar you want to use is on the internet:
   1. Select the URL to your Avatar radio button. (You must know the URL of the picture you want to use.)
   2. Enter in the full address of the Avatar in the URL field. (Hint: to get the URL of the picture, right-click on it and choose Properties.)
   3. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.
5. If you want to use one of the Avatars from the MUO stock:
   1. Select the Use a Stock Avatar radio button.
   2. Click on the Change link.
   3. Select the Avatar you want to use by clicking on it.
   4. Click the Use this Avatar button.
   5. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.
6. Your chosen Avatar will now appear next to your name whenever you post a message. It will also appear on your profile when other people look at it.

If you would like to post a picture in a message, but it is too big, use the Mates Up-Over Photo Editor for fast and EASY picture resizing. This can be accessed from the top navigation bar.

When you access the Photo Editor, step-by-step instructions will be supplied as you upload and resize your photo(s).

The Chat Room is only available to registered users of Mates Up-Over, and can be accessed from the top navigation bar. Please note that you must have the latest version of Java installed on your machine. You can download it from Java.com, if you don't already have it.

While logged in to The Pub, you will access to the Chat Room at any time, and will not need to sign in. The Chat room is not available when you are logged out of The Pub.

An extensive Help page is available from within the Chat Room, or you can view it here.

The Mates Up-Over Calendar can be used to add both public and private events.

• Public Events are viewable to any registered MUO member.
• Private Events are viewable to only the people who added them.

To add an event to the Calendar:

1. Click on the Calendar link on the top navigation bar.
2. Click on the Add New Event link below the calendar.
3. Give the event a Title, and comments if you wish.
4. Select a date for the event, and whether it is recurring or not.
5. Select whether the event is public or private.
6. Click the Add Event button.

To access the Calendar:

You can access the Calendar from two places in any forum.

1. Click on Calendar on the top navigation bar to view or add events.
2. Click on any linked date on the graphical calendar on the left sidebar to view that day's events.

RSS is now available on MatesUpOver for message board traffic. (Thanks to Chris Q for compiling this information).  This image represents a link to an RSS feed for a Mate UpOver message forum, and you can access it on the left sidebar.

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary" (take your pick) . In a nutshell, RSS is a new way for people who publish content online to notify people interested in that content whenever fresh content is made available.

RSS Readers

To begin you will need to download and install an RSS Reader if you don't already have one installed. Here are the links to some popular RSS Readers available for download.

• FeedReader - http://www.feedreader.com
• Pluck - http://www.pluck.com
• SharpReader - http://www.sharpreader.net
• NewsGator - http://www.newsgator.com
• RSSBandit - http://www.rssbandit.org/
• Shrook (Mac) - http://www.fondantfancies.com/shrook/
  

Adding Forum Links

Finally, you will want to connect to the MatesUpOver feed for The Pub and/or The Back Alley. From within your RSS Reader, add a new feed and copy the following URL into your reader.:

• The Pub - http://www.matesupover.com/forums/cache/rss1.xml
• The Back Alley - http://www.matesupover.com/forums/cache/rss6.xml

Quotes are one of the most used posting options, so it's a good idea to get the hang of using them. There are several ways of using quotes:

Quoting an entire message:

1. Under the message you want to quote, click on the Quote button, or the Quick Quote button.
2. The entire quote will appear in your message window, contained in [quote] tags.

Quoting a partial message:

1. Click the Reply button underneath the message you want to quote.
2. Select the text you want to quote, using your mouse.
3. Right-click on the selected text and select Copy.
4. In your message window, click the Quote button. This will insert Quote tags.
5. Click your mouse in-between the two tags. For example, [quote] click mouse here [/quote].
6. Right-click between the two quote tags, and select Paste.
7. The text you copied will appear in your message window, between the quote tags.

Double-quoting a message:

1. If someone has quoted you and you'd like to include your quote along with their reply, follow the process for "Quoting an entire message".
2. The double-quote will appear in your message window.

This is correct. You can only use message options if you click on the Reply button. Quick Reply is exactly that - a quick reply without any of the trimmings.

The "Who's Online" content window in the left sidebar is a new feature for this forum software, and unfortunately it doesn't work very well. Hopefully they will fix this in the next version.

However, this doesn't mean that you can't check who's online. In the "Who's Online" content window, just click on the "details" link to get the latest information. This updates every two minutes.

Actually this is a very fast-loading forum, but it loads at different speeds for different people because it depends very much on your display preferences. Here are a few tips to make your message-board navigating a lot more fun with less frustration. Play around with changing some of the preferences below until your page loads faster AND it looks fine for you.

• The biggest factor by far is how many topics you choose to view on one page. The default is set to 20, but if you reduce it even more in your "My Preferences" to say 10 or 15, then you'll notice a huge difference. You can change this by changing the number for "Total topics to show per page". You can always go to the next page of posts by clicking on the page numbers at the top and bottom of the board.
• Also think about changing the number of posts to view per page. The default is 20, but you might prefer to reduce that. In your "My Preferences", change the number in the Total posts to show on one page when viewing a post in flat mode field.
• Using "Quick Reply" is much faster than clicking on the Reply button each time you post a message. A good practice is to only use the Reply button when you want to use some emoticons, post pictures, or use text formatting tools. If you just want to post a quick reply, use ... well, "Quick Reply".
• If you are really desperate, some other things you might like to consider are:
  • Choosing not view avatars.
  • Choosing not to view pictures in posts.
  • Choosing not to view signatures.

When you try to post a new topic, or make a reply, you get the following message or similar:

"The host you are trying to send the input from is not a valid host."

This means you have changed something on your local PC that effects security settings. Most commonly this means that you have installed or modified settings in either the Norton or Zone Alarm firewalls, although it may also mean that your browser security settings are too aggressive.

To test, turn off any firewalls you may have running, and try posting again. If you can post successfully, then you will need to change the security settings of your firewall.

When you register, the system will always send you a confirmation email immediately, provided that you have supplied a valid email address. You must have this confirmation email to complete the registration process.

If you have registered and not received a confirmation email, there is usually one of two reasons for this:

1. The confirmation email has gone directly to your "Junk Mail" folder. Please check in there.
2. You are using a Hotmail email account. Hotmail has recently changed their spam rules so that even the most innocent of emails are getting bounced back. Our advice is to not use a Hotmail email address.

The Photo Editor will handle some big pictures, but some pictures are just TOO big. If you are trying to resize a picture straight from your digital camera, you will possibly have problems. This may be caused by the system "timing out" when trying to upload huge sized files.

There is no solution, other than not trying to resize such big pictures. Sorry.