Technical Assistance

Registering with the Community

~ Choose username:

Please choose your username carefully as this is the name that will be displayed within the Forum. There is no separate display name, as is the case with some forums. We recommend that you use your first name only, or perhaps a nick-name. Only under certain circumstances will a member be allowed a username change, and we ask that you keep this in mind when selecting your username.

~ Email:

You must enter a valid e-mail address. Your confirmation e-mail and password will be sent to the address you list in your registration details.

It is important that you keep your e-mail address current in your profile details. If you should ever need to use the "Forgot Password" feature, you will be able to receive your password only if you have a current e-mail address listed in your profile.

You should note that we do not share your e-mail address with any other organization. We rarely make mass-mailings to our membership, and will usually use the Forum's PM system to contact members.

~ Hide e-mail address from public?

This box is marked by default. This means that other members will not be able to see your e-mail address when viewing your profile information. We recommend that you leave this box checked, or use a secondary e-mail address whenever your e-mail address will be publicly displayed.

~ Verify Email:

Please re-enter your e-mail address. This is to insure that you have entered your e-mail address correctly.

~ Choose password:

When choosing your password, keep in mind that a good password is one that is composed of a random string of letters (both UPPER and lower case), numbers, non-alphanumeric characters (symbols), and is at least eight characters in length. Never use whole words, strings of words, or any personal information for your password. Do not use the same password for the Forum that you use for your e-mail account or any other Internet site.

An example of a good password is: Pwq%2Lfb.

Verify password:

Please re-enter your password. This is to insure that you have entered your password correctly.

Insuring That You Receive Your Password

Many ISPs use filters in an effort to keep spam out of their users' accounts. This can often this result in filtering out of e-mail that you might have wanted to receive, like ours!

In order to insure that e-mail sent from BenzoBuddies is not filtered, you should add the following to your e-mail program's list of trusted senders:

@benzobuddies.org

How you will do this depends on your ISP. We have put together some guidelines for a few of the most popular ISPs.

AOL: Tests performed with AOL showed mixed results. Sometimes BenzoBuddies' e-mail was sent directly to the inbox, other times it was sent to the Spam folder.

If you have AOL and you have not received your welcome e-mail, or you have signed up for notifications and are not receiving them, please check your Spam folder.

If you are experiencing these problems and would like to have BenzoBuddies' e-mail go directly to your inbox, please follow this simple advice. From inside your Spam folder, open a BenzoBuddies' e-mail. At the center top of your screen, find the button labeled "This is Not Spam" and click. This will move the e-mail to your inbox. Testing showed that when one e-mail was moved to the inbox in this manner, all subsequent e-mails were sent directly to the inbox.

Note: AOL does use several versions. Each version may use a different method to whitelist e-mail. If your version is not covered here, please check with AOL Help for information pertaining to your specific version.

Hotmail: You will first need to click on the "Options" link. Locate and choose the "Contacts" link. From the new menu displayed, choose "Safe List". In the textbox, type our domain @benzobuddies.org and click "Add". You should now receive all BenzoBuddies' e-mail in your inbox.

Yahoo: You will first click on the "Mail" tab. From the drop down menu, choose "Options". Under the heading "Spam", locate "Filters" and click. You must then click the "Add" button. You will need to enter a "Filter Name" in the text box. Under the heading "If all of the following rules are true...", locate "From header" on the rule list. Choose "contains" from the drop down menu, and then in the text box enter: @benzobuddies.org.

Locate "Then …Move the message to" and the drop down menu that accompanies it. You have the option of either adding a new folder specifically for BenzoBuddies' e-mail, or you can simply click "Inbox" and "Add", and all of our e-mail will go into your usual inbox. If you would like to create a new folder specifically for BenzoBuddies' e-mail, you would choose "New Folder" from the drop down menu and click "Add". You will be prompted to enter a name for your new folder. Remember to click "OK" for the new setting to be effective.

If you should find our email in your Yahoo Spam folder, please help us out by letting Yahoo know that our mail is not spam. Just click the "Not Spam" button near the top of the e-mail message. This forwards the e-mail to Yahoo for review. If Yahoo determines that BenzoBuddies' e-mail is not spam, they would make a system wide change which would insure that all Yahoo mail users would receive our e-mails in the future.

Outlook, Eudora, and others: Most programs have a way to both "whitelist" and create your own filter. If you are unsure of how your e-mail program handles these issues, please refer to your mail program's help section.

If you have login or registration problems which you believe to be an issue with the BenzoBuddies website, please refer to the Contact Us page for our contact details.

Known Web Browser Issues

If you are joining the Forum, you will need to have Cookies enabled in your web browser. Settings are usually located under the heading "Tools" in your browser window.

We use CSS for the markup of the site's web pages. This will cause problems for those using out of date browsers.

Java Script must be enabled in your web browser in order for all our web pages to fuction as intended.

There is an issue with Marquee in the Shoutbox, in both Firefox and Opera browsers. This bug results in the failure to display a blank space at the end of the scrolling shouts. This gives the appearance of the shouts jumping at the end of the cycle. At this time, it is unclear if this a fault with the browsers or the Shoutbox code.

The website pages layout has been optimized for screen resolutions of 1024 X 768; they should also display well with resolutions of 800 X 600, and anything in between. If your screen resolution is much smaller than 800 pixels wide, a scroll bar will be created at the bottom of your screen. You can maximize the size of your window, or change to a higher resolution in order to display the page without the scroll bar. If your screen resolution is much wider than 1024 pixels and elements overlap, you should drag in the side of your browser window until the page displays correctly.

These web pages are virtually untested on Mac browsers - we would be very appreciateive of feedback. The pages have been tested with recent versions of IE, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera. If you are using one of these browsers and are experiencing major problems with the BenzoBuddies site or forum, please check for an update to your browser.