LouieAlvarez.com Site Tutorial

It’s come to my attention that navigation in this incredible website can be a little intimidating if you’ve never been here to experience it before. Here is a brief tutorial for utilizing the LouieAlvarez.com All Things Laser website.

Connection recommendations:

Broadband recommended, almost required. Much programming has went into the development of this website to take full advantage of numerous Internet features available, such as flash animation, JavaScript, button navigation system, user interface, podcasting, forums structure, etc., etc. with that said, LouieAlvarez.com is a heavy site, even with our cache technology working behind the scenes you should have broadband!

Browser recommendations:

LouieAlvarez.com is best viewed in the latest versions of FireFox (v3.0.6) or Internet Explorer (v7.0.5730.13). Internet Explorer (67.40%) and Firefox (21.63%) command nearly 90% of the browser market, while others, such as, Safari (8.29%), Google Chrome (1.13%) and Opera (.71%) combined make up most of the balance. With those enormous percentages in mind the development of LouieAlvarez.com was done with the two leading browsers in mind. Although current versions of Safari (v3.2.1), Chrome (v1.0.154.48) & Opera (v9.63) have been tested and do indeed display LouieAlvarez.com just fine that cannot be guaranteed in the future.

iPhone aware:

Although you can surf LouieAlvarez.com just fine, as is, on your iPhone (albeit slowly), the development committee in their infinite wisdom decided to iPhone-enhance the All Things Laser website. With 13+ million users of the iPhone, this was a must. So now LouieAlvarez.com is iPhone aware, using Safari on your iPhone log on and you will be presented with a re-formatted site to fit your screen perfectly. Much of the custom programming, large images, menu system, etc. are stripped away to bring a more iPhone friendly website to your Safari screen.

Returning Home

Simply clicking on the “Home” button located on the bottom, navigation menu or the LA logo or LouieAlvarez.com logo located at the top of every page will bring you back to the beginning, the main, the home page of LouieAlvarez.com

Button Menu Navigation

Note the row of buttons at the bottom of the screen, each button takes you to the parent page of that designated category, i.e., the “Classifieds” button will take you directly to the Classified Ads section. Now hover your mouse over the Classifieds button and very quickly a child menu screen will pop-up with pages relevant to the parent Classified Ads section. Not all buttons have Child pages.

Options Menu

At the front/beginning of the button navigation structure is a round ball with a pencil within, this is your Options menu. Click on the ball for a menu screen.

1. Categories gives you quick access to all pages within that category (click back to return to main menu)
2. Forums Feed will allow you to subscribe to ALL postings within the LouieAlvarez.com Forums
3. Classifieds Feed will allow you to subscribe to ALL postings within the LouieAlvarez.com Classified Ads
4. Comments Feed will allow you to subscribe to ALL postings within the LouieAlvarez.com Website
5. Clicking the Last 50 Posts link will provide a scrollable list of the last 50 posts.
6. Type a keyword within Start Search to search the ever-growing LouieAlvarez.com content
7. If you have not registered a Register an account link is provided on the right side area of the menu
8. If you’ve already registered and are logged on and have uploaded an Avatar your avatar will display at top right side
9. Change Theme… allows you to change the theme from 7 choices (Void, Life, Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Light)
10. Underneath Change Theme… are logon & logoff buttons, dependent upon you logged status
11. Finally next to the logon/logoff buttons is an arrow to display Users, Posts/Pages & Comments

SideBar Widgets

On the sidebar located on the right side are the following “widgets” (subject to change without notice):

1. Laser Lowdown logo … Make sure to log on regularly for the weekly podcast of All Things Laser!
2. Thought of the Moment … thought provoking comments
3. Where Louie Alvarez has Recently been spotted…
4. Login/Register/Recover password or if logged on Dashboard/Edit Profile/Logout links
5. Need to update your image or profile? READ HERE for instructions
6. Vote on the current Poll!
7. The last 3 topics posted in the Forums
8. A current advertiser, click on the link and help support LouieAlvarez.com
9. Disclaimer, with quick shortcut icons to Blog, Podcast & Forums

Login issues:

1. Username: IS case sensitive
2. Password: IS case sensitive
3. Forgot your password? Use the Lost your password? link to retrieve a new one.

Topics, Comments, Ratings, Email, Share and Permalink

Although most, not all postings allow for comments. Those that do simply scroll to the bottom and comment on the posting. If this is your first posting the comment will be held in a queue until “Approved” by an administrator, after approval future comments while logged on with the same account will be immediately posted, not requiring approval.

A few key postings have the ability to “Rate” the posting. When you see the 5 stars, PLEASE “Be Honest, but Be Gentle” vote on a scale of 1-5 what you feel the topic deserves, with 1 star being the least, while 5 being the best.

If a topic is of great interest to you that you would like to share with a collegue, friend, etc.? Scroll to the bottom of the topic entry and you’ll see a “Share and Enjoy” hover over the icon of choice (Google, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Technorati, LinkedIn) You may even Email or Print the topic.

At the bottom of the Posting but above the Comments area you see relevant information to this post, i.e., Tags, Categories, Posted by, Last Edit, Email link and Permalink (this gives you quick access to the page URL to save, send, copy, etc.)

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