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5 Minute Tour |
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Hi, Hopefully you have visited the web site since we had the builders in  , but if not, you are in for a treat. There are a host of new features that we are proud of and want to tell you about:
Pictures pictures everywhere - and most of them are big
Firstly, we now make nice big pictures available to you. Whenever you see the 'magnifying glass' displayed on a picture like George here,
you can click on the picture, and a full sized picture will be displayed on your screen. This works just like the BBC news website, so hopefully everyone should be able to make use of the feature, it works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and every other browser we've been able to get our grubby paws on. We also use this 'lightbox display' to show a gallery of pictures in an article. For example, in the ' About EGLR' article, and for most all of the 'Dogs for Adoption', if we have a set of pictures, you can use the left and right navigation buttons to flick through each of the pictures in turn (or click on the numbers below the picture) without needing to 'go back' to the article. To close the lightbox, you can either click the 'x' button, or just click somewhere on the dark faded background.
Try it out, we think you'll like it.
The Lamp Post
The Guestbook is now called the " Lamp Post". Now, just as it used to be, the book is still moderated, and this is done really just to protect us and you from needless spam, adverts and malicious comments. It has a feature called 'Captcha', you may have seen it, and definitely will more and more on your web travels. All you need to do, when adding a message to the Lamp Post, is to fill in the TITLE, NAME and COMMENT fields, and then type the 'code' that you see in the picture. Aparently, this is a good test to see that you are in fact NOT a dog or a cat!
If you 'don't like' the code, or can't quite tell if that was a 'i' or a '1' or an 'l', then you can click the blue 'Change the code' button to get a different code that you can read more easily.
Now - we are the first to admit that this is a bit of a fuss, but we promise, it reduces the amount of rubbish that 'people' attempt to add to the guestbook, and THAT would be time away from playing with the puppies! You can read more about how the Lamp Post operates on our Lamp Post help page. All new sections to read
We have two new sections that we think you might like, "The End of the Tail" and "Frequently Barked Questions". The End of the Tail has been created to demonstrate that once a dog has been rehomed, that is NOT where the story stops. We want you to take a moment, and drop us an email (perhaps with a few piccies too) to update us about your rescue. The Frequently Barked Questions hopes to give you a few ideas on how to correct/manage/live with some of your dogs less 'seemly' behaviour. We recognise that all dogs are different, and some can have troubles adapting to your home environment. We do get common questions, and here are some thoughts that Pip and the team can offer. Remember though, if there is something that is troubling you, you really should seek professional advice from your vet, or a qualified dog behaviourist.
It's all about the dogs
When all is said and done the site is here to keep you informed about the dogs that are available for adoption and sponsorship. The ' Dogs to Adopt' and ' Dogs to Sponsor' links appear on the big top menu (our 'really important pages' list), and also on the main menu. There is also a 'ticker tape' parade of the dogs to adopt that scrolls through our 'We need a home' section. You can click on a picture and it will take you straight to that dog's details.
You can change the order in which the dogs are listed, either alphabetically, or 'newest first'. This is a bit of a cheat, since it is newest AND updated, first. You can also choose to narrow your search, if you are specifically looking for a smooth-coat old boy, for instance.
Finally, you might like to try giving the EGLR RSS feeds a try. This is a way of getting your web browser to do all the 'leg work' of finding out the news items and dog details that have been recently updated. This is a much 'cleverer' way of ensuring that you stay up to date with the site, and don't waste time needlessly in just 'clicking to see'. Read a little more about how we use RSS here...
Course that would mean you might miss out on things like the Lamp Post, FBQs and the End of the Tail.
happy surfing,
Webdog.
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Help with the Lamp Post |
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Pip asked for some guidance with the LampPost earlier, so here it is.
OK, first catch your hare erm, type your message...
Put in a title, something short. Often if you are replying to someone, the title might be "@ Pip - the cat has left the house" (or something like that, anyway)
You can supply your name if you want, or just leave it saying Guest. But remember if you say 'Guest', and still 'sign your name', we will all know who you are anyway .
The bit that seems to 'catch' most folk out is the 'image verification' bit.The reason we have this, is to prevent automated adverts, and spambots etc etc littering our LampPost with spam. You will see this type of thing more and more on your internet travels, I'm afraid.
The code is just a picture which contains lowercase and uppercase letters and also numbers. You need to type the code you see nto the box. If you get the code right, then job done.
In this example the code is qc9Lep
If you get the code wrong, the system will tell you, and you can have another go (as many times as you like  )
if you get the code wrong, you will automatically get another chance to enter the code - but the trick is - the code gets changed for a NEW one.
You can click on the blue 'Reload Image' button, and change the code yourself. This is a good way to find a code that you can read easily, just pick a new code and enter its value into the box, then click 'Submit' to send your message to the Lamp Post.
Here, we've clicked reload, and now have a new code to enter. In this example, the code is Jvm8Rz (or something  ).
When you get the right code, and you CAN get it right first time  you will get a message which confirms that your message was properly sent and stored for the moderator to publish. That is a grand way of saying that someone will check that you are not advertising anything, or being rude, or anything.
And that's all there is to it.
tail wags,
Webdog.
.:: Go back to the Lamp Post ::. |
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RSS in Firefox |
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In Firefox version 3.0.5, you can use this guide to make use of the EGLR RSS feeds (and any other feeds, like the BBC news feed, for instance).
Step one
Navigate to the home page (or any page where you see the EGLR feeds listed)
(Remember you can click to see a bigger picture)
Step two
Click on the feed url that you want to monitor.
Now that was easy. Either rename the title or leave it as it is.
Step three
Firefox adds an 'active bookmark' link in the bookmark toolbar for you. Just click away...
The bookmarks update automatically when new details are added, or even if old details are simply updated.
And a REALLY nice feature is that you get the EGLR 'favicon' indicator, showing the articles that you have already read.
Hope that helps.
tail wags,
Webdog
.:: Back to What is RSS ::. |
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RSS in Safari |
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In Safari the Apple Macintosh web browser, you can use this guide to make use of the EGLR RSS feeds (and any other feeds, like the BBC news feed, for instance).
Step one
Navigate to the home page (or any page where you see the EGLR feeds listed)
(Remember you can click to see a bigger picture)
Step two
Click on the feed url that you want to monitor.
Now that was easy. Either rename the title or leave it as it is.
Step three
Safari adds an 'active bookmark' link in the bookmark toolbar for you. Just click away...
The bookmarks update automatically when new details are added, or even if old details are simply updated.
And a REALLY nice feature is that you can slide the amount of text you want displayed.
Hope that helps.
tail wags,
Webdog
.:: Back to What is RSS ::. |
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RSS in IE7 |
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In Internet Explorer 7, you can use this guide to make use of the EGLR RSS feeds (and any other feeds, like the BBC news feed, for instance).
Step one
Navigate to the home page (or any page where you see the EGLR feeds listed)
(click to see a bigger picture)
Step two
Click on the feed url that you want to monitor.
Once this page has loaded, you can choose to subscribe to the feed.
Step three
Click Subscribe, this will tell your browser that you want it to monitor the EGLR feed whenever the browser starts.
You can choose to give the feed a different name, store in a subdirectory (perhaps called EGLR Feeds). Just click on 'OK'
Step four
Test the feed that you just set up, go on, it's really easy.
And that is all that you need to do to be kept up to date with the happenings at EGLR.
Hope that helps.
tail wags,
Webdog
.:: Back to What is RSS ::. |
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RSS in Flock |
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In Flock (*), you can use this guide to make use of the EGLR RSS feeds (and any other feeds, like the BBC news feed, for instance).
Step one
Navigate to the home page (or any page where you see the EGLR feeds listed)
Bet you know what's going to happen next? Yup, click on the feed that you want to subscribe to.
Step two
Flock gives you your own sidebar to manage your RSS feeds. You can create folders to manage and categorise your feeds, News, Dogs, Hollywood, etc etc etc. Just drag the big blue 'Subscribe' button to the folder, are you're done.
Step three
You can see that Flock shows how many news articles, dogs for adoption, or special reports there are (the ones that you have NOT read yet).
Step four
So there you have it, Flock will remember the EGLR articles you have read, keep track of the ones you've missed, AND let you know about the new articles too.
(*) Flock is a 'modern' browser that has been developed (or tuned to be honest, Flock is based on Firefox!) for users who can say 'Yes' to the following questions:
Do you read web pages (course you do)
Do you read RSS feeds (you do now ;-))
Do you Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa (bet you do)
Do you Digg, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (I don't)
Do you Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress, Xanga (course you do)
Do you Webmail, Delicious, Digg (doesn't everyone?)
If you answer yes to some of these, then you might find Flock useful. If you answer yes to most of these, then Flock could become indispensable.
Read about Flock here...
Hope that helps.
tail wags,
Webdog
.:: Back to What is RSS ::. |
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