November 8, 2007

Free email services

Just a reminder about using email.

Personal email

You can have a free email address based upon the bishopthorpe.net web site. This gives the advantage of being able to set it up in your email program on your computer - in Microsoft Outlook for example. Your emails however can also be operated in a web browser - known as webmail - rather like using Yahoo or another commercial service. The advantage of bishopthorpe.net webmail however is that you get no advertising on your email screen, and of course you can get access to mail anywhere in the world with internet access. Just send an email to mailstuff at bishopthorpe dot net with your first name and last name, and your preferred email name in the form "your.name" at bishopthorpe.net.

Bishopthorpe Friends List

You can join the growing group of Bishopthorpe people who communicate via the Friends email list. Sign up to send and receive news, or to ask questions of local people. To subscribe to this village email list, send an (empty) message to this address. The mail program will send a confirmation request back to you. To confirm your subscription, you just reply to the "Reply-To" address.

 

 

Posted by Your local correspondent at 8:51 AM | Comments (5)

March 1, 2005

Keeping in touch - news feeds

I know its a fag to keep on having to log on and check it for something new on the site. But there is another way!

This web site is based upon a system known as a web log. One of its features issyndication through the use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. Emerging originally (as usual) in the USA, web logs and news feeds have become important and are used by all sorts of people to campaign and inform on every subject from personal views to corporate and political news. There is a strong case made for their use here. Although I could see the case for an automatic alerting system for stuff that might interest me, getting started looked difficult. In order to receive newsfeeds from web sites, you need a newsreader or aggregator on the your computer. In fact it turns out my email program already has one built in - I use Mozilla Thunderbird - its free, it works and it isn't Microsoft so is not as vulnerable to virus attack. I also use Firefox as my browser and and this too can receive newsfeeds. As well as downloading a news reader to your computer, you can download an Outlook plugin, or sign up for an online site such as www.bloglines.com 1. In order to download a news aggregator, you can go to http://blogspace.com/rss/readers and select one based on what operating platform you are using. 2. If you prefer to install the Outlook plug-in and receive your news directly to your Outlook email, you can go to http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/default.aspx and download it from there. 3. If you do however prefer to access your newsfeed via an online service and without downloading any software or plug-ins, you can sign up to an online site like www.bloglines.com. Recommended newsreaders are SharpReader, and Feedreader. Bloglines, Feed Demon, NewsGator, and many other news aggregators operate similarly. They're free, and each has slightly different features. Once you have a newsreader installed, all you have to do is look for and right-click the text Click here to subscribe to newsfeeds on this web site, and copy the resulting web address in to your newsreader in order to create a folder. You can do the same for the other sections of the Bishopthorpe web site, and then follow instructions and sit back and wait for results! Another alternative is Live Bookmarks "Live Bookmarks is a new technology in Firefox (the sister browser to Mozilla Thunderbird - much better than Internet Explorer - even my 84 year father uses it! - Ed.) that lets you view RSS news and blog headlines in the bookmarks toolbar or bookmarks menu. With one glance, you can quickly see the latest headlines from your favourite sites. A site is enabled for Live Bookmarks when you see a special icon on the bottom right corner of the browser. Clicking on the icon and selecting an RSS feed will bring up the Add Bookmark dialog. Select 'OK' and you will see Live Bookmarks with the rest of your bookmarks. Many people find it especially convenient to save Live Bookmarks in their Bookmarks Toolbar folder."

Posted by The Newshound at 3:51 PM | Comments (0)

November 5, 2004

Searching the site

Searching for information on the Bishopthorpe Dot Net site is easy.

The site is made up of several sections - the main Bishopthorpe pages, and other sections covering particular topics - linked on the right of the main page.

You can go to, then search each section using the Search this site box. Just type in a word to get a list of results - a title and the first part of the text. Click on the title to read the whole article.

If you then want to search all of the different sections, click on the box marked Regex search and you will get a list of results from them all, listed by each section.

Posted by The Newshound at 9:25 AM | Comments (1)

August 30, 2004

About this site

As you can see, we are rebuilding this village website using new contributor software. It looks very different, but some of the original features, such as the Village Calendar and the Forums are still here, and the e-mail list is unaffected. Other features that have disappeared, such as the Travel page and the Purple Pages, should reappear in time as we gradually add new sections. We already have sections for the Parish Council, Bishopthorpe Millennium Trust, and all the village churches.

What does this mean for me?

The new software will make it very much easier for more people to contribute to the site. In fact anyone at all can comment on or add to stories, articles or other items that have already been posted – using the Comment button below each item.

However it also means that more people can become regular contributors as direct authors, which means they can ‘post’ original articles. You might want to post a general village news story, or something to do with your club or society, or keep us informed about a particular area of village life such as school activities, or sport.

If you would like to become a regular contributor please contact one of the team: Andrew or Romy Dunn (700337), Robin Whyte (700386) or Martin Dudley (706557).

Posted by at 2:43 PM | Comments (0)