*insert pun of your choice here* (hotshotsdesigns.co.uk/tooyoo/)

Member Name: MorganaDQ

Product:	hotshotsdesigns.co.uk/tooyoo/
Date:	10/07/02 (92 review reads)
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I often get bored you know. All too often, if I'm going to be honest about it. It's why I have so many hobbies (I'd list them, but you'd not care anyway, or you'd fall asleep before you reached the end). I don't find it so odd then, since getting more interested in the 'net and HTML myself, that a computer person would get bored and do computer stuff (I've given in, too... oh yes!).

The scale of the boredom must have been immense, however, for one ILJD (and if you don't know his full nick by now, I'm not sure you deserve to be told! ;)), when he had a play about and came up with the tooyoo guestbook.

He's lovely, you know. In his free time and at no cost to us, the users, he devotes time and effort into constantly updating and making improvements to tooyoo. Selfless? Most definitely. Idiotic? Quite possibly! A gem? You know it!

So, what is a tooyoo guestbook? Ack, that's a nasty one to try and explain, but here goes...

It's your own little page where anyone who's a member can come along and leave a message for you, and you in turn can leave a message for them on their own little pages, too.

Oh, that wasn't so difficult after all. Can I go now? Hmmm. Thought not. More info? Okay, okay, give me a chance.

Right. Well. There's more to it than that, so let's get with the basics and find some form, here.


**Signing Up**

There are absolutely no strings attached for signing up. All you need to do is go here - http://www.hotshotsdesigns.co.uk/tooyoo/register.p hp - and put in your desired username (since it's an unofficial dooyoo guestbook, you might be best off with your dooyoo name, but it's not compulsory), and then you put in a password you can remember, twice. Now hit Submit, and voila! You have your own guestbook!

You're not expected to receive any nasty spam advertising boob jobs o
r holidays you can't afford, you're not asked for a membership fee, and all you have to do after signing up is have fun.


**Guestbook Personalisation**

Okay, now this is where you can get flashy. The page colours when you first sign up will be pretty dull (black text on white background). No offence to the designer, of course, you have to start somewhere. But from your Settings page you can change not only the page colour, but also the text colour and links colour, plus the colour that appears behind names, and the page divides. Experiment and have some fun. Ultimately the colours you choose are your decision, but don't forget to bear your readers in mind. There are some pretty shocking colour combinations out there. Neon green and bright blue spring to mind. It was enough to make poor lil me run screaming without leaving a word.


**Other Settings Features**

From the same Settings page you can also change your password (pretty straight forward - type in your old one, then your new one twice), or you can opt to have a daily notification of messages straight to your inbox. Yes, for that you need to give your email address, but again, no spam will reach you via tooyoo.

At the very top right of this page you'll also find four other links:

The first is to return to your own guestbook, pretty straightforward.

The second allows you to delete all the messages from your guestbook - it means you can keep track easily of what's going on, tidying it up now and again, and clearing up bandwidth for our lovely designer. Bear in mind there is also a 'delete comment' option with each individual comment in your guestbook, so if there are any messages you want to keep you can delete the rest individually.

The third, and rather nifty little link allows you to make your guestbook private (so the messages are only visible to you). I haven't seen anyone utilising
this option yet, but then I don't go visiting a lot of folks' guestbooks, but I do think it's a nice touch.

The fourth link (and last in the little list) allows you to become invisible or visible, depending on your status at the time. Ever had one of those days where you appear and suddenly you're inundated with messages? Some days you just don't want that, so this is a way to be able to view your guestbook without having to let on to other users that you're there. And if you're invisible and suddenly feel the desire to 'come out', you can use the very same link. Nifty, eh? Oh, and if you're wondering how you can avoid 'coming out' altogether when you sign in, there's a box to check when you do, so that you can become invisible immediately if you so desire. No one need ever know you're there.


**Your Guestbook**

Right, so you have your guestbook nicely sorted out. You're happy with your colours, and you've decided to stay visible so other people know you're there. It is, after all, a new toy. But what do all these things do on my page?

There are a number of links here but none of them, I assure you, are confusing. Let's start at the top, shall we?

When you're signed in you'll see your own username as a link. This means that, even when you're invisible, you can always easily get back to your own page. Clicking on your name, wherever it may be, will return you to your own guestbook (so long as your name's a link - if you've typed it in a message, no deal).

Next to this you'll find the 'Settings' link. You already know what's there.

'Chat' comes next. I've never tried to enter the chat room using a link through tooyoo, having always accessed it through mIRC, but I understand it uses Java. The chat room was initially started as a chat room for The Opinionated Community,
but since tooyoo started more new people have been popping their heads round the door. So if you've heard of The Opinionated Community and suddenly feel a little intimidated by those three words alone, don't be - we're just your regular nice people, you know, and there are most certainly more new names appearing thanks to the link from tooyoo.

Next to 'Chat' we have 'Log Out'. Again, pretty straightforward.

The 'Help' section is next. By going here you can find out how to add bold, italic and underlined text in your messages, and gives you the symbols to use for some rather cute little smileys (just for the record, you can't beat the tongue one and the huge smile!).

We now have the 'Members' link. Clicking on it will take you to a page where you can either browse the current members alphabetically (at the time of writing, there are 321 members), enter a name you know already exists, click submit, and jump straight to their guestbook, view the ten newest members, or go to the General Message Area.

Next is a link to dooyoo. Straight to dooyoo. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.

Clicking on 'Contact' will open a new message window using whichever email program you're using, so you can send ILoveJackDaniels an email (yes, okay, I finally gave his full nick).

Below this line of links will be a link to the latest member who's signed up. Go on, be nice and leave them a welcome message. You know you want to ;)

So, those are the main links covered, and rest assured that whosever guestbook you visit, those same links will always be visible to you.

You will also, from any page, be able to see who's using tooyoo at the same time. At the moment, three people are listed (again, their names are links to their guestbook), and a few people are invisible (including me, yes - well, I can't be disturbed while I write this, can I?!
). So, when you do go invisible remember that people will know someone is in hiding, just not who - unless you go and start leaving messages everywhere, of course.

The text box is next, which is where you type your messages. Don't worry about formatting your messages to go into separate paragraphs or lines, because that will be done for you - type as you would normally. The only extras you might want would be to have bold, italic or underlined text, and how to do that is clear on the 'Help' page. You also have the option of making the message private by checking the 'Private Message' box before submitting. This will ensure that only the person you're leaving it for, and yourself, will be able to see it. I must admit I'm a big fan of the private message option. It means you can always have a degree of privacy, but still keep your guestbook open to others.

Want to know exactly when your messages were left for you? Not to worry. Every message has the name of the person, followed by the date and time it was left for you. Yay!

Below the text box is a link to the General Message Area. I'm betting you saw me refer to that earlier and thought, 'but hang on, isn't she going to tell us what this is?' Well yes, I am now that I've finished talking about your guestbook.


**General Message Area**

Um. Well. There's not much more you need to know, other than it looks just like your guestbook did before you changed the colours, and it's where you can leave messages for everyone. If ILJD has any admin message to leave, this is where he'll do it. We also have a regular poet who usually makes sure everyone starts their day smiling. Gotta love it.

For the most part this message area reads like a very slow chat room, but it can be a giggle. Even if it's just to say good morning before you go to work, or bug everyone by telling them you're about to
catch a plane to New Zealand, is can be a nice little place to visit.

At the bottom of each guestbook you'll also find a page hopper. This means you can click on any page number and be taken directly to that page. Remember it only correlates to the guestbook you're actually visiting at the time. Mine only has one page, for example, because I keep it nice and tidy (I'm a Virgo, for those who wondered - I know, it explains a lot), whereas there are currently 362 in the General Message Area.


**Other Thoughts**

Okay, so I've gone through the whole "how it works and what's there" thing with you. More importantly, now, what do I think of it?

Personally, I love it. It's not quite a forum and it's not quite a chat room. 'Cause here's the thing, see - a message forum, especially one related to dooyoo, can be pretty daunting. You have all of these people who aren't afraid to let you know what they think, posting their pieces of mind on a rather formal looking message board, and it can be quite scary. You're not sure how people will respond to you, or even if you'll be acknowledged sometimes. I know, I was that scared little 'rabbit caught in headlights' user, once, too. I also know how daunting chat rooms can be, especially if you've never used one before. The text rolls past your eyes way too fast to keep up, and if you do keep up, you get confused over who's saying what to who, and suddenly all you can do is sit there looking startled.

The tooyoo guestbook allows you the informality of a chat room without the confusion, and the convenience of a message forum without the trepidation. Not forgetting that unlike a chat room, you don't need to sit there reading like a mad thing in case you miss something - you can't miss it here, because you control your guestbook.

Tooyoo offers you the chance to get to know the people behind
the names on dooyoo, which can't be a bad thing (unless you're a bad person, or maybe just a good person who's bad at it... don't mind me, I'm reaching ramble mode). The comments sections on dooyoo that go with every little opinion are all well and good, but comments can feel out of place because they begin to get personal. Well, this is a way to leave those comments without losing the 'usefulness' of the dooyoo comments sections.

All of that said, I'd not leave behind the message forums, the comments sections in dooyoo, or the chat room. This is just another way to do things. Another way to get to know your favourite names on dooyoo, and find out that they're not that different from you and me after all.

I think this is a fabulous addition to your Favourites folder, written by a lovely bloke who has taken, and no doubt will continue to take, the time and effort to make sure our tooyoo experience is a good one.

Just remember to play nice ;)


(Oh, and if you're wondering about the title - after writing all of this, you can choose your own little pun, this brain is no longer functional) :P

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