Tools to make your posts even better

I just wanted to list a few items that might help everyone take advantage of the POWERFUL features in our board. If you have suggestions and other tips for users, please post own items as well.

STEP ONE: Fancy Posts
You can add all sorts of fonts, COLOR, faces and such using the Enhanced posting editor. Use the Word Processor like features to pretty up your posts. For many users this is the default posting system, however to make sure you have the Enhanced interface and full WYSIWYG editing, do the following:

• Go to User CP -> Edit Options
• Scroll ALL the way down
• Under Miscellaneous Options make sure "Enhanced Interface" is selected

While you are in the Options area you may wish to also customize other features of your account, like time, thread display, etc.

STEP TWO: Create Your Profile & Avatar
A profile gives other users a little info about you. This can help others in the community get to know you.

• Go to User CP -> Edit Profile
• Enter as much information as you'd like to share. You can even post your birthday on our calendar of events! Make sure to hit "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page when you are done.
• Now go to "Edit Avatar" in your Control Panel.
• Here you can select an image which will appear next to all of your posts. Select one of our many pre-installed avatars or upload a custom one from your computer. NOTE: Avatars are limited to a width of 125 pixels, a height of 150 pixels and a size of 20kb.
• Now go to "Edit Profile Picture"
• Here you can add a photo for your profile. NOTE: Profile pictures are limited to a width and height of 250 pixels and a size of 25kb.

Once you complete the steps above you've completed the setup of your public GRINGOTALK face.

STEP THREE: Signatures
You can add a fun or informative signature which will appear below each one of your posts. Many users put favorite quotes, links to home pages, etc. in this area.

• Go to User CP -> Edit Signature
• Plug in any info you want to display in your signature.

OTHER TIPS AND TRICKS:
General Help and Info
We've created a HUGE resource of information on how to use the features in our board. Simply click on the FAQ link in the top navigation area. Don't be shy, everyone has to go there from time to time.

Fancy Code
Through the entire board, in posts, signatures etc. you can use custom code (similar to HTML) to show special items like links or photos. The Enhanced Interface for posting also allows these features. You can learn all about our special code tags here: http://www.gringos.com/forum/misc.php?do=bbcode

Quick Image Sizer:
Many users want to post photos. One thing to remember is that it may take a LONG time to download your photos if they are not resized properly. If you post images that are too wide it could force left-right scrolling on the thread. So, here is a tool which will allow you to resize and shrink all of your photos quickly - and its free!
http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm
NOTE: Images are limited to 100KB in size but we request that you compress the images as much as possible while still making them look good - help our pages load fast by optimizing your images!

[NunoEFSilva]

FREE IMAGE VIEWER
http://www.irfanview.com/
IrfanView is a very fast, compact and free (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows (any 32-bit).
Supports thumbnail navigation, limited editing (including resizing), Photoshop filters, slideshows with multimedia and practically all bitmap formats.

FREE IMAGE EDITOR
http://www.getpaint.net/
Paint.NET is free image editing and photo manipulation app for Windows (2000, XP & Vista).
Supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a variety of tools.

FREE TEXT EDITOR
http://www.pspad.com/
PSPad is a free professional-grade text editor for Windows (any 32-bit).
Supports many file types and languages (both human) with spell checker, (and computer ones), syntax highlighting, integrated hex editor, rich text formatting functions, web page creation and user extension capabilities.

FREE PDF CREATOR
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows (32-bit) program.
Use it like a printer from Word, Excel or any other Windows application.

FREE FILE MANAGER
http://www.freecommander.com/
freeCommander is an easy-to-use highly configurable alternative to Windows Explorer.
Supports dual-panel navigation, built in file viewer (text, hex or image) and archive handling (zip, cab: read, write; rar: read), secure file wipe and multi-language.

FREE CD/DVD BURNER
http://www.cdburnerxp.se/
CDBurnerXP Pro is a free burning solution for CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs.
Supports most IDE, USB, Firewire and SCSI drives, rips Audio-CDs to hard drive and creates ISO-files with data verification after burn.

[NunoEFSilva]

FREE OFFICE SUITE
http://www.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice is a free suite of productivity apps which includes:
* Writer - a modern, fully equipped word processor / desktop publisher (much like WinWord).
* Impress - multimedia presentations with 2D and 3D clip art, special effects, animation and drawing tools (PowerPoint clone)
* Math - mathematical equations editor for insertion in other documents or as stand-alone math notes.
* Draw - toolkit for vector-based graphics drawing like diagrams, flowcharts, floor plans, etc.
* Calc - easy-to-use spreadsheet with a comprehensive range of advanced functions (Excel look alike).
* Base - database bench for creating and modifying tables, forms, queries and reports (like MSAccess).

FREE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
http://ganttproject.biz/
GanttProject is a tool for creating a project schedule by means of Gantt chart and resource load chart.
Supports exchange of data with Microsoft(R) Project(TM) and most spreadsheet applications.

FREE WEB EDITOR (That's for you RustyMon)
http://tswebeditor.net.tc/
tsWebEditor at first it looks like a plain text editor... but!
Supports XHTML, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, XSL, PHP, ASP (and other languages), PHP debugging, Unicode, external programs and has an SQL designer! (MySQL)

[NunoEFSilva]

FREE PORTABLE APPS
http://portableapps.com/
PortableApps provides a truly open platform that works with any hardware you like (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, etc).
It's open source built around an open format that any hardware vendor or software developer can use.
The Portable Apps Suite is free and growing; it contains no spyware and there are no advertisements.
It isn't a limited or trial version; there is no additional hardware or software to buy and you don't even have to give out your email address.
It's 100% free to use (on any Windows computer), free to copy and free to share.

Included are:
* Office Apps
* Graphics & Pictures Apps
* Music & Video Apps
* Games
* Internet Tools
* Utilities
and even
* Operating Systems on a USB flash drive!

[Cap'n Jib]

Thanks for the info guys.

I have thought that there has to be a better way of doing things than what I am doing now.

[NunoEFSilva]

FREE GRAPHIC EDITING ENVIRONMENT
http://www.gimp.org/
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free, open source, powerful graphic editing environment for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems and in many languages and is functionally equivalent to Photoshop.

FREE DRAWING EDITOR
http://www.inkscape.org/
Inkscape is a free, open source, vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand and CorelDraw.
Supports the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) as well as several bitmap and vector-based formats; also creative commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text. Fully compliant with XML, SVG, and CSS standards.

FREE DESKTOP PUBLISHING
http://www.scribus.net/
Scribus is a free, open source, professional-grade desktop publishing solution similar to Pagemaker.
Supports CMYK colour, separations, ICC colour management and versatile PDF creation.

[NunoEFSilva]

FREE WEB AUTHORING SYSTEM
http://www.nvu.com/
NVU (read New View) is a free, open source, Web Authoring System on par with FrontPage or Dreamweaver.
Supports WYSIWYG/Tag modes, tab and integrated FTP editing of tages, cross-browser compatibility and is available for Linux, Windows and Mac.

[NunoEFSilva]

FREE ARCHIVER UTILITIES

http://www.7-zip.org/
7-Zip is a free, open source, compression and archiving utility for Windows.
# High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
Supports - Create / Pack / unpack: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR archives; Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LHA (LZH), CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS archives.

http://www.tugzip.com/
TUGZip is a freeware compression and archiving utility for Windows.
Supports - Create / Pack / unpack: 7-ZIP, BH, BZ2, CAB, JAR, LHA (LZH), SQX, TAR, TGZ, YZ1 and ZIP archives; Also: A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, CPIO, DEB, GCA, GZ, IMP, LIB, RAR, RPM, TBZ, TAZ and ZOO archives, plus BIN, C2D, IMG, ISO and NRG disc-images.

http://www.izarc.org/
IZArc is a freeware compression and archiving utility for Windows.
Supports: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO archives, plus ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG disc-images.

http://www.powerarchiver.com/
PowerArchive is a freeware compression and archiving utility for Windows.
Supports - Create / Pack / unpack: ZIP, 7-ZIP, CAB, LHA (LZH), TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, BH, XXE, UUE, yENC, and MIME (Base 64); Unpacking only: RAR, ARJ, ARC, ACE, ZOO archives, plus ISO, BIN, IMG and NRG disc-images.

[Bueller]

I just found out by accident that you can add italics, bold, and underling by holding down "ctrl" and hitting i, b, or u respectively. Maybe I'm the last one to figure this out...

[NunoEFSilva]

FREE WEBCAM CAPTURE
http://dorgem.sourceforge.net/
Dorgem is a free, open source, webcam capture application
Supports an unlimited number of simultaneous cameras and stream saving either on FTP destination or local HD.