HowTo: Setup your knowledgeGarden account

Once you have registered? you can setup your knowledgeGarden account exactly as you want ... after all it is your account. Most of these things are done in MY TIKI > PREFERENCES (remember to save the settings before leaving the page).

We suggest that you should do things in the first and second section as soon as possible then you can return to this page when you have time.

You may want to print this page so you can refer to it as you setup your account.

1 Easy things you should do immediately

You should goto MY TIKI > PREFERENCES and do the following things as soon as you register. The existing preferences are sensible defaults e.g. other users will be able to see a link to your UserPage and send you a message if they click your name.

• enter your real name in the REAL NAME field (if you want)
• select your COUNTRY from the drop down list
• click CHANGE INFORMATION

• you can make your email public in the community if you want
• you should set USER INFORMATION to PUBLIC (this will only show your name to others in the knowledgeGarden community)
• tick the SHOW USER'S INFO ON MOUSEOVER
• click CHANGE PREFERENCES

• start to create your userpage by clicking (CREATE) next to YOUR PERSONAL WIKI PAGE in the personal information box at the top of the screen.
  • this will create your personal wiki page and at this stage you can enter a sentence or two about yourself with a with a blank line between paragraphs. You can add to your page at any time and more information on creating userpages is available at HowTo: Create your knowledgGarden UserPage.

2 Add your avatar and location

• goto MY TIKI > PREFERENCES
• use PICK AN AVATAR to upload a square photo or avatar. Before you upload it you may want to crop it tightly around your face (make sure that it is square). The online and productivity tools that work page has links to web sites that allow you to crop and resize images. You can download avatars from:
  • http://www.avatarity.com/
  • animated GIFs or
  • http://www.hotavatars.com
• click CHANGE INFORMATION

• enter your longitude and latitude (the default is Toowoomba, Australia). If you use Internet Explorer, the GOOGLE MAP LOCATOR on the preferences page will crash
• You can find your longitude and latitude by
  • going to http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocationv3.php?lat=-27.722436&lon=151.962891
  • zooming to your location,
  • clicking the map,
  • then copying the longitude and latitude, and
  • entering them into the PREFERENCES page available under the MYTIKI menu
• click CHANGE INFORMATION

3 Add a link to your userpage on other knowledgeGarden pages

Some pages in knowledgeGarden e.g. the knowledgeGarden members: where I live contain links to people's userpages. This is a good way to build up your learning network.
You can add a link to your userpage to any page in knowlegeGarden page by

• going to the page you want to add the link to e.g. the knowledgeGarden members: where I live
• clicking the EDIT icon at the top right or the EDIT button at the bottom left of the page) and inserting one of the following links (the first one is simpler but does not show your avatar):

What is shown	what you type when you edit the page
.
Userpage:PeterEvans	((Userpage:PeterEvans))
.
Peter Evans	((Userpage:PeterEvans|Peter Evans))
.
Peter Evans	{AVATAR()}PeterEvans{AVATAR}((Userpage:PeterEvans|Peter Evans))

4 Have announcements emailed to you

Rather than having to visit the community and search for new content you can be notified when things changed. To receive an email each time a message is posted to the ANNOUNCEMENTS blog:

• go to the blog using the BLOG menu and selecting LIST BLOGS
• click ANNOUNCEMNETS to view the announcements blog
• click the EYE (or monitor) icon at the top right of the scren

You can use this method to monitor anything within the community.

Flash screencast showing setting setting up an account

This flashmovie will open in a new window and demonstrate the following items:

0:00	Introduction
0:30	Customiseing the account
1:15	Setting preferences
2:40	Creating user page
5:10	Uploading an avatar
6:20	Creating a link to your userpage
7:00	Adding a link to the Members page

http://www.usq.edu.au/users/evansp/knowledgeGarden/setup/setup.html

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