See the links on the right to get to the members (and non members) area.

OK, so why is there a members page? Well it is quite simple, this page, besides giving you a brief overview of what the members area is, provides links to your personal members area.

I have eventually found a solution to my problem of giving us all a members area. As you are all probably well aware, I don’t have the time to update the site often, so I am hoping this will help. Initially I thought I was going to have to write some fancy website stuff myself, but then I found Google! Basically google now host the clubs email accounts in IMAP. Now I know that probably means little to you but keep reading! Along with this new mail service they do, we also get some cool apps which should let us communicate a lot better as a club. They are explained below...

Main area:

This is where you can go to see an overview of your own area. By default your page will show (only if you have logged in) your mail overview, your calendar, your Google Talk status and any documents there are to share. It will also show stuff like the weather in pretty much any city in the world, word of the day and so on. These are all completely customizable so you can add or delete ‘gadgets’ as you choose, there are hundreds to choose from!

If you have not logged in, you will see the same things, but without the data. So for example, nobody but you can see your emails.

Docs

The docs page allows us to save documents within aberdeenmrc.co.uk’s member area that will only be seen by logged in members. What does this let us do? well it will let you write a word document for example, that you want made into a webpage for the site, maybe a write-up on one of the layouts for example. You can save this in the docs area and it can be viewed by any member who can comment on it. I can then copy it into a web template and it is on the site! This will be of great help to me as it speeds up the site update process, which is in turn of great benefit to the site’s visitors.

Mail

IMAP? Ok, IMAP is just a way of getting your mail. If you use an email program like Outlook, or Mail you will most likely have used POP mail, or if you use it at work, Exchange. So what is the difference? Well IMAP and Exchange are quite similar in that it does not matter which computer you use your mail will be there to see. With POP your mail is generally downloaded to one computer and deleted from the mail server. Why will IMAP help the club? Well we (I) have been guilty in the past of missing messages, or taking a few days to reply. Now what we can do is have two or three (or more, there is no limit really) members have an account set up on their computer. I.e. INFO at aberdeenmrc could be checked by a number of people. The even better bit is that if someone has read and replied to that message, the others can see that instantly! If you are not too sure on how to setup the IMAP on your pc or mac, then the best thing to do is just use the webmail which works really well.

Oh, and you will each get 6Gb of email storage!

Google Talk:

This is a neat gadget! You can add all the AMRC members to your contact list and chat in real time! You can also add Google Talk members out with the club. I guess the younger members may use this more though!

The best bit of it all is that it is a completely FREE service!

So if you want a members area please email me or see me at club and i will sort it out, it just takes seconds and you are off!

My email is mike at aberdeenmrc dot co dot uk