Welcome! Let's Get Started!

Thanks for being interested in writing in the Forums at Lumigrate!  If everyone grabs an oar and has some coordination in the rowing effort, the boat can glide along without much work by any one person AND it can be FUN.  Fun, valid, progressive and streamlined is what I have in mind for Lumigrate, so I look forward to how YOU influence things!  Naturally, one of the concerns I have is keeping things somewhat 'grouped up' so that people can find things.  I'm going to put my best efforts here to how to get started and then ask the I.T. experts to come in and evaluate things, give their feedback.  AND since so many of us that are wanting to contribute to health care change by using the Internet and the related technologies but are always in the process of learning about it, I'm inviting I.T. experts to come into the appropriate forum areas to share what they know, answer our questions, and help ALL progress with their knowledge.  Everyone has something to give, and most like to have a place to do so!

The feedback we had last year was that if someone just came in and put a line about who they were and a link it came across as intrusive and 'spamming'.  But just putting something unique about how you know about Lumigrate, what it means to you, or why you're contributing eased that completely. 

Most important, figure out if you want to use a photo or some unique image that you'll become recognized by.  There is a default if you don't of a doctor's bag and apple, which then gets posted on facebook if you or I go to a facebook area (or other places) and put a link.  You'll see on facebook that when I post 'NEW' about something in the forum, various things come up.  PLEASE put in an image if possible, because I can't imagine people want to keep seeing my photograph as often as they do!  

Variety is the spice of life!  I actually don't know how you do that -- I had the webguy do that for me BUT I bet one of the MANY people who have figured it out on their own will drop in below here and Comment for me.  Everyone's been able to figure that out on their own but I get a message first asking for help and then they have it figured before I get to them!  (I tell you, it's a smart bunch of crayons!).  Harder, it appears, is the 'image in the body', but the celiac author, who was freaking out on facebook with me initially about how she's new to all this did it all by herself!  And FAST! (and she has kids with special needs, she herself has health stuff she's working on herself, extra time required for the foods they need to eat.... ADMIRABLE!  

We'll need our own little support group for this!  

1. Organization: What you see when you come to the Forums area are Forums within what are called 'Containers' when we set them up.  For instance, what I'm writing in now that you are reading is a new 'topic' I've titled 'Welcome! Let's Get Started!' within the "Forum" that I created just now ("How YOU Write in Lumigrate's Forums") under a "Container," About Forum Writing/Reading - What We Want and Know. 

• This is 'organic' and will take it's own form as time goes on.  Think a bit about the overall organization of things and how today or long in the future it will make sense with what you start, how you title it, etc.  For instance, getting a unique title so people know who you are, such as Yenta went with 'It Can't Hurt' and then went to numbering her installment 'topics' as she went along in the Spirituality Forum (before I created her own Forum based on it's success and popularity).  So that is a good forum to go and look at as an example for how she did that and how then I've set up the new Forum as a sub to Spirituality, leaving her original handfull of Topics in the general Spirituality forum.
• I've arranged this Forum with instructions to be at the TOP of the page/list of forums when someone comes to the Forums tab, so they can see it right away.

1. HOW TO:  If you're going to paste in something you've created elsewhere, Word brings some funny characters with it sometimes, so I wanted to suggest you either type things up in email or another program  (but not Word) if possible.  That's the only 'trick' that you might not know generally. You can always write it right here in the forum area but then it DID happen to me once when I clicked on the 'x' instead of the tab when I came back from getting a link and lost over an hour's worth of work on a new blog post.  (Grrrr).  That's when I had the idea to create in email and import but then I just got back on the horse and was more careful about where I clicked and I now compose in the Forum or Blog directly.  And if you take a long time writing, the website kind of thinks you've dropped and you'll keep writing along and go to submit what you wrote and it just disappears, which happened to a WONDERFUL writer I've been wishing for a year to write here, when she finally had the confluence and convergence of time, energy, interest.  

• It's pretty much like word processing or email -- at the top of the box you type in, you'll see the Format 'stuff'.. two lines of it.  Cut, paste, color, etc.  I'm trying to use some of them in this to show you ... COLOR is the lower line 'T' with the color cube at it's base.  Background color is next to it.  I've used the bullets and 1,2,3 list for you above. 
• LINKS... you'll want to link to other places in Lumigrate that you write OR to your own website or blog, reference places within the Internet.... and you just click on icon that is on the top line of the Formatting things towards the right -- a world with a link (blue/green world). 
• You can use emoticons.... break it up, make it FUN. 

ALSO

1. You can import an image ... so if you have a book cover you want to promote in the body here.  The icon for that is just 4 left of the emoticon icon and is a mountain and sun with a yellow background.  You can import Tables... Flash.. ™(Special characters are on the little white block to the right of the emoticon symbol).  And ABC(green checkmark) is the spell check, which sometimes by the time I am done writing I'm so stressed out I just scroll down to the bottom and hit 'Submit' .. and come back and spellcheck.  
2. TAGS:  VERY IMPORTANT -- those are the words that will bring people to your information on the Search that they do either in Lumigrate or on the Internet.  See the one instruction under that area about using " " marks with words that are to be together, such as "Mardy Ross".  
3. You don't need to add in any of the Log message: or Meta tags or Keywords that are below the body of where you write.  Just go down and click 'Submit'.  You can always come back and 'edit'. 
4. If anything goes wrong, message throught the website or any other means you know of to get ahold of us. 

TEMPORARILY -- Adam's going to add these instructions into another area where people can find them if they need) and I figured I'd tack it on here for now TOO! (Since many have written and not yet put in their photos / graphics, so they can simply look here for now as well).

Here's how to get your profile picture (or whatever YOU want to be 'recognized' by on Lumigrate.com .. an image/ logo/ photo.... :

1. Have a photo saved on your computer that is 1600x1400 max and 100x100 min. If you aren't sure if your picture meets that criteria, email the photo to any teenager in your family and have them check. You must know where this photo is saved on your computer (desktop, documents, etc.)

2. Log-in to Lumigrate via the Username and Password at the top of the page. Click on My Account at the top of the page (the very top. Don't see it? Look higher, it's at the very very top).

3. Click on Edit at the top of the page (lower than where you found My Account).

4. In the Edit area, scroll down to the Picture are and click the Browse button. This will open up a window asking you to navigate to your photo.

5. Find the photo and click on it then click Open.

3. Once the photo has uploaded, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click Submit.

As for the book cover, you must already have a picture of your book somewhere else on the Internet.

To add that image:

1. Go to the site where the image of your book is located.

2. Right-click on the image of your book and choose View Image.

3. Once image appears, right-click on it again and choose "Copy Image Location" or Copy Image Address or Copy Image URL - something like that - wording depends on the browser.

4. Now, go back to your Lumigrate profile and click on the Edit button on the screen.

5. In the "Signature" area, type in all of the information that you want people to know about you, then click on the little square that looks like (if you use your imagination) a pointy mountain with a moon over it.

6. In the window that comes up, right-click in the "Image URL" box and choose Paste. The URL (web address) of the image you copied earlier should show up in the box. The picture should show up.

Click Submit at the very bottom of the page and you should be done.

______________________________________________________

Remember, it's FUN to see people's Comments, so please leave them, and I'm going to get this posted up as a rough because I might just catch one of those IT people or gals who have mastered their photos that I don't know how to walk you through on facebook quick. 

Thanks!  Keep in mind, this can be as little or as much as you want it to be.  You can make it be regularly scheduled or when you get to it.  We hopefully get to know who each other are enough so that if we see a need we can ask someone to pick up the keyboard and address something.  I've seen MANY needs and many wonderful people who I think have so very much to offer.  So thank you for being here -- and please tell others YOU know who might want to learn or teach, no matter where they are 'at' professionally or as consumers.  They likely will appreciate it!  

Comments

Tue, 02/09/2010 - 1:10pm

#1 [2]

Sandy E

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Itinerant

Joined: Feb 7 2010

Posts: 3

Re: Welcome! Let's Get Started!

In 1996, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  I was soon bedridden and it lasted about 5 years.  I did get some better, then worse, better and now a little worse. 

Leading up to this time in my life, I lost two children...first our 3rd child, a baby boy, 41/2 months old, suddenly got sick on a Friday and died on a Tuesday.  At the time, my husband was in another hospital very sick.  That was in 1970.  Our 1st child, who was 5 yrs. old, seemed to get really sick within 6 months of our baby boy's death.  She almost died but in 1971, we found out she had Cystic Fibrosis, which then all the doctors felt our baby must have had.

We were so depressed, sad, just felt no hope.  After about a year, my husband and I began to heal and what we saw in our lives just wasn't right for us.  We both have a good sense of humor and it seemed all fun in life had stopped...but then we thought, if our daughter, who would get so sick,  who had to live with sickness, and our other daughter and us, then we needed to get our sense of humor back and make her life and our middle daughter,s life fun again.  So, we worked hard to see the humor in things that were so negative and hurtful.  And our daughter would laugh and get well.  It gave her hope, the will to fight for her life. So,out of such negative situations, we learned the "gift of laughter" and to this day, I use my sense of humor to not only make others laugh but myself and it gets me through the bad times.  In 1993, our 1st child, a daughter passed away.  She was 28 and married.  She was born on Christmas day.  That is a very difficult time but we have bought chocolate covered cherries ever since 1993 every Christmas because she loved them.

I have probably cried as much as laughed but the laughter will get me through the crying.  I hope others can learn the magic of laughter.

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Wed, 02/17/2010 - 4:56pm

#2 [6]

Mardy Ross

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Top of the Totem Pole

Joined: Feb 16 2009

Posts: 2032

Above, From Sandy -- Learning Example:

I give Sandy huge credit -- she isn't one to use Forums, nor how to register, so we helped her get started to this point.  She knew I'd suggested she write her story, but hadn't seen that there is a whole section for Your Story About Your Fibromyalgia over in the Forums area (click on the word Forum in the Purple Bar at the top of the page, and don't feel badly, one of the smartest OTs I know who had a big company in the past said she didn't realize the words were tabs for navigating in the website!).  Then scroll down to Fibromyalgia, and within that Forum, you'll see a Your Story About Your Fibromyalgia as a Topic I started in May of 2009 after Fibromyalgia Awareness Day.   You can then just add onto it, the way I just tacked on here!   The home page currently explains that Lumigrate is about integrative medicine, and since fibromyalgia and chronic pain is one of our main concepts we launched with, then you'll see much in the Fibro Forum, but in the future we hope to see other things develop -- diabetes, heart health, etc.  Whatever people have an interest and demand for... we'll do it!  Luckily, anything that applies to people with fibromyalgia likely has a lot to teach others, so it's all good!

Good to see new people coming here.  Thanks everyone .. many hands, light work! Mardy

__________________

Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate [1] and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!

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Tue, 02/23/2010 - 2:40pm

#3 [7]

talkingdigital

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Itinerant

Joined: Jan 26 2010

Posts: 8

Tips for creating account and posting

1. Create a username that describes yourself or your interest as it relates to Lumigrate.

2. Create a complex password. This doesn't mean it has to be hard to remember. Try using numbers and characters instead of letters and change from upper to lowercase. For example, "P455W0rD!"

3. Do not write your posts in another word processing software - especially Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word embedds some really weird unseen stuff that will make your post look horrible once it is posted to Lumigrate.

If you need to run spellcheck, click on "Switch to plain text editor" at the bottom under the box that you write your post in. This will turn on your browser's spell checker. Once the post is written, you can click "Switch to rich text editor" to format your post and add photos and links.

__________________

Adam Cochran is the owner and operator of talkingDigital [8], a podcast network and production studio.

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Fri, 03/26/2010 - 1:15pm

#4 [9]

Alice

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Top of the Totem Pole

Joined: Aug 23 2009

Posts: 51

Re: Welcome! Let's Get Started! Writing to Post on Lumigrate

As Mardy says above Microsoft Word is not totally compatable with Lumigrate.com.  I have tried different programs to write then copy and paste into Lumigrate forum areas. 

I wrote two long works on Notepad, which transfers to Lumigrate.com very well, but is unreliable.  I used my laptop too long and it went off because the battery was too low.  The result of that was that I lost everything I had written.

The best solution I have found to date is to use Open Office Writer and select the  HTML document format.  Open Office is free to download, is compatable with Microsoft Word and Excel documents as well as other Microsoft Office products.  I have found it to be a very good product with the best part being it saves what you are doing as you go along.  If my laptop shuts down, when I restart it will bring up a box to recover your work. It seems to have all the bells and whistles I am accustomed to using with Microsoft Office. 

You can write in the Lumigrate.com site and it works very well if you don't have a power outage or some other unforseen problem.  If you want to save a copy of what you write on your own computer, have a backup in case of an internet problem when submitting, or just need an easy way to write try Open Office.  Here is a link for a free download.  You might consider making a donation to the team that provides this awesome software for you to use. 

http://download.openoffice.org/ [10]

Try it, write in the HMTL mode then copy and paste into Lumigrate.com.  Happy writing to all.

 

__________________

Alice Franklin was raised on a sandy beach in Point Clear, AL and lived along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Alabama in her youth, graduating from Fairhope High School on Mobile Bay. Prior to becoming disabled due to severe spine problems, she worked her way into management and purchasing positions in industrial manufacturing and art industries. She worked her way into Lumigrate unknowingly by impressively writing at Lent 2010 about utilizing her religious and spiritual beliefs with chronic pain/disease management (she has had fibromyalgia and chronic myofascial pain for decades); it turns out she holds the priesthood office of elder in her church and became active again in this office in May 2010 and has been pastor or copastor in previous churches. We are so very proud to have her words and thoughts gracing our 'pages' of this website and look forward to what the future holds for her.

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