Forum Activity for @strumelia

The above issue is now CORRECTED in the email notification links!  

A psaltery bow yes, would be ideal!   It's more more nimble and light than even a short violin bow.  The bow hair should be laid out in a small round 'rope' shape rather than a violin bow flat wide 'tape' shape...which I found gets caught on the zither pins too often when jumping quickly between the pins, as in bowed psatery playing.

In a pinch, for a rustic 'disposable' bow-   you can even take an arched bent green branch between 1/4"-3/8" thick, cut deep notches at both ends, and set a hank of bow hair in it.  Tie a knot at one end of the hair hank and lay it into one notch.  Comb the hair straight without handling it in the middle (no finger grease!)...pull it to a good tension and lay it in the other notch by tying another knot at that end.  Once you have it nicely set and tensioned to your liking, you can put a dot of glue on each knot to keep it in place well.  Rosin it up very well to start with, then lightly thereafter.

You can buy black stallion horsehair hanks already measured and knotted at one end on Ebay, not that expensive.  You can use a whole hank for a rustic bow, or half a hank if you want a thinner hair 'rope'.   Some folks make a slight twist in the hair 'rope' when setting the hair in.  I found that works well when making twisted horsehair strings, and personally I like non-twisted hair for bows.

I've found that such rustic 'bent stick/hank of hair' bows work surprisingly well and are kind of fun for psalteries, rebecs, jouhikkos, etc.  If you use an underhand grip to bow (as with a jouhikko/tagelharpa) you can leave the hair more slack because you tension the hair while playing, with your bow grip hand.

Wow, June was so hot that for the first time ever, our backyard blueberry harvest is now overlapping with our garden tomato season. 

Today I made a big blueberry pie AND picked several gigantic ripe red and yellow tomatoes.  I think we may have another 10 days of blueberries or so.  Spent an hour and a half working my way along the rows pulling up weeds in the vegetable garden.  Probably three more days of the same to finish that round.  The bending is tough, but I find kneeling is worse.  sigh....then you blink and the weeds are all back again...lol.
For lunch I had two fresh thick sliced tomato sandwiches with mayo and onions.  Bought some bacon so we can start making BLTs tomorrow...

Well, that was easy!   

I have both an old fashioned paper calendar hanging on my office wall and calendars on my computer desktop and my ipad.  The digital calandars are kinda cool because many of them will allow you to set popup reminders ahead of important events.  Lots of stuff I'd forget if it weren't for that.   

Thanks Robin!

To send a PM:

As Robin said, Hover on your top navbar NAME LINK, and the drop-dpown menu will show "Private Messages"-  click to get to your Message area.

There you can see past message threads you may have sent or received.  To create a NEW pm, look there top right for "New Message" button.  go there and start typing a name, like John...and all members with John will show in a list as you type (autofill) and you pick which John you want to send it to. and you type your PM and then send.

Make sure you look in your "Notifications TAB" in your Account Settings area, to checkbox the things you would like to receive email notifications on...like be notified when you receive a private message, for example.

Hope this helps!

What kinds of tunes are these?   Traditional irish maybe?

You might be able to embed an mp3 into a post here...in the texbox, click on the video-y looking icon on the right (right before the smiley icon) and explore that.

Hi Charles, you can link to that recording here in a discussion if it resides someplace else online, but you can't upload the recording to your member audio clips- because all audio/video clips uploaded to the music and video site sections have to feature yourself playing or performing...see the site rules.  Had to remove the recording.  Very sorry! 

2)  Your profile page "EVENTS TAB" and "CALENDAR TAB" are designed to show events that YOU created, and their dates.

Thus, since Leo is the person who created that Harvest event, if you go to HIS profile page and click on his Events Tab and his Calendar Tab, you WILL see the Harvest event listed there in both places:  http://fotmd.com/leo-kretzner/event

In general, our profile pages will show things that we ourselves have created .  That's also why most members here will not have anything showing in their Groups TAB on their profile page- because they have not created any groups/don't 'own' any groups.  To see the groups you are a member of , you hover over your top navbar NAME link, where the drop down menu shows things like your Private messages inbox, Logout, groups you are following (a member of), and your account settings.

If you ever create an event such as a festival or gathering, it will then appear in your profile page Events Tab and on your own events' Calendar.

I know it's all different from what you are used to, but once you get familiar with the 'concepts' of how this site works, such things begin to make more sense.  At least, that's what happened to me!  Stuff that used to make me go "Huh??" now make make me go "Oh yeah, of course!"

I do apologise to everyone for the significant learning curve for our new home here- there was only so much that I was able to recreate to mimic or function in the very same way as folks are used to from our old site.   I'm pretty certain that over time, most of these things will become less puzzling.

P.S. Tumbleweed, if you are attending that event, then YES i would definitely click as well to "Follow" it- that way you'll get notified if others post in or update that event.

I'm sorry for the confusion concerning how the "attending/calendar' features function.

Tumbleweed, this is one of those things that I need to explain carefully, so please bear with me...

1)  When you clicked the "attending" button, you DID successfully subscribe to be shown as someone who will be attending that event. You are shown in the event's list of attendees, here:

Joe thank you so much for your encouraging post.   Yes your avatar image is fun and original!   It's amazing how delightful some people's images are- and so much wonderful variety!      Big hug to you...

Thanks guys.   I know that it's not always intuitive and breezy to figure out how things work here-  partly because we are sooo used to things working a certain way.  We're on a whole different platform now, that was pulled around this way and that to make it function as closely as possible to how we have been used to for six years-  but some things are just plain built differently and we have to learn new 'work patterns' to get around and do stuff that used to be familiar but now works differently.

It's kind of like remodeling a house-  the entrance door used to be on the side, but you put a window there instead and relocate the door at the back so people can drive around and bring in their groceries in more easily...people will keep automatically knocking at the side window while fumbling for their keys....for a good long while...  lol.

I appreciate your extreme patience... the good news is that the place is pretty good already and will only get better slowly and steadily!  And we are now SAFE, updated, and expanded.  In contrast, the old site was being badly neglected by the old provider, and we were completely dependent on that company to keep it running FOR us.  Now there is no uncaring corporation to be dependant on anymore.  

Ken, great idea!  I'll be sure to put this in my 300 page "Tips on Navigating FOTMD" outline I was planning to write this afternoon! 

Great!  And I didn't even have to 'fix' anything!  

I should mention however, that there IS something I'm working on fixing that is related but different-   When we are 'following' a discussion and we get an emailed notification of a new post, if we click the link in the email, we are not taken to the new post as we should be...instead we are taken to the reply box at the bottom of the discussion's first page.  This is something I currently AM working to correct.  

You guys are totally crackin me up

I need a bigger red pen.

Ken...now you'll have me counting the hairs in my hairbrush....     

(that last picture looks like a football play....)

('AngryFishingGuy' would doubtless have lots to say about all this!)   

Sheryl, KenH, KenBacker...?    Does this help you all?

Ah you mean hovering over their Avatar picture on the right?  True!  though it doesnt give the exact time.

However, on the fotmd Main Page, in the lower left module titled "Latest Forum Posts"... it DOES tell you the last poster and the exact time of their post.  Also when yuo are THERE, clicking on the thread title WILL bring you to the latest post in the thread. (possibly because there's no other choices to click on)

Sorry I know that's a bit odd that it's different there than the other place, but hey nothing's perfect right?  Maybe I can do a rehaul down the road a ways...  or next year... when i'm old...  gettin there fast...  lol!  

I realize that this may not be terribly obvious, but does this help solve the issue?

I discovered it simply by trying to 'click differently' when I wasn't getting the result I expected.

Also, note the last poster's name, when they posted it, and shows their avatar...

Ok, I'd like to start taking a look at this issue, but i need to have an exact step-by-step description of how you get to this point where you arrive at the oldest posts of a forum discussion (which is what you don't want).  

Please be very specific about where you start from, and what you click on in the series of clicking that you are doing.  

Start from the beginning- where are you starting from?  Outline each click step for me please.

Hi Dan,

I have received your demand that your membership be removed from our site.  I will be happy to help do that for you, as soon as I get back from Sunday brunch with my friends.  Thanks!

Dalton, the short answer is- we'll often re-tune our melody string so that the melody notes we need are playable on the melody string and not 'missing'.

Here is a blog post I wrote about why I might be in a different tuning in order to get those 'missing' notes on my melody string...it's about DAA, but can be applied to help answer your question:  http://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-i-like-daa-tuning.html

I'm sure others will chime in with some great replies as well.  :)

Dan,

I'm sorry we were not able to fix your tablet problem and I'm sorry the site does not meet your needs.

Please let me know if you want to leave the site and if so, I can assist you in deleting your account.

John, I've always read that squashing a desktop browser screen does not accurately replicate what happens on true mobile devices.  I imagine tests are usually better on a real mobile device?

Wish I could lose weight by just squashing my screen... 

No problem George!  Be sure to look over all the tabs and settings in your "Account Settings"-  you get lots of choices on how you want your account to work here!  

Update:  Hey George- beatuful new avatar you added there!  

Hi George, 

Dusty said:

 George, once you are logged in, hold your cursor over your name in the toolbar (but don't click), and you will see a drop-down menu.  Click on "Account Settings."  Once there, you will see the generic picture with an option underneath it to "upload new image."  Choose that and then you can upload a picture from your computer.  When you are done, don't forget to "Save Changes" on the bottom of the screen.

Let us know if you still can't do it. 

lol Dusty.  I hear what you are saying.  I think these are points that might be addressed further down the road.  They'd require some in depth testing and there are other issues which take precedence for a good while yet.  Not saying these things are not important, just that a bunch of other other stuff requires my time ahead of them, and it'll likley be while...a couple months maybe, before I can approach them.  I'm still in the 'gros-tuning' stage rather than the 'fine-tuning' stage.  

One thing i will say though- this site was built on a Jamroom platform, but was put together so that it could import and support our various familiar ning-platform content and functions.  To do that, some areas were coded differently from other areas, which intentionally makes them behave a little differently from each other.  The Forums area for instance is not quite the same as the Groups features, or the video area that combines uploade, vimeo, and youtube videos all together.  The site's areas all do function a bit differently from each other, and their coding is different, so different areas of the site might not display exactly the same on some devices...just a thought that may or may not be relevant to what you brought up.  :)

Those are the TABS you would normally see in the Forums area, if you are responding to an email notification concerning an updated discussion you are following, for example.  It would take you here for instance, where you'd need to see and navigate between those discussion area TABS:  http://fotmd.com/forums/forum/new_posts

Those tabs links do not appear on the site's main page.

Similarly... If you go to your profile page , likewaise you'll see a selection of navigation TABS that you would normally see on your profile page: Latest Activity, Audio, Video, Events, etc.

Dusty, do you mean the top brown site links bar?  Doesn't the desktop links bar normally get replaced by the universal mobile menu icon anyway, when the screen is small, like on a small phone?

I can produce a similar effect to Dan's screenshot when I zoom in my desktop view too much, even though my desktop is not a mobile device.

Yeah, the name should absolutely be changed, imho.  The name is so terribly important, and the current one gives an icky effect.

The old site was not mobile-responsive, so it could be zoomed-in/out all as one picture of each page.  Of course that would mean endless scrolling on a smartphone, so not good.  Dan, can you maybe post a screenshot here of your menu area taking up half the screen?  What hapopens in vertical orientation for you?

Ken, thanks for your take.  I don't have much control over the virtual keyboards on people's devices, Im afraid.  But glad to know otherwise you are not having a problem. 

You can join our Public Domain...or Not? Group here and ask every time you have a question about a certain song:

http://fotmd.com/strumelia/group/40/public-domain-or-not

But often it's just faster to google "(song title) copyright" and go to the resulting Wiki page...where it usually tells the composers or traditional info.  It will also give versions and talk about any copyrighted lyrics someone may have added later, etc.  Most songs first published before 1926 are now in the public domain, by the way. 

Hey folks, here is a useful Forums TIP !:

When you click on the top site LINK to Forums ,  you get to the main Forums page, but you'll have THREE TABS available to choose from, and each tab will show you a different view of what you might want to see: Discussions (which is the default view and shows all the forum Categories), Newest Posts (which shows newsest posts and by whom and when, in which forum disussions), and My Posts (which of course shows your own latest forum posts).  For example, here is the view when i go to the main Forums link and then click on the Newest Posts TAB.

And if you like that "Newest Posts" view in particular, you can always bookmark it to get there quickly whenever you like. 

Annie, if you are on an ipad mini, you should be able to go to the itunes APP STORE and look for tablet apps while using search terms like "Font size" or "magnifier" or "resize screen font"...etc.  

The old FOTMD was pretty lame on mobile devices according to most users who reported multiple ongoing problems to me.

One more suggestion, not tryng to be a wise acre, but...maybe some stronger drugstore reading glasses for mini-tablet reading?  Might be less trouble than any other solution...    

Anne, there are various ways to increase font sizes through browsers settings and browser plugins.  I think if I increase the site's overall font size, it's going to really mess everyone on phones.  So either way there would be a problem.  If the mobile zoom function is not right for you either, can you browse in your browser options to try and find a font resizer plugin ?   For example, on firefox i like to use: ThemeFont&SizeChanger plugin.

No worries Nigel, glad to helped.  I've had that feeling for several months now...  

What kind of tablet are you using Dan?  I am not seeing this problem on my iPad mini.  Zooming in was no problem for me either.

--Feedback from others?- Anyone else experiencing these issues, and please tell us the type of tablet you are seeing this issue on?

Nige,

click to "Forums" (top navbar links), then go to a forum category...for example "Off Topic Forums".

there, you should see a big Plus+ button the add a new discussion in that forum category.  See screenshot...