There are a few different tools to help us in our efforts. The more we all use these tools, the better able we will be to build a more sustainable future.

The purpose of the forum discussions area is to let everyone have equal input (all to have a seat at the table) in brainstorming possible ways to become more sustainable on an individual level, as well as a community level. Any topic that you feel is important can be brought up in the forum, where feedback then can be reciprocated. Through this dialogue ideas can be honed before actually performing them. Also this will give people a chance to say “hey we over here are trying the same thing, lets put our resources together”. In this way, work that our neighbors have already been implementing will not be duplicated. Energy can then be saved and used on another task needing attention. Finding the time to do any task is sometimes hard, but utilizing this web-based forum will allow us to network at anytime of day that is convenient for each of us.

The personal blogs are here for us to share what we are doing, to give the lessons learned, or should I say earned, to any willing pupil. As we write about what we have learned it will enforce those lessons all the more upon our sometimes reluctant to learn minds, as well as clarify them for ourselves. There is no better way to learn than to teach. Also we will receive feedback from those that we have helped, as well as from wise individuals who can steer us in the right direction from their previous lessons and experiences.

The news area will help keep us informed about events that have taken place. It will also be a place were news pertinent to our lives can be found.

Also just having our personal info here Will help us build relationships and make connection that will make it easier to help each other on the road to our shared destination.

Instructions for using the site

• Joining. To Join a group, click the Join link on the right. You may be required to wait for approval.  If their is no Join link, membership is by invitation only and you will need to contact the site manager who is listed next to the group on http://www.postcarbon.org/groups
• Time Zone. Make sure you select the appropriate Time Zone in your profile so that group events are not crossed out prematurely.
• Listserve. To get emails whenever content is posted to the site (including events, news, forums, and blogs), click the My membership link in the box on the left titled Membership Features. For Email notification, select enabled and click Submit. Note that the listserve does not handle attachments or send HTML emails. Also, make sure that you send email to the listserve from the same email address in your profile.
• Posting content.  As a group member you can post to the group's blog and the site's forum discussions.  Your personal blog will be linked to below all of your blog entries.  With a blog or forum posting, you can specify whether it is public by clicking the public checkbox;  otherwise the posting will only be visible for members of the group.  You can also specify which group(s) the posting should be associated with by clicking the appropriate checkboxes; the posting will display on the group sites of those checked and if not public, will only be visible to their members.
• Help with HTML. While creating or editing the body of a blog or forum post, most IE users can use the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Click enable rich-text directly below the Body box on the left.  To disable, click disable rich-text directly below the Body box on the left. 
• Editing your content.  You may edit your own postings.  Click on the link of the posting and then click the Edit tab.
• Deleting your content.  You may delete your own postings.  Click on the link of the posting and then click the Edit tab. Then click the Delete button at the botton of the page.
• Adding a picture. To add a picture to any page, click the Edit tab. First insert your image in the attachment box at the bottom of the Edit tab page and press submit. You will see it in the View tab page as an attached file. Go to the Edit page again.
  

  Go to the Body box. You will need to put in the html tags for the picture to appear on the page.  Follow these steps to insert the picture.

  1. Go to the attachments box. Highlight and copy the url of picture you have just inserted. Thr url starts http://postcarbon.org/name of your Outpost/name of your picture.......

  2a. Paste the url into the Body box. You will need to put html tags (which look like this:< >) around the url. Follow this formula:

  <img src="paste the url of the image in here" border=0>

  2b. Alternatively, enable rich-text and then put the cursor where you want to insert the image, click the icon of the tree and paste the url in the box labelled image url.