• Hi, We just now updated Part 1 of your User Guide and merged it with the "Welcome" letter. As you may have been sent the old version or even missed out all together due to the changeover. I'm sending that part to you again Here's the reprint...... WHAT DOES IT COST TO BE A MEMBER? Membership at PenPals Plus is free, there are NO charges of any kind and we will never bill you for anything. No catches, No exceptions, No fine print. When we say free we mean free! WHO PAYS FOR THE COST OF RUNNING THE SITE? The PenPals club is staffed by unpaid volunteers who generously donate their time and unpaid labor. Operating costs like hosting and bandwidth expenses are covered by the small amount of unobtrusive sponsor's advertising we have on the Site. Any shortfall I pay out of my own pocket because I'm the owner so it's my responsibility! (Yes, I'm a real person and you can write me anytime you want to know something) WHAT DO YOU DO WITH MY INFORMATION? To protect your privacy, we never sell or rent your contact details to anyone and all personal information is kept strictly confidential. IS YOUR SERVICE FOR DATING OR PENPALS? It's mainly for penpals however some members ARE looking for dating. The way we keep them apart from those who only want a penpal is Penpals have their own section and daters have their own section, this keeps everyone happy and one does not bother the other. HOW WILL YOU KNOW WHICH I WANT? You make your selection at the time you create your Profile HOW DOES MY PROFILE WORK? You answer some simple questions about yourself and what sort of penpals you would like, you include a little about your hobbies and interests and our system uses that information to suggest suitable penpals for you. DO I HAVE TO PAY TO READ THEIR LETTERS OR TO ANSWER THEM BACK? No, it's all free like we said earlier. ARE THERE ANY AGE LIMITS? All ages are welcome, but If you are under 18 years of age please get a parent's OK before you proceed further. We try and provide a safe environment here, but we'd be happier if we knew a responsible adult was keeping an eye on your online activities. YES, I WANT TO JOIN - WHAT DO I DO NEXT? Easy, just stay on this Mailing List so we can email you a User's Guide which will show you exactly what to do. The User's Guide is too large to send all at once so we have split it into three parts. WHAT IS IN THIS "USER'S GUIDE"? PART ONE covers: HOW TO CREATE YOUR PENPAL PROFILE (it's included in this Email). PART TWO which you will get {{DATE "DAY_NAME" "+2 DAY"}} covers: how to navigate around your list of Penpals and how to send and receive messages. The final Chapter, PART THREE will follow on {{DATE "DAY_NAME" "+3 DAY"}} and will show you: How to locate more penpals with the 'Quick Search' feature. We suggest that you print out each instalment or save it to your hard drive so you can refer to it anytime you want. Now, here is your 1st of three instalments: PART ONE: HOW TO CREATE YOUR PENPAL PROFILE Your FIRST step is to Register a Username (we call them "Nicknames"). Make up your own Nickname THEN go to this address and tell us what name you have chosen: http://www.dating-now.com/register.html (AOL users copy and paste the link into your browser.) That will get you registered as a Full member on the Penpals System and a password plus where/how to log in will be emailed to you as soon as you have completed that step. (If it hasn't reached you within 1 hour of you registering your nickname email me PenPals@dating-now.com and let me know.) Please Register now then as soon as your Password arrives return here to this Email and follow the rest of these steps. LOGIN The screen to login from AFTER YOU HAVE REGISTERED AND RECEIVED YOUR PASSWORD is http://www.dating-now.com/login.html Choose the 2nd Login option, the "Summary Listings" as in this guide I will be talking about the links and Icons in that Summary version. (The Detailed Listings has slightly different Icons and links, but works much the same however at this stage it might confuse you!) Your Nickname and password are case sensitive, so you will need to enter the exact combination of capital (BIG) letters and lowercase(small) letters that we Emailed to you IF you successfully Registered. Look at them closely and make sure you enter them exactly the same way. TIP: It is safer to hand type them as cutting and pasting can add invisible spaces that prevent the computer from reading them properly. WHAT TO DO NEXT The first time you login, you will be asked to create your profile and you will automatically be taken to the ' Enter Profile Data' screen. Relax, you can redo your profile at any time if you make a mistake or change your mind about anything. (If you have already created your profile, you can change or fine tune it anytime you want. You may want to make some changes after reviewing the following tips as it will improve the quality and quantity of suggested penpals we send you.) The 1st page of this screen is 'Information about you' ------------------------------------------------------ In the "Information about you" Section Choose the characteristics about yourself that you want included in your profile, but... THESE THREE QUESTIONS ARE COMPULSORY: 1. In the 'I Am? ' question please state if you are Male or Female. This is real important so we can match you properly. 2. In the 'My Age Group is? ' question please say which age group you belong to, so we match you with people who are a similar age to yourself. 3. We also recommend you say which Country you are in (plus your State if from the USA) so we can match you with people who are looking for a penpal in that part of the world. The remaining questions in this section are optional EXCEPT the little part at the end of this screen which is called 'I am looking for:'... USE THIS CAREFULLY! This is where you say if you want: 1. penpals only, 2. Cultural exchange or 3. dating/Romance Select ONE ONLY. 'Friendship Only' - means strictly Penpals only - NO dating, flirting or romance. 'Cultural Exchange' - this is a good one for those learning a foreign language or wanting an International Penpal to discuss cultural issues with. 'Friendship and Maybe More ' - means you ARE open to dating and romance should a penpal relationship lead to something more. If you can't decide or you want to be in EVERYTHING then choose 'ANY' because that will put you in ALL THREE of the above categories. Now click the 'Submit' button to review what you have placed in your profile so far. Check your profile carefully. If you find an error, use your browser's back button to return to the form and make corrections, then re-submit. If everything is correct, click the 'Save Data' button to continue. ------------------------------------------------------- The next screen is Information about who you're looking for. Choose the characteristics of the type of person you want to as a penpal. Everything here is Optional, but the more you answer the better we can match you. The variations of the 'Desirable' ratings are taken by the computer to mean 'Desirable, but not essential, but ESSENTIAL means ESSENTIAL, so use ESSENTIAL very sparingly and only where we suggest it because overuse of it could cause you to get no matches at all! In GENDER select if you want Male penpals or Female penpals and rate it ESSENTIAL. If you selected that you wanted female penpals but only gave it one of the desirable ratings, then the system could still send you male penpals if you they had a sufficient number of other characteristics in common with you. (or vice versa if you selected Males) SO MAKE YOUR GENDER CHOICE ESSENTIAL unless you want either in which case select "ANY" and only rate it as "Desirable". You do not have to answer every question, but it would be a good idea to choose an Age category and make it 'Quite Desirable' if you are flexible about age or 'Essential' if you only want that Age Group. Do likewise with Marital Status if that is important to you but if not important then select 'Doesn't Matter' or 'N/A' and make sure the rating reads desirable. The rest of this section is optional, we have pre-filled in the answers as "ANY" and rated them "Desirable", you can change that if you want but we advise against rating anything else here "ESSENTIAL" unless you absolutely feel you must! Essential is best used if you only want penpals of a particular gender or age group. (You could however use it to restrict your matches to a particular Country by making that Country essential.) Now click the 'Submit' button to review what you have chosen. If all correct hit the 'Save Data' button to move on. -------------------------------------------------------- The next page is about 'Hobbies and Interests', these are used as 'conversation starters'. Just tick off all the interests that apply, to you and give them a positive or negative rating. We have pre-filled them all in as 'Desirable'. Anything you do not tick will be ignored and will not be included in your profile. AVOID using 'Essential' or 'No Thanks' since if used they will narrow your field of matches considerably, maybe even down to Zero. Instead Use 'Quite Desirable' or 'Quite Undesirable' for those things you feel strongly about and the milder ratings for those that are less important. At the end of the page is a section called 'Add a comment'' Here is where you can be creative and say something about yourself and/or what you are looking for in a penpal, which was not covered by the above ready made sections. Of course no simple collection of traits and interests can really define a person. If you feel that something more needs to be said, or you just want to express your favourite quote or saying, go ahead and mention it here. (This section does not affect your rating one way or the other.) Click the 'Submit' button to review what you have said and if all in order click 'Save data and run match'. Then wait patiently while the system does it's magic and locates some penpals for you! When it has finished, the system will take you back to your personal main menu where hopefully you will find a list of suggested penpals for you to contact. If it's says "YOU HAVE NO MATCHES then hit reply and let me know so I can take a look at it and work out what you did wrong! Nine times out of ten the member made too many things either ESSENTIAL or NO THANKS and it was impossible for us to find them a match! However, if you have done everything correctly you should find 10 - 20 suggested penpals on your Main Menu. This is how to contact people.... Click on the Red "View Message Board" button located to the right of the Username of the person you want to contact. (It's located between the red & White button that says "View this Profile" and the "Trash'Em" button which will delete that match from your main menu.) Clicking on that "View Message Board" button will open the private message board that you share with the member concerned and which only the two of you can open and read. Write your message there on that board. If you are writting a long message our system could think you have gone and log you out which means everything you wrote just got lost. We suggest you compose your longer messages/replies onyour own computer's using it's built in "WORD" or "NOTEPAD" program, then click on Edit, then Select All. Click Edit again, then on Copy. Go to the blank message space on the PenPal message board, click on the top left-hand corner. Then Edit once more, & Paste. That way if there is any glitch on the Penpals site you still have the original of your letter on your own computer and you can copy and paste it in again instead of re-writting the whole thing. For brief messages just go ahead and type them straight onto the Penpals Message board. When they reply, that Message Board is where they will leave their answer to you and we will email you and let you know a message is waiting when that happens! At this, or any stage from now on, You can add a picture to your profile. Just click the [View Your Profile] button on the Main Menu , then look for the . [Upload Picture] button on the next screen. To update your profile or change anything in it, click the [View Your Profile] button on your Main Menu , then look for the . [Redo Profile] button on the next screen. Simple isn't it? You might want to change the temporary password we gave you to something you like better. Just click the [Change Password] link and choose any password you want - preferably something easy for you to remember and type in, but do not exceed 10 letters or numbers. Oh, almost forgot - Remember: 1. Login at least once every 30 days to keep your membership alive (Login twice a month just to be safe) or the computer might think you have abandoned your account and end up deleting it. 2. Update your profile now and then to keep it fresh and interesting. Doing that will generate a new list of penpals for you. Have fun and enjoy! ~Jeff Owner and Founder of: PenPals Plus PS If you have already received Parts 2 & 3 then you are right on track, if you have not got those parts yet and they don't arrive in the next couple of days, let me know and I will resend them to you. few days

  March 1st, 2005 at 2:09 am

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