How To Use Your Support Center Links

The Support Center displays to the right side of your local weblog's home page, below the Status Center section. It looks like this:

While you cannot call Userland by phone (hey, what do you expect for $39.95?), Userland invites us to participate in an active discussion forum and mail lists. I find their responses on these list to be prompt and cooperative.

When they don't answer, it is most often due to the question having been asked-and-answered on one or more occasions in the past. The best thing to do in that case is to search the particular discussion forum.

If this doesn't work, ask the question again politely until you receive the help you need.

The Discussion Group

Select (click) the active discussion group link to reach the main Radio Userland forum. I show a small sample below:

In order to post to the forum, you need to join it. Select the active 'join' link on the left of the page and follow the instructions. Although you can sign out of the forum each time you visit, you don't have to do so. In other words, signing up is a one-time experience.

(Note: your Radio user number does not give you membership in a discussion forum. On the other hand, you can join any of Userland's discussion forums without buying Radio. It all works out).

The Mailing List

Select the active mailing list link to reach .... the same discussion forum as the one just described above. Weird, right? Userland wanted to give us a choice of formats and styles. This one is hosted as a Yahoo Group forum, as sampled below:

You may have better luck with Yahoo's search facility than with the one hosted directly by Userland. To search the Yahoo archive, enter the search term and click the "Search Archive" button on the main page.

Email Your Configuration

Your private, local Radio web server maintains a detailed set of data about your own hardware and software configuration. This can be very helpful to Userland support staff in the infinitely small chance that you experience a problem with Radio.

By contrast, most vendors require you to email or call with all of this arcane data at your fingertips.

Select the active email link to reach this page where you can enter an email address to direct the configuration to the right person:

By default, your own email address (not mine, of course) is displayed in your weblog. (Hey, go ahead and select "Submit". If nothing else, you will find the data sent to you about your configuration mildly amusing and, perhaps, fascinating).

More typically, someone from Userland may ask you to send your configuration to them. Of course, they will give you their email address at that time.