State Of Insanity
Frequently Asked Questions (With Answers)

How do I create my own entrance to SOI?
What is the syntax for a link?
What is the syntax for a form entrance?

How do I set the password on my account?
When am I prompted for my password?
How does security work here at SOI?

Can I send E-Mail to people outside of SOI?
Can I receive E-Mail?
What is my e-mail address?
Can I get my e-mail using Eudora or another similar e-mail package?
What is the configuration information for Netscape E-Mail?
Can I change the E-Mail domain for my mail?
Does your mail handle attachments?
How long does E-Mail Stay Around?

How do I add and delete my nicknames?
How can I change my primary handle?
How do I color my names?

How do I create a Home Page on SOI?
How much web Space do I get?
How do I set up a counter?
What is HTML?
Do you have any HTML instructional Links?

How do I create and delete rooms?
How do I change the room name?
What is the "Room Server"?
What is the difference between free, public, and private rooms?
Can I change the information associated with a room?
What is the 'Room Category'?
How do I decorate my rooms?
How do I get image files to your site?

How do I 'drop a link' to another SOI room while in SOI?

How do I invite people to private rooms without using passwords?

Benefits of SOI

• Q: What are the benefits of SOI?
  A: Here are some of the benefits of SOI:
  • Password Protection for your account.
    
  • Registration of a primary handle, and 5 additional nicknames.
    
  • HTTP Served disk space for each handle and nickname.
    
  • Full Control over 6 'rooms'. You may name these rooms, move them to any part of the country you desire, and decorate these rooms as you like.
    
  • HTTP Served disk space for each room.
    
  • A total of 4 Mbytes of disk space is allocated to each Citizen. HTTP Served space cannot be used for commercial purposes.
    
  • A POP3 Served SMTP E-mail account. You have the ability to send and receive E-Mail from SOI, or, if you choose, you may connect via eudora and send and receive E-mail. You have one mail account, but, each of your aliases is registered with that account and you may send and receive email with any of them.
    
  • All users of SOI are subject to our Conditions of Use.

• Q: How do I Control these functions?
  A: You control these from by going to the Control Centre.. Put "C" in the FIND box, and hit Find... or.... Click the [Controls] from any room.

Account Password Related Questions

• Q: How do I set the password on my account?
  A: When you are in the control room, select the [Account Control] Link. You will be given a form which allows you to change your password.

• Q: When am I prompted for my password?
  A: You are required to enter your password each time you connect to the State from a new IP address. If you continually connect to the State from the same IP address, you will only be prompted for your password the first time. If you connect from different IP addresses, you will be prompted for your password each time. You can clean the database and "lock" your account, by pressing the Lock button next to the "Reset" key in the Rooms. You should do this whever you leave the State. This will force anyone trying to use your account to supply the password, no matter what IP address them come in from. You can also read this security information.

Nickname/Primary Name Related Questions

• Q: How do I add and delete my nicknames?
  A: When you are in the control room, select the [Nickname Control] link. You will be given a form which shows you your current nicknames, and gives you the opportunity to add and delete nicknames. When ever you add or delete a nickname, that nickname change is reflected in the mail service within 48 hours.

• Q: How can I change my primary handle?
  A: You change your primary handle by clicking on [Controls] and then [Account Control]. You may only change your primary handle to one of your registered nicknames. Whenever you change your primary handle, your e-mail server will be disabled until the mail service is updated. This may take up to 48 hours. You can see when the mail service has been updated, by looking for your new primary handle on the [People] list.

• Q: How do I color my names?
  A: To color your primary name, click on [Controls].. the [Account Controls]. To Color a nickname.. click on [Controls].. then [Nickname Controls].. and then on the nickname. In the COLOR box, you may either enter a color, like Red, Blue, Pink... or.. a hex code, like #ffffff.

E-Mail Questions.

• Q: Can I send E-Mail to people outside of SOI?
  A: Yes. If you are in the mail room, you simple put the Target E-mail address in the TO field, the Subject in the Subject field, and text as normal.

• Q: Can I receive E-Mail?
  A: Yes. If someone sends you e-mail, you will receive a Flashing E-MAIL symbol next to the Talk/Listen button while you are in a room. (Similar to the MSG button.) You can then go to your mailroom and read the message. The header of the message can be seen in the mailroom. You click on the header in order to view the whole thing.

• Q: What is my e-mail address?
  A: Your primary E-mail address is shown in the mailroom. It becomes active 48 hours after your account is established. As you add and delete nicknames to your account, these nicknames are also established as active e-mail aliases. However, this also has a lag of up to 48 hours.

  Note: All of your e-mail aliases are your names in 'compressed' format. A 'compressed' name means you take the name.. remove all characters which are not numbers or letters.. and then convert to lower case. For example,

  "Dr. J.R. Kil-Dare" compresses to "drjrkildare"

• Q: Can I get my e-mail using Eudora or another similar e-mail package?
  A: Yes and No. hyperchat.com is POP3 served, and, by setting the "server" and/or "gateway" values of your e-mail package to point to mail1.hyperchat.com, you may connect with our server. Your e-mail account name is your primary account handle, and your password is your account password. Changes in your password will take up to 48 hours to be reflected in the e-mail database.

  The only 'problem' at the moment, is that once a mail message is read by the WWW mailroom, it is no longer accessible from the POP3 server. So, if you want to read all your E-mail through the POP3 server, do not click on the Flashing E-MAIL notification. When you click on the Flashing E-MAIL, the mail will be read by the WWW mailroom, and removed from the POP3 server.

• Q: What is the configuration information for Netscape E-Mail?

  Outgoing Mail Server: mail1.hyperchat.com
  Incoming Mail Server: mail1.hyperchat.com
  POP User Name: your 'compressed' primary name
  POP Password: your 'compressed' password

  
  A 'compressed' username/password means you take the name.. remove all characters which are not numbers or letters.. and then convert to lower case. For example,

  "Dr. J.R. Kil-Dare" compresses to "drjrkildare"

• Q: Can I change the E-Mail domain for my mail?
  A: Yes. As a citizen you have two choices for your e-mail domain. You can use "whoever@hyperchat.com" or "whoever@workline.com". You will receive e-mail if sent to either, however, your outgoing e-mail will show a return address from the one you choose.

  By default, your e-mail domain is 'hyperchat.com'. To change this, click on [controls] and then [account controls].

• Q: Does your mail handle attachments?
  A: The HTML Mailroom supports MIME encoded attachments. When you read an E-Mail msg in the HTML mailroom, the links to the attachments will be contained in the E-Mail msg. Like E-Mail messages, the attachments will be deleted after 10 days. Keep in mind that your E-Mail is also available from a POP3 server, and you can also receive attachments that way, if your E-Mail client supports them (which most do).

• Q: How long does E-Mail Stay Around?
  A: E-Mail is not like the HTML postings, in that it is deleted every 10 days. So, if you want to save E-Mail messages, you must do so using the File/Save option on your browser and save to you local system. Or, you can cut the message and paste it into the normal HTML mailroom.

Room Questions

• Q: How do I create and delete rooms?
  A: To create/delete a room, first click on [Controls], then [Room Controls]. You will be given a form that shows all the rooms you currently own and allows you to add and delete rooms.

  If you want to create a room, put a 'room id' in the box and hit the button. A 'Room Id' is a 2-8 character name that will be what people put in the FIND box to get to your room.

• Q: How do I change the room name?
  A: After you have created a room, if you click on [controls] and then [room controls], there will be a link like [Room xxx], where xxx is your room id. Clicking on this link will give you a form, which allows you to change the room characteristics.

  Among the things you can change, include the room title, room format, and room access. You can also specify background and text color, as well as supply additional text and/or images for backgrounds and icons.

• Q: What is the "Room Server"?
  A: SOI does not operate on a single computer. SOI has over 30 computers, called "Servers", on which its software runs. Each of these servers has a name, like SOM1, SOI, SOC.

  When you create a room, the room is assigned to a server. The assignment always places the room on the best server based on utilization. So, you should never have to change the server value.

  We do not recommend that you change the Room Server Value. If are experiencing a problem with a server, you can change the value and move your room to another server. However if you do so, any existing room conversations or archives will be lost. Room decoration however, are not lost and travel with the room.

• Q: What is the difference between a free room, a public room, and a private room.
  A: Anyone can get into a free room, whether they are a citizen or not. In order to get into a Public Room, a person must either be a citizen, have a two week visa, or, have a 28 hour visa. Citizenship and 2 week visas are only granted by the State. 28 hour visas are granted by citizens and 2 week visa holders. This is done from the control room. A private room is a free room with additional passwords. Therefore, a 28 hour visa is NOT required for a guest to visit a private room. Note: Free and Public rooms Echo to SeeAll.. Private Rooms do not.... You have no control over whether or not a room echos to SeeAll..other than selecting the type of room...

• Q: Can I change the information associated with a room more than once?
  A: You may update the room characteristics as often as you like. Each time you do, the change takes effect immediately.

• Q: What is the 'Room Category'?
  A: Every room is associatd with a "Section of the Country". This is simply a way of associating rooms with the same theme together. When you are in a room where people can chat, clicking on [Change Rooms] will show you a list of all the rooms in that section. In addition, there will be a "Travel" pull down, which lists the sections and allows people to move from one section to another.

• Q: How do I decorate my rooms?
  A: You can change the room the wallpaper and add an icon (image file) by moving image files into the directory associated with the room. These image files must be either GIF or JPEG files to work with most browsers. After you move the image files into the directory associated with the room, they will appear as choices for the Background and Icon selections found in the room setup form.

• Q: How do I get image files to your site?
  A: There are two major steps to getting background and icons in your rooms.
  1. Use FTP to Copy the image files to SOI. There are two FTP Methods avilable for your use. The first is provided through "anonymous" FTP access and the second is provided through account based FTP access.

     The anonymous FTP access is the original style of uploading files. It is a little complicated to use the first time, but, after the first time it gets easier. If you would like to upload your files with this method, click here.

     The account based FTP is simplier to use and provides direct access to your FTP area. This method is still under development and may not be available at the moment. To find out if this is available, and for the instructions, click here.

  2. After copying your files to SOI, return to the chat site, click on [Controls].. then click on [Room XXX] (where XXX is the room ID) to specify the files be used as either icons or backgrounds.
     

Creating A Home Page

Please read our conditions of use for a description of proper usage of SOI http served space.

If you know how to write in HTML, you can create your own home page. (You can get help with HTML here or here or here)

If you want to add a counter to your home page... go here.

For each of your nicknames.. you get a directory.. and if there is a file in that directory called 'homepage.html'... that is your homepage.

You can create a home page simply by clicking on [controls]..then [nickname controls].. then clicking on the nickname and pressing the EDIT HOME PAGE button. If you use the SOI editor to create your homepage..the page must be less than 20,000 characters in size.

You can also create a home page on your computer (under the filename homepage.html) and then when you have created your page, you can copy the files to SOI using "FTP", which stands for File Transfer Protocol. There are two FTP Methods avilable for your use. The first is provided through "anonymous" FTP access and the second is provided through account based FTP access.

The anonymous FTP access is the original style of uploading files. It is a little complicated to use the first time, but, after the first time it gets easier. If you would like to upload your files with this method, click here.

The account based FTP is simplier to use and provides direct access to your FTP area. This method is still under development and may not be available at the moment. To find out if this is available, and for the instructions, click here.

If you want info on posting sounds files from web pages.. click here

Handy Substitution Sequences

Simply type the sequence #r- followed by the room ID, for example, #r-e1, and the e1 will automatically be changed to a link.

You can use this technique when you are chatting, or, when configuring text for display to the left or under the chat box in a room of your own.

If you would prefer to specify the text that is displayed.. rather than just having the room ID displayed.. you can use the syntax #r-roomid(text). If you do this.. then.. a link will appear in which the "Text" is clickable.

If the room is a private room (which normally requires a password to enter), you can attach the codeword to the link so that anyone clicking on the link will be able to enter without needing the password. For example:

#r-roomid,codeword

• roomid is the Room ID that would normally go in the find box.
• codeword is a valid codeword for the room.

If you wish to display an image rather than a plain text link, you can use the following syntax:

#r-roomid(<img src=http://whatever/ alt="text">)

or

#r-roomid(<img src=http://whatever/ alt="text">),codeword

For more information on this, click here.