) ( ) Good Morning Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. WHOPBOF Competition Page 3. A heartfelt apology If you've been with the family for at least three weeks, you'll probably want to skip the following paragraphÂ… TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur ancestors or any of the 81+ variant spellings we research that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. If you haven't visited the homesite of this list yet, you are encouraged to do so. Our home is Bower Community, located at <http://bowercommunity.com>. There, we currently have two sites: The Bower Family Homestead [a.k.a., the Homestead] is our main homesite and the gathering place for much of our information. It waits to join us all in welcoming you into the family at <http://bowercommunity.com/homestead>. Smaller and just opened this year, our sister site, the Bower Cottage, houses most of our projects including an online GEDCOM fed by quite a few cousins from our lists. The Cottage is still small as far as material goes, however give us time and we'll have it filled really soon. The Cottage is at <http://bowercommunity.com/cottage>. WHOPBOF COMPETITION PAGE I've been working furiously these past three weeks on our competition page and I _think_ I might be nearing its completion. This page has been through no less than 40 revisions, to include a complete change from one look to another. It's now one that I hope will stir your heart, if not your soul. The one problem I'm having is the weight of the page. I'm worried that it's going to be terribly heavy ~ particularly on those of you with older machines. In order for me to find out how much a strain this will be, will a few of you to volunteer as "guinea pigs?" The page shouldn't crash your machines, but may lock them up or take next-to-forever to load. The testers should be using one of the following platforms: MacIntosh Netscape Version 2 or 3 Internet Explorer Version 2 or 3 Lynx or Minyos Webtv If you're willing to allow your machine to be a test subject, please contact me as soon as possible at <[email protected]> ~ letting me know what platform and version you're using, and the size of your monitor. I expect to load our competition page on December 1st or 2nd, giving everyone a chance to see it and let me know if there are any flukes. A second problem I'm having is setting an animated graphic into a picture. I use Micrografx Webtricity and have a small working knowledge of PSP6. If anyone can help get me get straight here, please contact me at <[email protected]>. If I can't get the animation working, we'll just have to go without it. A HEARTFELT APOLOGY To those of you who have written me these past several weeks and haven't received a reply, please forgive me as I really am sorry. I haven't been lazy or neglectful of you, just terribly busy between our competition page and crossposting roll call messages. I WILL respond to your email, but it may still be a while before I do. I have all your messages, and for the next couple weeks if you need to know whether or not I've received your email you may want to request a receipt from me (available to Netscape users only, I think). Family ... it's what we're all about ... Thank you for allowing me to spend this time with you. I hope your upcoming week is filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'