Hi, I don't know how to create my own thread to say hello so may I just attach myself to Nathaniel's here?

Well, hello Portkey. I have been away for more than a year. Several reasons: Fed-up with HBP. Because of that, I didn't bother reading DH [sparing myself that pain of it all, especially the epilogue]. And then, fed up with HP and JKR.

And then, my office people changed my computer and I didn't back up any of my Internet links, so I lost all connections, not just to Portkey, but also to Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, another site I used to go to [haven't gone back there yet, can't remember my password].

I had forgot my password in Portkey, too.

Then my laptop was stolen, and I lost all saved files on HP articles I've gathered over the years; I lost all copies of favourite H/Hr fics I have collected. And worst of all, I lost all 95 H/Hr fics that I wrote which I never published before. [I should have applied to be an author at Portkey, but I was ~ still am ~ too shy to let other people read my writing!]

So, I thought, heck, that's it, bye-bye HP fandom. And so I was away. I didn't even bother looking for Portkey site on the Net.

Then yesterday, I was playing around with the newly-downloaded Google Chrome on my new office laptop, and for some strange reasons, decided to try searching for "harry hermione."

Suddenly, boom baby - Portkey site came up. I clicked. But still dcouldn't remember my password. Tried several times. And then.... drum roll... I got it.

And so here I am again.

I hope to come back again here, if it were okay for old H/Hr shipper like me to get back on the supposedly sunken ship again; if it's okay with Portkey.

I feel such nostalgia seeing all the familiar names still posting.

So, hi and hello, and gosh, I've missed this place.

~ winnie

Oh my goodness, Portkey still have this picture of Jesse McCartney that I used for my... what is thing called?

I am seriously outdated on things. I need to get up to speed on things here again. I am even having difficulty moving through the threads.

~ winnie

*puts this into a separate thread*

Hi winnie! To create a new thread, simply hit the New Topic button in a forum. There's usually two of them, one's near the top and one's near the bottom. Most forums now instantly display new topics; no more need for PK staff to approve them.

I've tried Google Chrome 1-2 months back briefly to test if our layouts look okay on it. Findings: better than IE 7 (which browser isn't?!?) but has yet to support transparency for graphics. See the ? N R G P F letter graphics on top of this page? They're supposed to have a dim gray color that turns into brighter gray when moused over. Firefox does that, Chrome didn't. Not such a big deal, but one reason I put the transparency thing was to reduce glare from the letter graphics' bright-gray/white-ish colors. Originally they were intense white, which I found gave me eyestrain after minutes of staring at the lovely artwork on the left side.

I haven't tried yet if Chrome supports blinking text. Some of our forum descriptions have that. So IMHO PK's still best viewed with Firefox. That's the humble opinion of an amateur webpage designer (wannabe) that I am.

Here's what to do when PK-ers couldn't log in their PK accounts. This help page and the prev one are linked in this layout's margins.



You mean avatar. There's also a link on the right margin on how to change it.



I'm gonna ask help from one of my staffmates to write up a guide with screencaps on how to navigate forums like PK's. I've written something here but I suppose newbies to message boards need more guidance. (said without any sarcasm)

You used to visit the alchemy and theories threads, right? Well, we've reorganized PK forums quite a lot since last year. Idea is if you want to get your shipping fix about your fave PK couple, go to their shippy forum (Glory to thy PK ship) and you'd find everything you'd need. Those sections have the shippy content you want or links to them. If you need help, there'd normally be FAQs links on that page's margins. All forum pages would also have an "FAQs / Help" link on top of the page, below the header image.

As for your own fanfics, give it a try. Again, there's a How to post your fanfiction link on the right margin here.

Lastly, you used to reply in alchemy and theories topics, right? Laura's (redshoes) one of our mods now, looking over the forums for alchemy (of course!) and Dan/Emma as well. She's also put up her own fanfic.


- Pen

Hello, MyForeverHarry.

Happy to see you back, I hope you stick around for a while.

I also would like if you posted your fanfic. I'm sure it's fabulous! So you should apply for an author account!

If you need anything, or have questions, don't hesitate to pm me, and I'll do what I can to help.

Welcome back, look around, and have fun!

Pam

Hi! Welcome back!

I remember surfing through old threads and seeing your name pop up several times, so it's lovely to see that you've decided to come back I'm sorry to hear that so many files got deleted, I know the feeling of losing all your fanfics *hugs*. But I urge to just apply to be author here, I know it's scary but atleast you can say you've tried and I'm sure they're absolutely amazing

If you need any help with anything please don't hesitate to drop me a PM, I'm sure some things - if not many - have changed!

Glad to have you back here!

Welcome back! Don't worry, I never read that horrific piece of fan fiction that She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tried to pass off as the conclusion to the series either. I'm actually putting the finishing touches on an outline to my own version of the conclusion to the series. I was a bit nervous about posting my fan fiction too, not because of a fear of my writing not being any good (I minored in English in college), but because I hadn't read the books when I posted my first story.

Thank you all for the welcome back. And so, I am not the weird one out then ~ there's someone else who haven't read the last book either.

Pen, thank you for all the words & instructions. It's really helpful. I have Mozilla Firefox browser on the laptop as well but haven't tried it.

Yes, I remember redshoes. She's one of my heroes way back then, in addition to brown, house elf, sherbert lemon [is he still around?], thereader, artemis, silvestria, nobody, and other names I can't recall of the top of my head right now. But I recognise the names when I see them.

Scout, I remember you. Faithful2thecall, I still remember you as well. Fire, I haven't seen your name before.

I don't have HHr fics anymore to publish so I don't think I'm going to apply for an author account any time soon. And, when I do write HHr, it's more AU because I don't stick to a lot of the things that happened in the original series.

RL is rather busy and I'm playing Green Spot app in MySpace that I'm quite obsessed with right now and spend a lot of time there, but I'll come back here again from time to time, I'm sure. I just would not be much of a contributor to the discussions because my knowledge of HP has gone blurry. But I'll come back because I want to catch up with fics [I miss Azure, my old favourite writer] and find old articles that I used to love so much.

And yes, I still love HHr. I don't ship other ships. Just HHr. How far away I might go from here, it's always been HHr for me. So that's why it's lovely to be back here in Portkey.

Warmest regards,
~ winnie

I hated HBP but liked DH but I respect your opinion to dislike either or both. I think you'd find this thread hilarious!




I recommend using it soon 'cos it'd show blinking text for our upcoming layout ... to be released in a week week or two.



I saw their names while we staff were reorganizing the forums last year, grouping similar topics together and putting them in the same forum, things like that. There are updates about brown and house elf in this thread. Sherbert Lemon visits from time to time.

People I've "met" here pre-HBP: thereader (staffmate), artemis (regular in recs (recommendation) forums, my fav forum), silvestria (PK and fandom oldbie, her fics have been recommended), nobody (PK oldbie).

.

Hi Pen, I tried changing my avatar [following the method prescribed in the technical help section] but the picture doesn't change. Tried it several times, but still doesn't work. I even logged out and logged in again but still doesn't work. Is there any way you can help? If not, it is okay; I'll continue using dear Jesse McCartney's pic.

Regards
~ winnie

Your new avatar's on display now. Our server only needed some time to display it. I suppose refreshing your webpage and clearing your cache would've helped too, to tell your computer that it should get the new image from our server.

*adds that to the FAQs*

It works! Thank you.
Regards.
~ winnie