Using the
Troop 42 WebsiteThe first thing you'll notice when you arrive at the
Troop 42 website (
www.troop42.info ) is our most recent Troop 42 Camp Photo, taken prior to our most recent journey to H. Roe Bartle Summer Camp. This photo and others are available for download, or printing on this site as I will explain later.
Just below our Troop picture, in the left hand column of the page and above the blog entries you find the Troop 42 calendar. Powered by Google Calendar, the Troop 42 calendar shows what is coming up for Troop 42 in typical month at a glance format. Arrows at the top of the calendar allow you to move forward and backward a month at a time. The today button will bring you back to todays entries no matter how far in the future or past you have paged.
If you prefer an agenda format for the calendar just click on the agenda tab, and the page will be reformatted. At the bottom of the Calendar is a "Subscribe" link, if you currently use or plan to use Google Calendar, double clicking this link will allow you to receive all Troop 42 calendar entries on your personal calendar, this feature can be turned on or off as needed in your personal calendar.
Google Calendar allows you to drill into each event by double clicking on the event you which to find out more about. This brings up the What, When, and Where of the event. Double click the "map" link on the "Where" line and you are sent to Google Maps. In Google Maps not only do you see where the event is on a map, but by clicking on the "Get directions" link it will actually allow you to put your current location in and then Google Maps will give you directions on how to get there.
To the right of the Troop Calendar, in the right hand column, you will find the "Latest Boy Scout News" available on the web, and it is automatically updated daily. To read an article just double click the article in question and you will be taken to your article of interest.
Just below the Troop Calendar, in the left hand column are the blog entries. Blog entries can be a lot of things besides troop emails, they can be news articles from the Heart Of America Council, news about current and past members, videos from camp outs and last but not least photos. Blog entries are arranged from newest to oldest as you go from the top of the web page to the bottom. So the most recent information is always at the top of the blog entries.
I mentioned earlier that our troop photos are available for download or printing, here is how it works. All of the troop photos are displayed in a slide show format in blog entries. To print or download a photo, first find the slide show the photo is in by selecting the entry and pressing the slide show play button. That slide show will play, when you see a photo you want double click the entire slide show picture. This takes you to Picasa, Google's Photo site, hopefully on the picture you want. If not you can move back and forth through the slide show until you find it using the arrow buttons at the top of the photo. Once on the photo, click either "Download Photo" to download the photo to your hard drive or "Order Prints" to order a print of the photo. To print a single photo, first download the print and then print it using your local photo printing software.
If you select "Order Prints" the photo is added to a photo order. Clicking "View your order" will take you to the next step in ordering your prints, viewing your order, do this when you have selected all the photos you want to order. Clicking "View your order" takes you to the order summary page, on which all the photos you want to order are displayed along with a couple of different vendors to purchase your photos from. Both give "Free" prints to new users and in addition to photo prints, they allow you to print photos on all kinds of different items.
Just to the right of the Blog Entries in the right column, are a couple of navigation features that allow you to navigate through the page quicker and find what you want easier. First you have the index, grouped by month, the index lists all entries that have been made in the current month by their title. To quickly bring up just that article, double click the article name to go directly to the article you want. To bring up a different month or year just double click the month in question and those articles will appear in the index.
Below the Index you have the Topics. Each blog entry is given one or more topics when added to the blog, by clicking on the topic of interest, for instance, "Naish" is one of the topics, double clinking "Naish" will bring up a page with only Camp Naish related articles.
Finally, below the Topics are the Helpful Links. The helpful links are short cuts to information of a more permanent type both within the Troop 42 site and on other sites. You'll find links to the Bartle Information Packet, Directions to the Camps, How to join the troop, a listing of Troop 42 Eagle Scouts, even a link to Scotts Iconium General Store website.
Hopefully, this article has helped acquaint you with what you can do and find on the Troop 42 website. If you have questions about the website, or even if you want to set something like this up for another business or group you belong to, just email me at
steven.ashley@gmail.com and I'll do my best to help.
