Live Chat Help & FAQ

Table of Contents

Information For Web Baby Shower Hosts

What Is Live Chat?

A Live Chat takes place in an online chat room. A chat room is a specially designed web page where the partipants see each other's messages in real time -- meaning almost instantly. It is like chatting on the phone, except you type your messages into the chat room message board and you can chat with a much larger group than you can generally talk with on the phone.

Web Baby Shower Live Chat

Web Baby Shower's Live Chat functionality is reserved strictly for Web Baby Shower hosts and their guests. It is easier to use than most chat rooms because each participant does not have to register for the chat individually. Once the host registers with Web Baby Shower, the guests only have to access the chat room through their Web Baby Shower and enter a nickname to chat (and any optional password protection).

Each Web Baby Shower comes with its own private chat room so it is not necessary to schedule a chat in advance, but you can schedule a chat to make your planning and inviting your guests easier.

Scheduling A Live Chat

Please note that it is not necessary to schedule a chat with Web Baby Shower. Each Web Baby Shower comes with a private chat room, so you can decide at the spur of the moment to chat with whomever you can gather together. However, scheduling functionality is available to help assist you in your planning.

To schedule a chat, log into your Host Control Panel and click on the Chat Planner icon (a green circle with a coffee cup). At the bottom of the page, use the Add A New Chat Date form to schedule your chat. Helpful scheduling hints:

• If you need help figuring out what time or time zone to schedule your chat in, or to schedule across multiple time zones, visit: World Time Server or Time and Date.com
• Click "Submit" when you are done

Note: If you would like password protection for your live chat, please see the "Passwords & Privacy" page in your Host Control Panel. The password protection you choose for your Web Baby Shower applies to your chat room. And see below for more information

Please Schedule A "Technical Rain Date" With Your Guests

Please make a "technical rain date" with your guests. Due to circumstances that are sometimes beyond Web Baby Shower's control I strongly encourage each chat host to schedule a primary chat date & time and also an alternate date & time in the event of technical or other difficulties. The vast majority of Web Baby Shower chats run smoothly, however, as with most things related to computers, when things do go wrong it is helpful to have another date & time when everyone can try again.

Special Note: If you get kicked out of the chat room or if you notice that certain guests become "invisible," please have the affected guests CLOSE THEIR WEB BROWSER COMPLETELY AND RESTART THE BROWSER (Internet Explorer, FireFox, AOL, etc) before trying to log back into the Web Baby Shower chat room. I apologize for the inconvenience and am working on a solution.

Please Familiarize Yourself With The Chat Room

Since the chat room is available all the time to everyone, please feel free to click through from the "Live Chat" page in your Web Baby Shower and check it out. You can familiarize yourself with choosing a nickname, entering any passwords, and using the chat room before the date/time of any planned chats.

Special Note: If you get kicked out of the chat room or if you notice that certain guests become "invisible," please have the affected guests CLOSE THEIR WEB BROWSER COMPLETELY AND RESTART THE BROWSER (Internet Explorer, FireFox, AOL, etc) before trying to log back into the Web Baby Shower chat room. I apologize for the inconvenience and am working on a solution.

Viewing Your Chat Schedule

There are two places to view your Chat Schedule. Once you have scheduled a chat, the information will be added to the Live Chat page on your Web Baby Shower. On this page, both you and your visitors will see the date, time and time zone of the chat(s) you have scheduled. This page is intended to help spread the word about your chat in case any visitors do not receive your email or other invitations. Please note that any passwords must be shared by email or other direct personal contact.

The second place to view your chat schedule is the Chat Scheduler in the Host Control Panel. To see the chat sessions you have scheduled already, simply log into your Host Control Panel and click the Chat Scheduler icon (green button with coffee cup image). This page will display a table with your upcoming chat reservations, including the date, time and time zone. You can also make changes to any existing chats or make new reservations on this page.

Making Changes To Your Chat Reservations

If you need to change, cancel or re-schedule a chat, log in to the Host Control Panel and go to the Chat Scheduler. You will see a table of your current chat reservations.

• Under each reservation there is a garbage can icon, which you can click to cancel/delete a chat reservation.
• To re-schedule, you must first delete the chat you want to reschedule and then add a new chat reservation with the new date and time.

Note: To make changes to any password protection, you must use the Privacy & Passwords page in your Host Control Panel. The password protection you choose for your Web Baby Shower applies to your chat room.

Password Protecting Your Chat Room

Each Web Baby Shower comes with its own private live chat room. Your chat room can only be accessed through your Web Baby Shower, so it automatically has a layer of protection, especially if you use a privacy setting of "Medium" or "High". In addition, there are a few options for adding password protection to your Web Baby Shower which you can read about at: Privacy and Passwords Help

Using a password can complicate things considerably, so if your crowd is not very computer savvy, you may want to avoid using a password to help them log in more easily. Instead, you can use a privacy setting of "medium" or "high" in order to help keep out search engines and the casual passer-by. When you use a privacy setting of medium or high, you must be sure to share your Web Baby Shower URL with your guests, or they may not be able to find your shower and chat. For more information, please see Privacy and Passwords Help.

Invite Your Guests

You can send an email invitation to your guests through the Web Baby Shower Host Control Panel > Guest List Manager. The "Send a Message" function will have a message regarding the live Chat instructions ready to be sent to your guest list. Just choose the subject "Join our Web Baby Shower Real Time Chat! (Login Info)". You can send this message as soon as you schedule your chat to get people to "save the date" and it will also be there in the future so that you can re-send it closer to date of your chat.

You can also copy & paste the "Join our Web Baby Shower Real Time Chat..." message into your personal email account and send it that way. Or, copy & paste it into a printed invitation to mail.

In addition, your chat schedule will appear on the "Live Chat" page in your Web Baby Shower. The Live Chat page will disply the time and date of the chat so that your visitors will know about.

If you do not make a reservation, you can still use the "generic" Live Chat Login message to send to your guests. Just be sure to customize it with any date/time and any passwords you intend to use.

If you password protect your Web Baby Shower, don't forget to include the password when you invite your guests.

Maximum Number Of Users

Please avoid inviting more than 30 people to any one chat session. Web Baby Shower cannot be responsible for the chat room crashing if you are trying to use it with more than 30 people. In addition, I really can't imagine that many people chatting at once and anyone getting a word in. The maximum number of users is meant to keep the chat program running smoothly for your maximum enjoyment.

Special Note: If you get kicked out of the chat room or if you notice that certain guests become "invisible," please have the affected guests CLOSE THEIR WEB BROWSER COMPLETELY AND RESTART THE BROWSER (Internet Explorer, FireFox, AOL, etc) before trying to log back into the Web Baby Shower chat room. I apologize for the inconvenience and am working on a solution.

Using The Web Baby Shower Chat Room

Chatroom Browser Compatibility

Accessing Your Web Baby Shower Live Chat Room

You can access your live chat room at any time by following these steps:

• Go to your Web Baby Shower (log in with password, if necessary)
• Click "Live Chat" in the navigation bar
• Once you are on the Live Chat page, enter a nickname for yourself and click "Join The Chat"

Reservations are not required but are available to assist you in your planning. Passwords should be shared by email or other direct personal contact before the chat begins.

Special Note: If you get kicked out of the chat room or if you notice that certain guests become "invisible," please have the affected guests CLOSE THEIR WEB BROWSER COMPLETELY AND RESTART THE BROWSER (Internet Explorer, FireFox, AOL, etc) before trying to log back into the Web Baby Shower chat room. I apologize for the inconvenience and am working on a solution.

Chat Room Features

The Web Baby Shower Chat Room has lots of fun little features you can use to make your chat more lively. You can change the color of your posts by clicking the question mark icon next to your nickname in the user list (right column). This opens your profile where you can edit your color, enter your real name, location and any other info you want to share with your guests. For the privacy and security of your chat room, please do not post passwords or other private information in your profile.

In addition to colors and profiles, you can also use the buttons at the bottom of the page to Bold, Italicize or Underline your posts and add any smileys you'd like to use.

You can also turn the timestamps on/off using the little clock icon in next to the Bold, Italic and Underline buttons. When you are in the chat room, time stamps will be adjusted for your computer/browser's time zone setting.

Special Note: If you get kicked out of the chat room or if you notice that certain guests become "invisible," please have the affected guests CLOSE THEIR WEB BROWSER COMPLETELY AND RESTART THE BROWSER (Internet Explorer, FireFox, AOL, etc) before trying to log back into the Web Baby Shower chat room. I apologize for the inconvenience and am working on a solution.

If You Get "Kicked" From The Chat Room

In order to keep the chat room running smoothly and open for active users, the chat room will kick out users for two reasons. The first is to prevent "flooding". Flooding occurs when a chatter keeps submitting the same message over and over in order to try to break the chat room. To prevent this from happening, the Web Baby Shower chat room has a fail safe that will automatically eject anyone who submits the same message more than 5 times.

The second reason a user will get kicked is inactivity. If you have not posted any messages for a period of 20 minutes, the chat room will remove you in order to make room for more active participants.

If you get kicked, please CLOSE YOUR WEB BROWSER (Internet Explorer, FireFox, AOL, etc) COMPLETELY AND RESTART THE BROWSER before trying to log back into the Web Baby Shower chat room. This time, please be careful to not flood the chat and be sure to at least say "hi" at least once every couple minutes. If you plan to be away from your computer for more than 20 minutes, please log out of the chat room first.

Saving & Printing Your Chat

At any time during your chat, you can click the "Transcript" button to generate a printer-friendly version of your entire chat conversation that you can Save, Print or Email a copy of. You can use the links at the very bottom of the transcript to to Print, Save, or Email the transcript of your chat or you can simply use your browser's Print and Save functions (see your browser's Help section for more information).

Please note that the "Save" button only works in Internet Explorer; if you use a different browser you will have to use your browser's Save As function to save a copy of the transcript.

The Transcript can also be used to get late-comers caught up on what's been going on in your chat room as they will not see any messages that were posted before they arrived.

Please try to View, Save, Print and/or Email your transcript BEFORE you logout. Due to the nature of live chat, I cannot guarantee that the Transcript will be available after everyone exits your chat. The transcript is refreshed daily at midnight.

Please note that there must be messages posted in your chat room for that day in order for there to be a transcript.

Time stamps in the transcript will be standardized to the Web Baby Shower server's time zone in order to keep them in the order they were entered. If you want to remove the time stamps, you must save the transcript to your hard drive (see above) and edit it in your favorite Word processor or text editor.

Unfortunately, at this time the chat room language filter does not apply to the transcript, so if any of your guests used inappropriate language, you will have to save the transcript to your hard drive (see above) and edit it in your favorite Word processor or text editor.

Exiting Your Chat

When you are done with your chat party, simply click "Logout" and close your browser window. If your Web Baby Shower uses Full Password protection, you may need to log in again, depending on how long you were in the chat room and your browser's session and security settings.

If you wish to log back into the chat room please close all browser windows and open a new browser window before attempting to log back in to the chat room.

Live Chat Support

Please note that I am the sole owner and operator of Web Baby Shower and I am a human who needs to eat, sleep and have recreational weekends. I therefore CANNOT GUARANTEE that I will be available for support near the time of your chat. PLEASE LOG INTO THE CHAT ROOM AND FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH ITS FEATURES WELL IN ADVANCE OF ANY SCHEDULED CHAT PARTIES YOU ARE ARRANGING. If you have any questions, please try to ask during normal business hours (M-F 10 AM - 6PM Pacific US). If you are experiencing a problem on the day of your chat, please try contacting me by both phone and email. Thank you for understanding.

Have fun with your chat and let me know if you have any questions.

Information found in the Web Baby Shower Resource Directory is provided "As Is" with no warranty; information regarding pregnancy, birth and parenting is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition and is not meant to be a substitute for personal care from a professional health care practitioner. Web Baby Shower/Snowboard Mommy Productions does not endorse any product or service and is not responsible for the content or conduct of sites it links to.

Important Note: At this time this website is offered in English only. Any language translations of this website are unofficial and not authorized. This website is not responsible for errors, omissions or mistranslations caused by unauthorized translations. Thank you.