PoetCasting

If you are having problems viewing or navigating the site, find below some common issues and resolutions.

This website is best viewed using a Firefox browser, but should work well in other browers too, especially up to date versions of Safari or Internet Explorer.

1. How do I listen to poems on the site?

In each entry there will be a player icon and a list of poems below the biographical information and above the photograph. The player should look like this when the page is first loaded:

When the play button is clicked on, the player will expand to display information about the track. The first poem to play will be the one at the bottom of the list.

To select other poems, click on ‘Play Now’ or ‘Play in Popup’.

2. Why is there no player on entries?

If there is no player located between biographical information and photographs on the site, then you may need to update to a newer version of Flash. Find this on the Macromedia site. Flash is a free add on for internet browsers which allows them to deliver animated and rich content. You will almost certainly come across it on other websites too, so it is worth updating.

3. When I click ‘Play in Popup’, nothing happens.

This is probably because your browser has disabled pop ups to prevent unsolicitited advertising. If there is an option in your browser to always allow pop ups from www.poetcasting.co.uk, select this. (PoetCasting will never use pop up advertising).

Otherwise, press the Control key ‘Ctrl’ on your keyboard while clicking on ‘Play in Popup’.

4. How do I navigate the website?

The page buttons are located at the very top of each page. In the sidebar there are other pages in the ‘More’ section. You may navigate through the entries by scrolling down the page and clicking on ‘Older posts’. You may also view the posts by month (in the sidebar), or by poet name in ‘Poets’ (top navigation buttons). The search box at the top of each page also allows you to search by name or key term (eg. ‘London performance’).

5. There is no sidebar to the right of my screen.

In some browsers, a common blog issue is a falling sidebar caused by different screen resolutions, sizes and browser types and versions. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you may find the side bar there.

If you believe this should not be happening, please contact us using the form on the Contact page.

6. I want to subscribe to this site.

You may subscribe using the RSS (2.0) feed. The address for this is http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?feed=rss2.

Alterantively, you can receive weekly email updates by subscribing to the newsletter. Enter your email address in the sidebar under ‘Subscribe’ and follow the on screen instructions.

7. The text on the site is too small.

In the sidebar there is an Accessibility option to increase text size. It looks like this:

If this does not solve the problem, consult your browser text settings under ‘View’ and ‘Text size’.

Increasing text size may cause formatting problems when you view this site. However content will remain the same, and functionality should not be affected.

8. How do I download the poems on the site to listen to on my computer or mp3 player?

In the list of poems of each entry, right click and select ‘Save As’ for poems you wish to download. Load onto your mp3 player or computer media player the same way as you would any other file.

9. How do I bookmark this page?

Click here to add PoetCasting to your bookmarks.

10. What are the ‘Share this post’ buttons at the bottom of each page and post?

These icons link to social bookmarking sites,(L-R) Digg, del.icio.us, Facebook, Google, Stumble Upon, and Reddit. They allow users to share and discover new webpages.

A good explanation of how to use these can be found on the BBC News website.

In addition, the icon on the second to right allows you to quickly email the post to friends.

11. Once when I logged on, the site was unavailable, but there was a Plesk holding page.

If this was the case, it is likely that the site was offline for a short period to back up all files. If this happens again, try again in an hour or two.

12. Where else can I find advice?

The Wordpress homepage and community offers much help to users experiencing problems. You may also wish to use a search engine to help resolve issues.

13. What equipment does PoetCasting use?

See the Equipment page.

14. How do I set up my own poetry podcast/record my own poems?

There are many ways of going about this. A good place to start is to research other poetry podcasts. A directory of these can be found at the Association of Poetry Podcasting.

15. Where can I find more poetry on the web?

See the Links section for many more poetry resources online.