Help through frequently asked questions
Find an answer
If you don't know how to do something on What Now?, it may be that someone else has suffered from the same problem...so have a look through the questions and answers below. click on the question to see the answer appear below.
Ask a questions
If you don't find your question answered below please send in your question to us. We'll reply personally and create a new question on this page so your questions help everyone who comes after you too.
Answer some questions
Because we feel experienced users are actually the best people to provide help in navigating the site, we would love you to help write the answers to some questions. If you had a problem doing something, but have found an easy way to do it, please share it with everyone. To do so, click answer a question . This will allow you to add a question and an answer. Once you submit these, they won't be editable so make sure you're happy with them. They won't appear instantly, as before they go live I will review them and then publish them.
Also, If you have any difficulties you are welcome to send me (cancerbackup) a private message, or an email using this form and I'll take a look.
You can change your password whenever you wish. To do so:
1. log in
2. go to 'my profile' at the top right of any page
3. at the top of your profile you'll see the tab 'Edit Account', click that.
4. change your password by entering a new password twice on the form that opens
5. click submit at the bottom of the page
6. that will work unless you have entered two different passwords. If this happens a red box
will appear that says 'The specified passwords do not match.'. If this happens enter a password twice and press submit again.
You can change your username whenever you wish. To do so:
1. log in
2. go to 'my profile' at the top right of any page
3. at the top of your profile you'll see the tab 'Edit', click that.
4. change your username on the form that opens
5. click submit at the bottom of the page
6. that will work unless you have chosen a username that already exists. If this happens a red box will appear that says 'The name xxxxx is already taken'. If this happens enter a new one and press submit again.
The chat room requires you to have Java installed in your browser. This is not something special and should be installed in most browsers anyway. There are some reasons why yours might not have it such as your internet security options set overly high. Here are some things you can try if you can't see the chat rooms.
1.. If you get the error message: "your browser is not java enabled please go to our java support pages" then perform the following steps to install Java:
- Access the Java website at http://java.com.
- Click the 'Do I have Java' link just below the blue button. (If it turns out you do have Java, then it may be a security or privacy setting issue...see below.)
- Click the Free Java Download button in the middle of the screen.
- Click on Download Now.
- Choose to Install Now when prompted.
- Java will automatically download and initiate the installation process.
- Once the installation process has progressed to completion, a confirmation box will appear. Click Finish to complete the installation.
- Restart your computer.
- Return to www.java.com and retry the 'Do I have Java' link. This time it should tell you that you do.
- The software should now be successfully installed.
2.. If this doesn't work it may be that your security settings in Internet Explorer are too high.
If you go into Tools/ Internet Options / and then lower security and privacy to medium or low...then try again. There's nothing dangerous about Java and Flash they're used by almost every website out there including the BBC for example.
A couple more things to try:
3. Go into Tools/Manage AddOns/EnableDisable Addons
Then choose downloaded ActiveX controls from the drop down.
Then see if you have any Java Plugins and if you do check they are enabled rather than disabled.
4. In your Tools/Internet Options go to Advanced and scroll down until you see: Enable Third-party browser extensions.
If this isn't enabled, check it and press Apply.
Then close Internet Explorer completely and restart it again and try to download and install Java again.
5.. Sometimes it can be a cleaner installation of Java if you do it manually rather than the web installation as above. To do this visit: http://java.com/en/download/help/6000010300.xml and follow the instructions on that page.
If none of these work then contact me by private message or through the contact us form.
Firstly Hello and welcome to the site!
I (Jools) suggest that you make sure that you have a little detail on your 'My Profile' about yourself - for example a short statement telling us what type of cancer you have and a little about you! Mine tells people I have Breast Cancer for the second time, that have two children and what my job is.[Ed - to do this go to 'my profile' then click the 'User Profile' tab above your picture]
The next thing I would do is write a Blog - in the Blog I would say Hello to everyone and write a little more - some people say along the lines of 'I am new to the site, just diagnosed with....... and wanting to know about.....or to chat with others in similar situation..........' I am sure that you will soon begin to get replies to your blog - we are a very friendly bunch.
If you want questions answered on specific Cancer types you can post a forum topic under your specific cancer type - like Brain, Lymphatic, Breast, Prostate or what ever cancer. I hope this helps - and also that you get as much support and friendship as I have done over the last few months since joining.
Lastly if you need specific medical advice never forget the cancerbackup telephone helpline -
0808 800 1234 you will get sound advice there too.
To contact the What Now? team, just click the tab at the top right of the page that says: 'contact us'.
On the next page, choose the form that is most suitable to what you would like to say, fill it in and submit it.
If you are not sure which form to use, you can use any.
You need to be at least 18 years of age to join What Now? and you will need a valid email address.
You can complete the registration form here
At this point you will be asked for your email address, to verify your age and read and accept our Terms and Conditions.
Once you submit those details we will then send you an email to the address you have provided with your login details.
At this point you are now ready to login to What Now?
If you haven't joined What Now? you will have to do that here
If you have joined the site before, you will need your user name and password
You will need to enter your user name and password here
If you have forgotten your password you can request a new one here
If you are experiencing problems logging in please email support
Each user on What Now?has their own individual profile page.
You can only access your user profile when you are logged in by clicking on the "my profile" tab at the top right of your page or by clicking here.
Your profile can hold as much or as little information as you like.
You can learn more about editing your profile by reading through the other faq's.
At the top of your user profile you will see two tabs "Edit Account" and "User Profile"
You can change your user picture by clicking on the "Edit Account" tab
Towards the bottom of that page you will see a box where you can upload your picture
To upload the picture you need to locate one on your computer by clicking on the "Browse" button.
Your picture must be less than 200kb in size
If you want to take your profile picture from a larger picture you could try using this website
Do not check the 'delete picture' box unless you want to return to the default grey image
Once you have uploaded your picture you must submit the changes to your
account by clicking on the submit button at the very bottom of the page
Sometimes it may seem like the old picture has come back. Don't worry, this is just a temporary thing. You can try holding down Ctrl and pressing F5. But, if you have followed these steps and it doesn't say you've done something wrong, then if you wait a little while, the new picture will start showing.
- A private message is a sort of email within the site. A member can send another member a message, which will appear in that member's inbox, which they can access by logging on to the site, clicking 'my stuff' and then 'inbox'.
- An email, which you can send by using the form, will send an email to the email address that you registered with. To access that message you will have to log in to your normal email account.
As you get to know other users on the site you can add them as one of your buddies
To do this you can visit their profile page and click on the "buddy icon" next to their profile picture
The user will be informed when they next log in that you have requested them to be your buddy
If the user accepts this request then you will remain as buddies
Users can remove buddies by clicking on the "remove buddy" icon next to the profile picture at any stage
Go to your profile
Click the words 'my pics'
When the page opens, click the title of the picture you want to delete
When the page opens, click 'Edit' which should be above the picture
When the page opens, click 'Delete' at the very bottom.