Basically, a conference is a grouping of topics. Each topic contains comments or "responses" from many people. This conferencing system is made up of many conferences. Here's another way of looking at it.

The Main Menu offers you 4 options for navigating and customizing your view of the conferences.

1. Go to the first conference in your conference list, or the default conference.

• A conference list is a tool for customizing your visits to Macworld Online. There are probably more conferences on this system than you will have the time or interest to visit. A conference list is simply a list of only those conferences you wish to read each time you log in. A common method of keeping up with conferences is to go to the first conference in your conference list when you log in to read new responses. Once you have read all the new responses, you can easily go on to the next conference in your conference list until you have gone through all of those conferences on your list.

• You can at any time go to the list of all conferences by choosing the "return to the main menu" option and then choosing to "get a list of all conferences."

2. Add to your conference list.

• Your conference list is empty until you choose the conferences you wish to add. A list of all available conferences is displayed. Choose the conferences you wish to add to your conference list by clicking on the conference name. The system software takes a minute to update your conference list and reloads the page to display it to you. You can change the order in which the conferences appear by choosing the option marked "edit the conference list manually."

3. Get a list of all conferences.

• If you choose not to set up a conference list, this will be the option you will choose in order to read the conferences.

• When you first sign on to the conferencing system your user information is logged. You may keep this information up-to-date from this screen.
  You can change the following information: