Possibly, the most important page of this website?

Most internet users have no clue and I can not stress strongly enough how important it is for you to maintain vigilance against a myriad of threats waiting for you on internet (in both web browsing and email usage). Don't become a victim of ransomware and all other kinds of malware. Educate yourself and keep up-to-date in order to modify your behavior to stay as safe and private as you can be.

For that reason, I created this news-page where you can read about all the latest hazards. Remember: only you can make your "life on internet" a relatively reliable and pleasant experience.

NOTE 1: To alleviate most popular threats, please, please, please, use the best anti-virus software and password manager you can find.

NOTE 2: The SECURITY NEWS RSS page loads much slower than other pages, because it gathers news feeds from several different sources, so be patient, please.

Reminder about two basic sections of dlutek.com website

• PORTAL – for all viewers. It comprises 6 subsections that can be accessed without logging in: PORTAL, USER GUIDE, WHAT’S NEW?, PRIVACY POLICY, SECURITY NEWS and LOGIN. Any visitor can see those pages, because they are not holding any documents or personal information related to family members. They only include useful general information about this website. Links to these pages can be found at the bottom of pages (not chapters). Most of those links are also contained in the top navigational menu.

• RODZINA – only for registered members who are logged-in. The RODZINA section consists of many subsections and has its own local navigation accessible to logged-in members. If you try to use your “bookmarks” or direct URL-addresses of pages that are parts of the RODZINA section before logging in, you will be automatically redirected to the LOGIN page. In addition, please note that the DOCUMENTS, parts of GENOGRAPHY and parts of FAMILY ALBUM subsections are only available to family members. Family friends and others do not have access to those pages even if they are logged in.

NOTE: At the very bottom of the footer (black bar) there is information on copyrights, link for contacting me and date when the particular page has been last updated.

To create an account

If you are a member or a friend of our family, you may apply for the membership (by sending me an email). After that, I may reply to you with credentials for logging-in to the RODZINA section.

From then on, use the ACCOUNT group of the main navigation bar to login, logout, update your credentials, delete your account or just get to know the User Guide.

• LOGIN – You must log in to be able to use the main RODZINA section. If you don't have an account yet, send me an email.
• UPDATE EMAIL – If you want to change your email address associated with your account, use this link.
• UPDATE PASSWORD – If you want to change your password, use this link.
• DELETE ACCOUNT – If you want to permanently and immediately delete your account, use this link.
• USER GUIDE – This is the page where you are right now.
• LOGOUT – Use this link to manually log out of the session. This is an optional action, since logout happens automatically when you close your browser window.

To update your account information

Hover over the ACCOUNT menu group and select either UPDATE EMAIL or UPDATE PASSWORD menu item from the drop-down list.

When you select UPDATE EMAIL, a window will open, where you can change the email address associated with your account. After verification, this new address will be used to log in to the RODZINA section. Using the same form, you can also change the subscription status of emails coming from the Family Portal. These emails inform about changes taking place on our website. Usually, there is no more than 12 emails a year, sometimes just a handful of them.

Click UPDATE. When the page reloads, you will see the message saying that the confirmation email will be sent to you.

The confirmation email will be sent to both your old and new addresses. It may take a couple of minutes to get it. It will contain a validation link for your new address. This link must be clicked in order to update your email address in our records.

To update your password

Similarly, when you select UPDATE PASSWORD (Image #9), a window will open with a form, where you can change the existing password for a new one. The new password will be immediately ready for logging in to the RODZINA section. Using the same form, you can also change the subscription status of emails coming from the Family Portal. These emails inform about changes taking place on our website. Usually, there is no more than 12 emails a year, sometimes just a handful of them.

After few seconds, you will see the confirmation message.

To delete your account

Select the DELETE ACCOUNT menu item from the drop-down list.

A window will open, where you have a second chance to decide whether to delete, or go back and continue using your account.

Your name, username, email address and password will be immediately and permanently deleted after clicking the DELETE ACCOUNT button.

At that time, a new window will open, with the message saying that the account has been removed from our system and a final email confirming the deletion of the account will be sent to the address associated with your account.

If you later change your mind, you will have to send me an email in order to set up a brand new account.

Communique

Whenever our membership system has something to communicate to users, it fires up a message window, which looks like this:

To log in

Hover over the main navigation’s ACCOUNT group and select the LOGIN item from the drop-down list. A new window will open where you need to enter your login information:

• In the first field you enter the email address associated with your account, or the username.
• In the second field enter your password.
• In the third field (labeled with an arrow) enter the camouflaged CAPTCHA letter-code that you see to the right of this field. This function makes it more difficult for robots to attempt logging-in.

If you want your login credentials remembered, check the box next to “Remember me?” question. In this case, in subsequent sessions, the Username and the Password will be filled in automatically for you and you will only need to fill in the third field (CAPTCHA letter-code). This saves a few seconds of your life, but also creates the possibility that unwanted people can log into your account without your consent or even knowledge if they have access to your computer. Therefore, I do not recommend using this feature.

Logging-in trouble?

In case you have problems with logging in, or have forgotten your Username or Password, just enter your email address associated with your account, fill in the CAPTCHA letter-code and click the link that says “PW forgotten?” situated next to the LOGIN button.

After the page reloads, you will see the confirmation saying that your new password login details have been sent to your email address.

After a couple of minutes, check your email where you should find the message with your new password ready to use. However, don’t forget to click the activation link in the email. Without this step, your new password will not be changed in our records. Also, enter this new password in your own records (password manager) and delete this email for security.

Logout (manual)

Usually, you can skip manual logging-out, because this is done automatically when you close your browser, or after a prolonged inaction on a page. But, if you want to get logged out immediately, there is no harm in doing so manually.

Hover over the ACCOUNT group of the main navigation menu bar and select LOGOUT from the drop-down.

This will open a new page with the LOGOUT prompt:

At this point you can decide to either immediately logout by clicking the link, or press the black button to continue your session. If you log out, the new window will open with a confirmation of your action.

Again, if you’ve just logged out but now have a second thought, you can press the black button to go back to the LOGIN page.

As I mentioned before, after a successful LOGIN, you will be automatically directed to the WHAT’S NEW? blog starting page, where there are posts about “goings-on” in the dlutek.com website. Formally, this page is a part of the PORTAL section, because you don’t need to be logged in to have access to it. This page also serves as a “bridge” between the PORTAL and the RODZINA sections because it is the first page including the local navigation used inside the RODZINA section.

NOTE: as you will notice, blog posts are only available in Polish language as of now and possibly forever.

After logging in, you can use the local navigation to move around the RODZINA section. This is done by using the navigation button placed directly below the main navigation bar at the top of a page, as shown in the image above.

Navigational elements

You’ve already seen the main navigation menu bar and the local navigation menu bar dedicated to the RODZINA section. But there are other navigational elements as well.

Let’s start with the most obvious ones.

Scrolling a window “below-the-fold”

Instead of scrolling a page, click down-pointing arrow at the bottom of a window to get directly to a portion of content that is hidden below the bottom edge of your browser’s viewport (below-the-fold).

Scrolling a chapter-window to the top

A general note on scrolling major and minor windows with a lot of content: in major windows, you can jump directly to the top when you click (or tap) the "Last update" part of a footer (shown in Image #6). In minor windows (chapters), you can use an up-arrow placed at the bottom of all content.

In any case, this method of quick scrolling is most useful on tablets and especially on phones, where pages become much longer than on desktop monitors.

Navigation between chapters of a subsection

The image above shows navigation buttons placed at the bottom of chapters content. They help you switch quickly from one chapter to another, without need for going back to the starting page of a subsection.

Local navigation window

When you click the local navigation bar shown in Image #27, a local menu window will open, where you can select any page belonging to the RODZINA section:

If you decide against leaving your most recent page, you can click the “X” in the upper right corner (or click ‘esc’ key on your keyboard) to close the menu window and stay where you are.

Navigation between galleries of photos

In ALBUM, ABSTRACTIONS and SNAPSHOTS subsections there are local auxiliary navigational elements for switching between galleries of photos and/or videos.

Clicking the button on the left will take you back to the start page of the subsection, while clicking the button on the right will open a new window in which you will see thumbnails corresponding to individual galleries. If you click on any of them, you will be transported to that gallery.

External links

Some links placed within Family Portal lead to pages on external websites. In Edition 15.4, I have made it possible to detect those external links by hovering your mouse cursor over a link. If that link is external, the cursor will change to a warning icon that looks like this:

The reason for the warning is that once you click on external link, you will most likely be tracked around the internet by a spying software. So, if you care about your privacy, delete cookies and history of your browsing after visiting such external websites.

There are also green and blue icons and the default navigational icon. Their meaning is explained on the main PORTAL page in the "Tech Info" chapter.

SEARCH page

In Edition 15.2, I have added the 'Search' feature, with the corresponding icon in the main top navigation bar.

FILE SHARING page

There is a special page in the RODZINA section where you can share your photos, short videos, documents and such with the rest of us. Simply drag your zipped files onto the target area of the window in your browser.

Please, note, that all of your files for upload must be zipped (compressed) and their names may only include legal (unaccented) characters. There are no spaces allowed in names. If you need to, you may replace any spaces with “-“ hyphens. If these conditions are not met, your upload will fail.

NOTE: Uploaded materials will be visible only to people logged in to their accounts.

ARCHIVE page (for the Custodian)

Another special page in the RODZINA section is the ARCHIVE. This page is dedicated to a person(s) who will graciously agree to continue working on our Family Portal when I will no longer be able to. I think that future generations of our “clan” will appreciate that a lot.

In the ARCHIVE, I place all materials needed to replicate, develop and edit the existing website. That page is accessible to all logged-in members, however, you need to have the special privileged custodian status to be able to access contents of that page.

To obtain the privileged status, you will need to contact me and offer your services as the future custodian/developer of our Family Portal.