Frequently Asked Questions ...

about the Gear Services Locator Page and how to get the most from it.

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WHAT IS THE GEAR SERVICES LOCATOR PAGE?

The Gear Services Locator page is an internet place for companies serving the gear manufacturing industry to place company ads. It is similar to the classified section of a newspaper. You can do things like:

Identify your category and specialty so that visitors can search and find you
Locate yourself by country and state/province so visitors can find local companies
Display your company logo linked to your company website
Enter a description that shows your company mission and purpose
List company equipment, capabilities, services offered, etc.
Show contact information
Put as much or as little information as you want the world to see

Internet visitors can easily narrow their search to CATEGORY (Gear Manufacturer, Heat Treatment, Gear Equiipment, etc), SPECIALTY (selections based on CATEGORY), and COUNTRY and STATE/PROVINCE. Hopefully the Gear Services Locator page satisfies the need of manufacturers and small shops everywhere for a free and easy way to exchange information about specialties and capability.

WHAT DOES IT COST?

Nothing. It is free to all manufacturers working with gear-related equipment and providing manufacturing services. You simply need to create a membership to use the service. Again, the membership is free.

WHY IS IT FREE?

I want people to find and use Meshing With Gears. Plus it was a lot of work posting company information from emails. The old "Maker Locator" service was free, so it made sense that this new version should also be free. After all, you're doing all the work, right?

The discussion forum was seeing a lot of company advertising, too. It was clear that people wanted and needed a way to show their companies. So the idea to automate it, keep it free, and make it DO-IT-YOURSELF just seemed so natural.

Yep. You create your account and the ads you want listed. You do all the work, so you don't need someone "writing copy" or "setting the type". Besides, it's still a work in process, so I hope to continue adding function and polish as time goes on.

WHAT INFORMATION CAN I SHOW?

Any truthful information about your company is allowed. It's impossible to make exact rules, so MWG reserves the right to judge and delete ads where deemed inappropriate.

WHY DO I NEED TO CREATE A MEMBERSHIP?

You need a login Account ID and Password so you can protect your ads and information. An Account membership is the best way I know to do that. You wouldn't believe ( or maybe you would) what spammers and hackers do to forums and email services that don't use safeguards. Meshing With Gears strives to maintain a serious business environment and I'm sure you want us to keep it that way. Secondly, the information allows me to contact a user if that should become necessary (ever forget a password?), and hopefully to identify and prevent misuse. Your information will not be sold or given to any other person or company. Period.

HOW DO I CREATE A MEMBERSHIP?

When you visit the Gear Services Locator (or the Buy/Sell page), you will see a link,
Click here to login to your account or to obtain a free membership.
Click that link and you will see a login screen. Below the login prompts is the "Click Here to Create a Free Member Account" button. Click it and fill out the next page which is the NEW MEMBER SIGN-UP SCREEN.

NOTE: Your account membership allows you management access to both Gear Services Locator and the Buy/Sell Pages. Please do not create more than one account for your company.

I'M AT THE NEW MEMBER SIGN-UP SCREEN. WHAT NEXT?

You create your own Account ID and Password, but remember that the PASSWORD is case-sensitive. That is, "myPassWord" and "mypassword" are different as far as the login is concerned.
The Account ID is not case-sensitive. So, when you log in, MYACCOUNTID is the same as MyAccountID.

Most items are required input. Else why would they be there?

Choose a First Question and Second Question wisely. These are personal questions for a good reason. You want to provide answers to these that are obvious to you and most likely you alone.

So, if you forget your password, you can go to the login screen and submit a request for your password. These questions will be emailed to you using the email address that you enter in your membership screen. You then reply to this email answering the two questions correctly. Then and only then your password will be sent to you in a reply, again to your designated email address.

Be sure that your email address is correct since that is the only way to assure that you can be contacted.

NOW THAT I HAVE AN ACCOUNT, HOW DO I MANAGE MY COMPANY PROFILE?

Login to the Gear Services Locator Page using your AccountID and Password. Go to "Your Postings" (if you're new, don't worry that you have no postings). If you have postings (ads) already, you will see a list. You can select one from the list to edit or click the "Company Profile" button. If you have created a profile, this will let you make changes to it. If you have not created your profile, then click "Create Company Profile" button.

HOW DO I CLASSIFY MY AD?

After Sales Email and Name, there are two drop-down lists from which you choose your classification. Notice that Specialty is empty until you select a Category for your profile. Unlike the newspaper version, the list of Specialty selections vary according to the Category. These selections are used in visitor searches and represent all possible selections for your ad (so far). If you want to suggest new Categories and/or Specialties, send us an with your ideas.

HOW MUCH AND WHAT KIND OF INFORMATION DO I USE TO CREATE AN AD?

The amount and type of information you provide is up to you and will depend on what your listing is all about. Visit the Gear Services Locator page and look at company profiles already there to get an idea of what seems to work.

Remember, this is a DO-IT-YOURSELF service.

I recommend that you be open and truthful, otherwise you will likely waste your time and the time of visitors who contact you. Any fraudulent or deceitful activities will cause the account to be removed from membership.

HOW DO I PLACE A LOGO ON MY COMPANY PROFILE?

All graphics, including company logo, should be in a .GIF format file to minimize bandwidth requirements. A logo graphic file must be located on a server that can be remotely accessed from our server. You simply type your URL address into the appropriate box on the form. If successful the logo will appear at the top of the form after saving the inputs.

If the logo does not show up, then there are two possible reasons:
(1) the URL as entered may be incorrect. For example, a valid input would look like:

http://www.mydomain.com/myimages/mylogo.gif

Notice there is no HTML coding used in your entry - that is supplied when the Profile is displayed.

In other words, this statement (including the red) will NOT create a valid link to your image:

If you need help determining the correct URL that points to your graphic, please contact your webmaster.

(2) Some servers protect copyrighted material and graphics from outside access, but more commonly servers conserve their bandwidth resource by denying other servers remote access to their files. For whatever reason, if your graphic files cannot be remotely accessed by policy, you may want to ask your webmaster to permit our linking to that specific graphic. This can be done by locating a copy of the logo GIF file in a directory to which remote link permission has been granted. If you need our IP or URL information for remote access permission, it will be provided on request.

If you cannot set this up through your webmaster then you will not be able to show your logo graphic here. To prevent any possible copyright infringment we don't accept any logo files for storage on our server.

I AM SO HAPPY WITH THE RESULTS, I HAVE TO TELL SOMEBODY. HOW DO I SEND IN MY TESTIMONIAL?

Okay, you're probably not thinking about this - but if there is a remote possibility that you might want to later, to us, good or bad. We appreciate constructive criticism, and would really like for visitors to see what members think. Only initials will be used if comments are posted.

If we get any comments, it means two things for sure: someone actually read this page to the bitter end, and we will be staying up all night to code the first page of testimonials!

Questions? Please your questions to Meshing With Gears.

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