Go to the Send a Card page and click on one of the themes of your choice. The theme page will appear showing a sample card. Click on the sample card and the SendMcards program will start in a new window.

Alternatively, you can design your own Mcard from scratch.

• Why does it take so long to start the SendMcards program?

Depending on your internet connection, the time required to start the SendMcards program will vary. The SendMcards binary is around 125Kbytes in size. On a 28.8Kb/s connection it would take 35 seconds to download the applet into your browser. Then the graphics is downloaded which will vary in size depending on what theme you have selected as different themes use different pictures etc. All in all expect to wait approximately 1.5 to 5 minutes on a slow connection.

• What does the SendMcards program look like?

• How do I know if my Mcard has been sent successfully?

After previewing your card under the "Preview" tab and pressing the "Send Mcard" button under the "Email Card" tab, you should see the message "Mcard was successfully sent.". Also you should see that your quota is decremented by one.

If your Mcard had any problems in being sent an error message will be displayed.

• If the Mcard was not successfully sent, what does the error codes mean?

There are three possible error codes that can occur on sending an Mcard.

"ERR1: A problem has occurred. Please try again later"

If you see this error code it means that there was difficulty in reaching the SendMcards webserver. It may be that you are no longer connected to the internet, or that the SendMcards webserver is down. No Mcards have been sent. Please try again later.

"ERR2: A problem has occurred. Please try again later"

If you see this error code it means that there was difficulty in reaching the SendMcards database webserver. It may be that you are no longer logged in or that the SendMcards webserver is down. No Mcards have been sent. Please try again later or try to log back in.

"ERR3: Please update java policy file. Refer to FAQ for more info."

If you see this error code it means that there was difficulty in creating a connection to the SendMcards webserver because of a security and permissions check within Java. All applets and any applications invoked with a security manager must be granted explicit permission to access local system resources apart from read access to the directory and its subdirectories where the program is invoked. The Java platform provides permissions to allow various levels of access to different types of local information.

Because permissions let an applet or application override the default security policy, you should be very careful when you assign permissions to not create an opening for malicious code to attack your system.

This error may be seen when running the SendMcards program from behind a firewall.

To allow the SendMcards program to connect to the SendMcards server (so that it may send the Mcard), you may be required to alter what permissions the SendMcards program has.

In your java policy file, please insert the following lines

grant {
permission java.net.SocketPermission
"www.sendmcards.com", "connect,resolve";
};

or alternatively you can save our Java policy file in the appropriate directory on your computer. This will allow the SendMcards program to connect to the SendMcards webserver.

For more information please refer to java.sun.com website or drop us an email.

• How do I upload and use my own gifs?

  Before you start the SendMcards program, make sure you have uploaded the gifs that you would like to use. To upload your own pictures, click on the upload graphic in the members area. You must be logged in to be able to upload your own pitcures. You are allowed to upload up to 6 pictures, with each picture being no more than 50Kbytes in size.

  Once you have uploaded your pictures, you then start the SendMcards program as normal, and then choose the theme "others". The foreground pictures in the theme others are your own uploaded pictures. Use them as you would any other foreground pitcure.
  
  
• Where is the undo button?

Currently there is no undo function implemented in SendMcards.