Okay, so this might count as the dumbest question ever asked in this forum. When I’m signed in, there’s that little button beside my user name in any post that I’ve submitted that’s green when I’m online. I see other people’s buttons go grey, which means their off-line or not signed in.
So, I usually close my laptop to put it to sleep, and I’ve just been assuming that the little button beside my user name goes from green to grey on everyone else’s computer when I do that. But the thing is, I don’t know - it’s like the refrigerator light; how can I tell if it goes out when I close the door? Am I exposing myself to identity theft by not logging out of the SDMB when my computer is unattended? Can anyone tell me? Many thanks.
The board will show you as on-line for fifteen minutes (I believe–I haven’t gone to check the setting) since your last action on the board. An action, for these purposes, is basically any time you’ve clicked on something. So, if you close your laptop, the board will show you as on-line until that fifteen minutes has passed. (The fifteen minute window will be reset each time you click on something while logged in.)
On the other hand, if you choose to click on “Log Out”, you’ll immediately be shown as off-line.
And, no, you won’t be exposing yourself to identity theft by simply closing your laptop and waiting for the board software to change your on-line status.
As an experiment, I tried logging out, only to discover that the ‘autofill’ in Safari was turned off. Having erased all the cookies, and not having had to enter my user name and password since Bush was president, I tried to log in and was a five time loser.
It is all fixed now, but there was a bad couple of hours there where I thought I had managed to kick myself off the Dope indefinitely. I think I’m back to just shutting the laptop…
Damned scary, isn’t it? I recently got a new laptop and, not only did I have trouble remembering my password, I also couldn’t remember which email account I used.